Stansfeld’s catalogue of etchings records three Lamb etching plates in the Council collections, but this is not amongst them. Lamb would use his own designs on a plate (in reverse) that would be of zinc or copper. He would create the image either by acid etching, dry point etching or a combination of both. Lamb may have learnt these techniques at the Montrose Academy continuation classes in art in the years before WW1. But it is said that once he returned to Montrose in 1924 and set up his own studio he experimented in various techniques of impressing the designs. Until relatively recently it was thought that this plate was one of an extremely small number of surviving plates, but two private collections have been identified. However the designs have not been recorded, or linked to actual etchings
No recorded accession number: Etching plate in zinc. This carries a strong image, a close up of people in a market place. It is of unrecorded location, but possibly Villefranche. The original drawing for this design can be dated to 1923 when Lamb was in France and Italy on his study tour. The date of the etching itself has not been ascertained.
No recorded accession number: “Etching bath”. Lamb’s original acid etching bath is still on display in the William Lamb Studio. It is a simple hand-made piece of ,wood, lined with lead, and was possibly made by Lamb himself