Multiple Images: Reproducing Academic Art 1850-1900

Academic paintings were among the most well-know of all images in the nineteenth century because they were widely reproduced and disseminated. Donato Esposito, PhD recounts the successive methods of reproduction from the ‘traditional’ engraving, which reproduced the works of Ingres and his contemporaries, to the rise of photography and later photogravure, which challenged traditional printmaking techniques. Etching rose to prominence from the 1860s onwards, as its ‘painterly’ quality was seen as attractive. Painters such as Alexandre Cabanel, James Tissot and Lawrence Alma-Tadema actively assisted printmaking by making reduced replicas of their works, while cheaper reproductions were popularized in Illustrated London News in London, and L’Illustration and Le Monde Illustré in Paris, and reached a very broad audience.