My Dress

 

Elyse Ashe Lord

  1885 - 1971 (biography)

c. 1920  

drypoint & color aquatint with accent color applied via wood block 

12 1/8 x 9 5/8" platemark 

pencil, lower right margin 

65 of 100  

pencil signed and editioned 

Illustrated as plate VII in "Elyse Lord" by Malcolm C. Salaman, 1927. Originally sold by Arthur Ackermann & Son, Inc. 

thin cream wove 

published 

Messrs Alex. Reid and Lefévre, Ltd. 

23137 

SOLD

"My Dress" is illustrated as Plate VII in "The Studio" publication "Masters of the Colour Print I - Elyse Lord" by Malcolm Salaman in 1927, with different coloring. On page 6 Salaman writes about this image: "In 'My Dress', Miss Lord has devoted her pictorial genius to the interpretation of an empress poet of the eighth century, and in this masterly print you will see how perfectly her art has fused with the gossamer pathos of the poetry: 'My dress dates from the time when there lived a king of the Tchin Dynasty. So many pretty women have worn it for dancing that a harmonious sinuosity lurks in its folds, and so many breezes have brushed it in passing that it has become as diaphanous as the wing of a butterfly'" Salaman comments about her printing on page 2: "The method was to draw the design with dry-point on a copper plate, and then, aquatinting the parts intended for colour, to paint those parts for one printing or more. Many of the early proofs were hand-wiped plate-printings, which gave clean, bright results, though comparatively harder than those of the rag-wipe used so adroitly in the later prints."