El Escorial near Madrid Espana Jose Ortiz Echague 1939

Copperplate Photogravure Book Illustration
El Escorial: View from Abantos

(Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo El Real; Near Madrid Spain)

José Ortiz Echagüe
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Offered is an original photogravure from a pre-1938 photograph by José Ortiz Echagüe.

This plate appeared in the 1939 Echagüe monograph España: Pueblos y Paisajes (Spain: Towns and Landscapes)

José Ortiz Echagüe (1886-1980) was a military engineer, industrialist, pilot and photographer. His photographs provide a record of Spain in the early 20th Century.

 
El Escorial is situated at the foot of Mt. Abantos in the Sierra de Guadarrama. It is a bleak, semi-forested, wind-swept place that owes its name to nearby piles of slag or tailings, called scoria, the detritus of long-played-out iron mines in the Guadarrama.

Sheet size is about 9.5" x 12" and the image size is about 6" x 8.25". Title appears below the picture in Spanish, English, French and German. Pictured below without full borders which are sufficient to allow easy matting or framing.

 About the PHOTOGRAVURE Process:

This process was developed to provide an archivally permanent way of reproducing a photographic image. Because of its high quality and richness, photogravure was used for both original fine art prints and for photo-reproduction of works from other media such as paintings. Photogravure uses a flat copperplate etched rather deeply and printed by hand.

Photogravure registers an extraordinary variety of tones, through the transfer of etching ink from an etched copperplate to special dampened paper run through an etching press. The unique tonal range comes from photogravure's variable depth of etch, that is, the shadows are etched many times deeper than the highlights. Unlike half-tone processes which merely vary the size of dots, the actual quantity and depth of ink wells are varied in a photogravure plate and are often blended into a smooth tone by the printing process.

Photogravures are a bit difficult to scan. The depth and warmth of the process is considerably more apparent in the actual print than can be seen in the scan.

CONDITION: Excellent: No tears or marks. There may be printing or another illustration on the reverse of the sheet.

SHIPPING: I'm happy to combine shipping on similar items. For items such as this book plate: stated s/h for the first item and no more than $0.50 (USA & Canada) or $1.00 (International other than Canada) for each additional plate shipped at the same time.

Satisfaction Guaranteed or RETURN for any reason within 10 days for prompt refund (minus s/h).