l INTRODUCTION

demand for delicate work in book illustration had encouraged minuteness and precision of handling to the last degree. In this excessive refinement there were the symptoms of decline; but it was most fortunate for Mr. Ruskin that his drawings could be interpreted by such men as Armytage and Cousen, Cuff and Le Keux, Boys and Lupton, and not without advantage to them that their masterpieces should be preserved in his works. ... Like much else of his work, these Plates for Stones of Venice were in advance of the times. The publisher thought them ‘caviare to the general,’ so Mr. J. J. Ruskin told his son; but gave it as his own belief that ‘some dealers in Ruskins and Turners in 1890 will get great prices for what at present will not sell.’”¹ The engravers employed in the present volume were Boys (Plates 1, 3-5, 8, 10, 19); Lupton (Plates 6, 12, 13, 16-18); Armytage (Plates 9, 11, 14, 20, 21); and Cuff (Plates 2, 7, 15). Thomas Shotter Boys (1803-1874) was a water-colour painter, and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1824 onwards. He was responsible for all the original lithographs in this volume, and also (here as in the case of the Examples) etched some of the plates for Lupton to mezzotint. It may be interesting to state that for a large plate thus etched Boys received £33, 10s. To the fidelity of his work in this kind, Ruskin afterwards paid a high tribute (see Preface to Modern Painters, vol. iii.). For Thomas Lupton see below, p. 15; he executed the mezzotints in this volume and in the Examples, receiving £40 a plate. J. C. Armytage, who executed some good plates for this volume, was also the engraver of some of the finest of those in Modern Painters. R. P. Cuff was employed in these works, and also in the second edition of Seven Lamps (see Vol. VIII. p. 16, where Ruskin praises his “careful and singular skill”). In a letter to his father (March 17, 1852), referring to a Plate either for the Stones of Venice, or for the Examples, then in preparation, Ruskin wrote:-

“Cuff’s experiment most excellent; you rightly find fault with the want of the little refinements in distribution of shades, but these things can never be expected in a copy. If these refinements were perceived and followed, Cuff would cease to be Cuff and become Ruskin. All that can be hoped for is the diligent try to follow, and the care in measurements and other such mechanical points, as well as delicacy in execution, all of which this engraving has in a high degree. Then a touch or two on the missed parts would put it nearly right: although the difference between a thing done by the artist’s own hand, and a copy, however able, is always the difference between gold and gilding. But Cuff has done this little bit excellently, and with a degree of pains

¹ Life and Work of John Ruskin, 1900, pp. 121-122.

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