ABSTRACT
The print market in Britain in the first three decades of the 1 gth century was not as active as it had been previously, due mainly to the loss of the French market during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815). Rudolf Ackermann catered for the luxury end of the market with his hand-coloured aquatints, produced in both book and print form, in limited editions averaging 1,000 copies. The stipple productions of Bartolozzi and his followers provided slightly cheaper editions, but as always, the ‘highest’ form of the art - line engraving - was the most sought after, and in this the Boydell prints, especially those connected with Shakespeare, were the mainstay of the trade. The demand for prints had originally come from the collectors with their portfolios, but this had fallen off and there was ‘a barren waste; the public had not been sufficiently educated to appreciate excellence in Art, and buyers of modern prints were few’ (Art Journal, 1872, p. 18).
