Antique aquatint print of Singapore based on an account from 1830. This image features the defensive hill later known as Fort Canning in the back with the Governor’s mansion already constructed. In the fore, two rowboats cruise down the river.

From the 1835 travelogue “Voyage autour du monde par le mers de l’inde et de la chine,” these prints offer a rare look at early 19th century Singapore, an important port in the Peninsular Southeast Asia. The book commemorates the voyages of the corvette La Favorite under the command of M. Laplace. The corvette made anchor in the Coromandel Coast, the Malacca Strait, Singapore, and further ports in the South China Sea and eventually South America in a trip that took place from 1830 until 1832.

Aquatint print in striking monochrome and features the blind-stamp “La Favorite” beneath the image.

A subset of intaglio printing, aquatint prints were made by etching images onto paper and fastening ink to the etched surfaces. The result was a print rich in tones, offering the admirer a gorgeous contrast of “lights” so to speak. Aquatint and other methods of intaglio printing were later displaced by lithography as the chief printmaking method due to the ease and lower cost of lithographs.