Nicolas Alquin (1958) & Mathilde de Torhout - Sans titre, 1991

Hand-pulled heliogravure on wove paper
Signed in pencil by Nicolas Alquin lower left (sculptor)
Signed in pencil by Mathilde de Torhout lower right (photographer)
Sheet size : 38 x 28 cm

Hand-pulled heliogravure, hardly used now but very popular in the later 19th century, involves the photographic transfer of the image to a copper plate, prepared with aquatint to give it tone, into which the design is etched. The plate is then hand-inked and printed from in the same way as an ordinary intaglio plate.
A hand-pulled heliogravure is just that – made by hand. Every print is inked and pulled by hand on a flat-bed press, and therefore each print is subtly unique. This is the gold-standard of all photomechanical processes. It is the process that William Henry Fox Talbot worked so hard to improve throughout his career, and that Karel Kilč eventually perfected. It is the process that Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Alvin Langdon Coburn, James Craig Annan and other great photographers worked tirelessly to master and embraced for some of their greatest works.