In 1829 Constable decided to employ David Lucas to engrave and publish a number of mezzotints after his paintings. The decision to make prints was based on financial and promotional reasons. As more people could afford to buy prints, his art and his ideas about art and nature would theoretically become more widely known. However, few copies sold during his lifetime. Constable emphasised two points in the introduction to his first folio of prints. Firstly, that he always took his inspiration directly from nature, unlike other artists who painted from memory, and secondly, he revealed his obsession with ‘the Chiaroscuro of nature’ – the light and dark effects of sun and shadow. Constable’s use of dramatic lighting expressed the transitory character of nature, which he had become more and more interested in since the 1820s. In his later works he increasingly revealed his state of mind with darker and more dramatic images of nature, storms, rainbows and sudden gleams of light. The process of making a mezzotint is laborious and difficult. The metal plate is firstly roughened to create a surface that when loaded with ink will print a deep, dark black. The engraver then smooths out the texture of the plate with a sharp instrument, creating surfaces that do not collect ink and therefore print as light areas. The dramatic contrast between light and dark thus produced supported Constable’s ideas about the importance of atmospheric light in his work. Lucas based the mezzotint Autumnal sunset c. 1829–32 on Constable’s oil sketch Autumnal sunset c. 1812. He began working on the plate in around 1829, but it was not published until July 1832. During the proofing Lucas reworked the sky, adding a line of low-lying clouds. He also introduced a tree on the left, corn stooks and stubble in the foreground field, and the towers of Langham and Stoke-by-Nayland churches. In a letter to Lucas, dated 2 June 1832, Constable criticised his poor transcription of the flight of rooks. He wrote: ‘the Evng – is spoiled owing to your having fooled with the Rooks – they were the chief feature – which caused me to adopt the subject – nobody knew what they are – but took them for blemishes on the plate’. Lucas reworked the image until Constable was satisfied.