AFTER GEORGE EDWARDS (1694-1773), CIRCA 1801

These plates are taken from one of apparently only 25 sets on large paper printed in contrepreuve, including lettering and numbering. The plates are finely coloured and with a softer finish than those of the original edition. In order to resemble original watercolours, they were printed as counter proofs, a technically ambitious method which left delicate impressions without plate marks: prints were taken from the original plates, whilst still wet each of the resultant positive images was run through the press again with a second sheet producing a lighter reversed print. This method of plate production was costly and time-consuming, and consequently very rare.