Frontispiece pour Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle de Henri Béraldi

Buhot distinguished his etchings by framing a central image with margins teeming with subsidiary visual notations – a device he called "symphonic." These notations, not unlike the marginal glosses in medieval manuscripts, served to elaborate the central theme. At times, the margins became quite large and equally significant to the scenes that they framed. The margins were sometimes created on the same plate as the main theme, but just as often a margin could be produced on a separate plate and printed independently. For the frontispiece of Henri Beraldi's magnus opum of nineteenth-century printmakers, Buhot pays homage to Rembrandt at the top center of the composition, asserting a status for modern etchers equal to that of the Old Masters.