The Etcher of the Belle Epoque In the bustling streets of Paris, where the light of the late nineteenth century began to shift into a new era, Manuel Robbe found his calling. Born in 1872, he moved through the halls of the Lycée Condorcet and later the Académie Julian, absorbing the technical rigors of his craft. His early training under the engraver Lois Legrand planted the seeds of an interest in the chemical and physical transformations of printmaking. This curiosity led him to the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Eugène Delâtre, a man who was himself a pioneer in the delicate…