Right before Empress Catherine the Great of Russia bought Sir Robert Walpole’s entire art collection, Richard Earlom made large prints of several of the famous paintings in it as mementos. Among them was this 1723 still life by Jan van Huysum. Earlom worked in mezzotint, a technique also called the ‘black manner’. This method made it possible to produce soft, subtle transitions between a wealth of grey tones, creating a velvety black surface.