Manuel Robbe was born in Paris in 1872 to a Northern French family from the town of Berthune. He studied etching and painting and became an accomplished engraver, specializing in aquatint. Between the turn of the 20th century and 1914, Robbe produced a large number of aquatints in black and in color. Under the guidance of renowned printer Eugène Delâtre, he mastered the techniques of etching and aquatint and soon became a leading artist of publisher Edmond Sagot. Robbe developed a technique known as “sugar- life”, printing his designs with a mixture of sugar, ink and gum Arabic on zinc plates. He would then heat the plate and work with the soft-ground etching process until he achieved the desired effect. Robbe would then paint the subject on the plate with an oil paint brush made of rags. He used his fingers to adjust the tone on the zinc plate, resulting in the appearance of a completely unique print. Robbe was an innovator of the experimental “à la poupée” process of printing many colors from a single plate.