John Chrome's 'Tree on a Mound' Etching and the Art of Chine Applique

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. holds 'Tree on a Mound', an etching by English landscape painter John Chrome, active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The work, measuring 13 x 12 inches (34 x 32 cm), depicts a wooded scene with a mix of straight and wavy lines, textural scribbles, and blank areas. A light emerges from behind a mound on the right, beside which two figures, possibly a woman and child, are visible. Chrome varied the direction of hatching on the left hillside to suggest a rolling surface. The museum lists the work as 'etching on chine applique', a printing method for intaglio prints where a thin sheet of paper, originally 'China paper', is backed by a thicker sheet. China paper refers to an early papermaking process developed in China during the Eastern Han period (1st-2nd century AD), attributed to court official Cai Lun (also Ts'ai Lun). It was made from a pulp of mulberry bark, hemp, and rags. Papermaking spread to Eastern Mediterranean cultures 300 years later, gradually replacing papyrus, and reached Europe in the 11th century.