In Anne Allen's roccoco fantasy etching, tiny figures and animals move or rest within a dreamlike structure of sticks, stairs, and bridges hung with plants, fruits, flowers, garlands, and webs. Rather than a spatially coherent, rectangular landscape painted or etched as if seen through a window, this inventive and enchanting image expressed by variable colored lines against paper comes out of the realms of pure drawing and imagination.

Anne Allen is a somewhat mysterious figure in art history. Her birth and death dates are unknown. She was born in England and was actice as a printmaker in Paris around 1790-1800. Known for 47 remarkable color etchings of chinoiserie and floral subjects, she made etchings after the designs of Jean-Baptiste Pillemont, a leading artist and arbiter of taste during the 18th century in France. Allen's unusual method of color printing, in which two or more colored inks are selectively applied to different parts of two etched copperplates, is known as a la poupee. The delicacy and brilliance of her etchings gives them an appearance unlike any other color prints. Seldom found on the print market, Allen's etchings are rarities. Her imagery and way of drawing and etching anticipate 20th- and 21st-century artists ranging from the Dadaists and Surrealists to Dr. Seuss and Tom Friedman.

Source: News, October November December 2011.