Richard Earlom (after Frans Snyders)
British printmaker, 1743-1822 (Flemish painter, 1579-1657)
A Fish Market
1782
Mezzotint on laid paper
14 1/2 x 22 1/4 inches (36.83 x 56.515 centimeters)
Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 2000.
2000.007.005

In the mezzotint printing technique the entire plate from which the print will be made is roughened with a tool called a rocker, creating a surface called a burr. If inked and run through the press at this point the print would be entirely black. To make the image the artist scrapes down the burr to various degrees so that different tones of light and dark result. Mezzotints were popular in the eighteenth century, when Richard Earlom made this one based on an early seventeenth century painting by Frans Snyders.