Stoke by Neyland, Suffolk
1830
Medium
Mezzotint in black ink on heavy ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Plate: 17.8 × 25.3 cm (7 1/16 × 10 in.); Sheet: 30.5 × 46.5 cm (12 1/16 × 18 5/16 in.)
Classification
mezzotint
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
122079
Art Historical Context
Visitors to the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints Drawings department are invited to savor *Stoke by Neyland Suffolk* (1830), a captivating mezzotint by British engraver David Lucas. intimate landscape print depicts the charming Suffolk village, evoking the early 19th-century Romantic reverence for England's pastoral scenes—rolling hills, quaint architecture, and soft atmospheric light that defined the era's artistic imagination. Lucas masterfully harnesses the mezzotint technique, a 17th-century innovation prized in Britain for its tonal richness. By roughening the copper plate with a rocker...
About the Artist
David Lucas · 1802–1881
**David Lucas (1802–1881)** David Lucas was born in 1802 in Geddington Chase, Northamptonshire, the son of a farmer.) A chance encounter in 1820 led him to become a pupil of the renowned engraver Samuel William Reynolds, under whom he apprenticed in London until 1827, mastering the art of mezzotint engraving.) By 1827, Lucas had published his first mezzotints, showcasing his precocious talent for...