Royal quarto. Pp. 159. Plus 8 full-page (helio)gravure plates, each with a caption printed on facing tissue guard. With numerous (helio)gravures of fine quality (many full-page), printed in lightly-tinted ink, to the text. Printed on thick paper throughout. Original card wrappers with integral pictorial dust-jacket, bit chipped and soiled. Book itself is in a very good condition. ~ A numbered copy of the first, limited edition. A magnificent visual tour and a celebration of fine early photography in Palestine. The fine technique of gravure printing (Kupfertiefdruck, Rakeltiefdruck), developed by Karl Klic (1841-1927), is often referred to erratically as photogravure or heliogravure, terms which describe another process. Experiments in gravure printing began in the 1850s, and reproductions of rare prints by this method became common from the 1870s. It was not, however, until around 1880 that the development of this most brilliant and faithful monochrome reproductive technique yet known in the history of printing, began. Klic adapted the cross-line screen to the old hand photogravure process, but kept it secret rather than patenting it, and the technique was reinvented by others in the years afterwards. Noted classicist Dr. Henriëtte Boas' copy, with her bookplate. [Descriptive text Copyright Librarium, The Hague]
