In the last decades of the nineteenth-century, artists became fascinated with the potential of variant inking of an etched plate. By rethinking the plate differently, each time it was printed, Goeneutte created a series of variations from one etched image such as we see in these views of the entrance to the town of Mortefontaine. Not unlike Monet’s paintings of hay stacks, or bridges across the Thames, here the artist provides temporal views with changes in light and atmospheric effects and even the addition of a moon, all achieved through the addition of ink on the surface of the plate, each time beginning with the same etched design. Lucas was a first-hand witness to the evolution of printmaking in France and his collection reveals his knowledge of the important creative developments that took place.