14 SEPTEMBER 1901, Page 23

Eighteenth Century Colour Prints. By Julia Frankau.

millan and Co. .a3 8s.)—This is a very bulky book upon a rather slender subject The eighteenth-century engravers were nothing if not light and pretty,—in fact, one often wishes they had not poured their sweet sauce over everything quite so evenly. It matters little if the inanities of the Rev. W. Peters are well sugared, but when it comes to Reynolds it is annoying to have the grandeur of his technique reduced to a pretty formula. The essay at the beginning of the book contains not only technical accounts of colour printing, but there is also much amusing gossiping biography both of the artists and their sitters. The latter part of the volume is given up to fifty-one good reproduc- tions of typical engravings in monochrome, while a colour print forms the frontispiece.