Charles Meryon

Although Meryon often worked on a minute scale, he found making the tiny portrait at right of the bookseller Guéraud especially challenging. Rather than etching on copper, he used a plate made of tin—a material that printmakers rarely used because it reacted unpredictably to acid. The plate was accidentally destroyed while the artist was still working on it, and after printing only a few trial proofs.

Now extremely rare, the print was intended to fit in the frame at left, designed with symbols celebrating the history of printing. Another artist later filled the image’s empty center space with a sketch of the printer Auguste Delâtre.