Fashion magazine De Gracieuse > More and more illustrations
Fashion magazine De Gracieuse benefited from the rise of photography and of new production methods, such as the autotype. These developments slowly changed De Gracieuse as well.
The first loose-leaf fashion prints that were included with the magazine were copper engravings. Once demand increased strongly, the old production methods were no longer sufficient. The copper plates that were used for etchings, engravings or images created with combined techniques of etching and engraving would wear down during the printing process, making it impossible to produce the required number of copies. Each plate only yielded 300 to 800 prints. On top of that, the prints had to be coloured in by hand afterwards. The printing of large numbers of copies was therefore not possible.
Lithography and steel engravings yielded a larger number of prints, but still only in black-and-white. Chromolithography turned out to be the solution for direct colour prints. In 1907, De Gracieuse was printed with a colour cover for the first time.
Wood engravings were used for the illustrations beside the text. Wood engravings, in which the wood is removed from around the drawing with a spitsticker, allowed for a greater numbers of copies and for simultaneous printing of the illustrations along with the text. After the introduction of autotype, wood engravings were replaced by photographs.
Considering the technical possibilities of its time, De Gracieuse was a richly illustrated magazine.