General View of Pula

Panoramic view showing Pula, a city in Istria, Croatia. On the left stands the arena and, on the right, the temple of Augustus and presumably that of Diana can be seen from the back. On a stretch of land dotted with trees, in the foreground, a man waves goodbye to a woman sitting in a small boat. This view is said to be taken from “Olive Tree Island,” which might correspond to Ugljan.

The credits inform us that this plate was etched by Filhol and “completed” by Née. We’re assuming that Née worked with a burin, that is, using a hand-engraving technique as opposed to etching in which the metal is bitten into by acid. Mixing the two techniques was common practice at the time, although seldom explicitly stated. Sometimes etching would be used to merely outline the main figures, all the details and shading being engraved with the burin. At the other extreme, the burin would be used for just adding the finishing touches, such as deepening some of the grooves made in the etching process, thus finely adjusting the intensity of the shadows.

The caption reads in the original French: Vue générale de Pola, de l’amphithéâtre, des deux temples, etc. Prise de l’île des Oliviers.