Liber Studiorum, No 50 : Mer de Glace, 1812 (mezzotint etching in brown ink)

Collection Exhibitions : Landscape into Print : The British Scene 1750-1850 : Object Label : P.3766 There is no known preliminary drawing for this dramatic plate, which was entirely by Turner. It seems likely that he would have worked directly from a drawing in the ‘St. Gothard and Mt. Blanc’ sketchbook of 1802. The early published impressions demonstrate that Turner engraved the glacier by applying the rocker selectively, leaving untouched areas which would print as white, rather than grounding the whole plate and creating highlights by scraping and burnishing. He may have adopted this procedure as a technical experiment, or because he was pressed for time.