Ref. Martin Hardie 81. On laid paper. Time-toned and with occasional pale foxing. As a young bank clerk in Aberdeen McBey attended evening classes at Grays Art School.
In 1900 he taught himself to etch from Maxime Lalanne’s treatise Traité de la Gravure à l’Eau-forte and built his own press from a mangle. Two years later he published his first plates. Within the following years he established his reputation.
McBey abandoned the Bank in 1910 and moved to London to pursue a career as an artist. One of twenty-one Dutch subjects etched by McBey on or after his visit to Holland.
He visited the Netherlands in 1910. There, as well as studying Rembrandt etchings,
he discovered the virtues of old paper to get the best results in printing.
“A proof on old Dutch paper …, if well printed, will show everything the plate can give…
When the artist himself print , the printing may be regarded as a continuation of the etched work,
the combination of both culminating in the finished proof.”