Whether the so-called crayon method of engraving, in imitation of soft chalk drawings, was invented by Jean Charles François, or Gilles Demarteau, or Louis Bonnet--all three claimed the credit of it--it was, at all events, from François, whose claim had obtained official recognition, that Ryland, the pupil of Ravenet and Le Bas, and, in a measure, of Boucher, learned the method while he was still a student in Paris. Only later in his career, however, long after he had left behind him his student days in Paris and Rome, and achieved prosperity in London as a line-engraver and printseller, with royal patronage, and with social success as a man of fashion and pleasure, did he remember the process that François had imparted to him. Then, in his necessity, when his extravagances had brought him to bankruptcy, he called the dotted crayon manner to memory, and saw in stipple-engraving, if suitably employed, a possible asset of importance. Compared with line and even with mezzotint it was a very easy and rapid way of engraving, and though, of course, it could not compare with either in nobility, richness and brilliance of effect, Ryland realised that its soft rendering of tones by artistically balanced masses of dots might be adapted to dainty and delicate drawings. The most fortunate opportunity for proving this was at hand. He had some personal acquaintance with Angelica Kauffman, whom Lady Wentworth had brought to London some ten years before, and whose beauty, talents and personal charm had meanwhile made her a fashionable artistic idol, with Society and its beauties flocking to her studio to be painted or to buy her pictures. Having first tested his stippling with his own designs, gracefully French in manner, which he published soon afterwards as “Domestic Employments,” Ryland suggested the idea of stipple-engraving to the sympathetic young painter. When he had experimented with one or two of her drawings, she gladly recognised that stipple was the very medium for the interpretation of her work to the public. The first prints sold “like wildfire,” and so satisfied was Ryland of the profitable prospect, that, on the strength of it, he promptly re-established himself in a printselling business at 159, Strand. His confidence was amply justified, the public being quick to show their appreciation of the new method, introduced as it was with all the persuasion of the fair Angelica’s graceful, fanciful designs of classic story and allegory. This was in 1775, and within a very short time Ryland found that, rapidly as she designed and he engraved, he could scarcely keep pace with the demand for these prints, which, the more readily to crave the popular fancy, he printed in red ink, to imitate red chalk, later to be known as the “Bartolozzi red.”