A Pier in England
(state ii/viii)

In this state, Buhot added the seagulls in a stormy sky in which aquatint was heavily employed to create the foreboding clouds. Buhot also used several other techniques to enrich the atmospheric tone. To create the shadows on the boards of the pier, Buhot used a roulette—a tool which when applied to the plate makes a regular system of closely spaced incised dots. Other very finely grained tonal areas of the sky and pier were done by pressing sandpaper into the hard wax ground. The particles of sand pierce the ground, leaving pits where the acid can bite the plate.

A Pier in England, 1879
drypoint, roulette, aquatint, spit bite, soft-ground etching with sandpaper, and etching on Arches laid paper, state ii/viii
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Helena Gunnarsson Buhot Collection,
Gift in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990