Plate 20
This plate is one of the few that occurs in two states. In the first
state,
found in a separate leaf in the Rosenwald collection (with undeleted "16"
incised in top right corner) and in the British Museum and Rinder copies,
there are three wave-like points of flame or gown in the top right corner,
the central point about 1 cm. from the corner of the plate. In the second
state, alike in every other particular, the central tip has been extended to
within 3 mm. of the corner and accompanied by a thin line on each side of
it. This extension cuts into the numeral "16" but can hardly have been made
simply to delete the number. This state appears in the Harvard, Mellon,
Morgan, and posthumous copies, though in the Mellon a further change is
made with black wash over the waves, practically eliminating them. (In the
Cunliffe copy no number is visible, and the coloring of the illustration
makes it difficult to determine the state of the plate.)
The variant does establish a chronological separation between the first
two complete copies and the later ones.
