The Graphic Arts Collection has a series of portraits all done in the same unidentified hand. Was this a class assignment to copy 19th-century black and white sources, and then add color? Or were these actually connected to the source?

Each portrait has an ink transcription on the back taken from the Illustrated London News obituary for these men: Justice Field; Sir Thomas Henry; M. Thiers, Fitzroy Kelley, Sergeant Parry, Alexander J.E. Cockburn, G.H. Lewes-Litera, and F.P.G. Guizot. Neither the portrait nor the text are exact copies.

When you go back to the original portrait and put the two faces side-by-side, the amateur style of the watercolor becomes apparent but the numbering on many and elaborate caption seem to indicate a serious project.

Source Citation: “Death of the Lord Chief Justice.” Illustrated London News [London, England] 27 Nov. 1880: 522+. Illustrated London News. Web. 25 June 2019. URL:http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=prin77918&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100108866&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0

Several of the wood engraved originals (but not all) are signed by Biscombe Gardner, a regular contributor to the Illustrated London News, portraiture a specialty.

William Biscombe Gardner (1847–1919) was a British painter and wood-engraver. Working in both watercolour and oils, he exhibited widely in London in the late 19th century at venues such as the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery.[1] From 1896 he lived at Thirlestane Court. He illustrated a number of books featuring the British landscape (see below), notably Kent, Canterbury, and The Peak Country. He also drew scenes from the Welsh Elan Valley in the 1890s, before it was flooded to form the Elan Valley Reservoirs, which appeared in two books by Grant Allen (see “illustrated Books” below). However, it was as a fine wood-engraver that he was mainly known, providing illustrations (sometimes large) for British magazines of the day such as The Pall Mall Gazette, The Illustrated London News, The English Illustrated Magazine and The Magazine of Art. He was a firm advocate of traditional wood-engraving considering it to be the most versatile in comparison to the more conventional methods of engraving and etching, or more recent methods including “process illustration”–DNB

Source Citation: “This Eminent French Statesman and Historian Died on Saturday Night, at His Rural Mansion of Val Richer, Ner Lisieux, in Normandy.” Illustrated London News [London, England] 19 Sept. 1874: 277+. Illustrated London News. Web. 25 June 2019. URL: http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=prin77918&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100093116&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0

In the end, it is most likely a copy assignment or personal exercise. Why the watercolors stayed together and came to Princeton is still a mystery.

The Graphic Arts Collection holds two copies of a rare broadside prepared for the 1814 gubernatorial campaign of Samuel Dexter (1761-1816): The Ship Union — 98, will meet the Enemy on the First Monday in April, with an American Crew, …not one fainting lubber among them. Peace, obtained by the thunder of our Cannon … not by base submission! ([Boston: Yankee-office, 1814]).

The two stanzas of verse beneath the woodcut were written to encourage people to vote against Governor Strong and for Dexter.

Arise! Ye Sons of Washington, your boarded bark to save,
Don’t give up your gallant Ship, to float on faction’s wave;
The Union, ninety-eight, will soon pour upon the foe
Quincy’s famous cannon balls, and lay the Rebels low;
Brave Dexter will command her and like the noble Perry,
In April next, will rout the foe, and then we’ll all be merry.

Then rally round the Polls, and drive out Caleb Strong,
Let Dexter once but rule us—our Union will be long;
No longer will our gallant ship avoid to meet the foe,
Our Union will range quickly up, and give the deadly blow,
Hoist up the Union Flag, my boys, upon the lofty mast.
And down the Rebel Rag will come, and all their hopes we blast.

When the United States Congress voted to join the War of 1812 on June 18, there were still many who opposed it, in particular Caleb Strong (1745-1819), Governor of Massachusetts. Eight days later, the Massachusetts House of Representatives condemned the war and voted against it 406 to 240. When the war continued into 1814, Strong’s position gained in popularity and instead of retiring, the 69-year-old Federalist ran for a second term.

“…Such was the political atmosphere in Massachusetts, for instance, that the Republicans put forth moderate Federalist Samuel Dexter as their gubernatorial candidate in 1814. Dexter was careful to say that although he shared mainstream Federalists’ sense of grievance, he differed with them as to “their indiscriminate opposition to the war, especially their convention project.” The 1814 election therefore represented a referendum on the proposed Hartford convention above and beyond the war itself, and Caleb Strong beat Dexter handily, drawing 55 percent of the vote.”–Matthew Mason, “Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic” (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2009).

At the time of the election, Dexter was practicing law in Boston, having served in the Senate, as Secretary of War, and Secretary of the Treasury. His 1814 campaign centered on his support for the war–“Vigorous war till we have an honorable peace”–and accusations that Strong was a coward. This broadside promises his administration would have “not one fainting lubber among them.” The strategy was not successful.

This $10 bond in the Graphic Arts Collection comes with a Masonic label on the back. It is uncertain what the connection is although there was an interesting new church established in Chicago in 1868.

On August 26, 1868 The New York Times published an article entitled “The Kingdom of Woman. Another Astonishing Development of Spiritualism,” introducing the “headquarters of an extraordinary association of men and women, who deem their great mission to be the formation of a new empire, to be governed by females…”  —https://www.nytimes.com/1868/08/26/archives/the-kingdom-of-woman-another-astonishing-development-of.html

Over the next few years, papers in Indianapolis and other cities around the country echoed the announced:

“Euphemia Regina, Masonic queen of wisdom’s sacred temple, proposes to establish a memorial church at Warehouse Point,” which “is intended to enable woman to make a free pulpit and rostrum for her to dispense the law and ordinances of religion and politics, forming a divine marriage of church and state, and inaugurating ’The New Wisdom Age,’ for the world’s redemption. “Euphemia Regina” is “Sophronia Billings Abbe, grand scribe and corresponding secretary.” — Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 September 1872

It seems doubtful the church announced in 1868 relates to the “United States Church” above. This article http://www.iapsop.com/ssoc/1868__scott___spiritualism_not_divine.pdf
“Spiritualism Not Divine: or a System of Demonry [sic], Imposture, and Infidelity Examined in The Light of Philosophy, History, Morality, and the Bible” by James S.H. Scott (1868), takes it even further. Here is a small section:

“The pecuniary obligation incurred by the Masonic Queen of Heaven in the business transaction with which we were favored, had been liquidated, so to speak, as our readers will remember, by the tender of certain cabalistic bills on the Wisdom Bank, each entitling the bearer to Forty dollars worth of good in the City of Light and Love. A facsimile of this supernatural medium of exchange also appeared in our columns in connection with the aforesaid description.

These bills, it should be remembered, were, strictly speaking, neither current nor negotiable; they were, according to their tenor, based upon real estate, and were to be retained by the holder as a charm against all evil, sufficiently long to enable the influence which attended them to pervade his being, and then an agent of Euphemia Abia would, if desired, redeem them in the ordinary currency of the realm. The chief of the Republican job office, owing to grossness and skeptical obtuseness of his spiritual organism, failed to be come susceptible to the developing inducements of these pecuniary charms, and, probably as are buke to his infidelity, Euphemia Abia also failed to perform her part of the contract, and her agent so long delayed his advent that the most sanguine began to doubt the reality of this supernatural existence.

We have now, however, to announce the fact that the Masonic Queen of Heaven has caused to be fulfilled, in part, the vaticinations of Lady Sophronia Kilbourne, an agent having actually redeemed a third portion of these heavenly promises to pay, to the more than intense delight and astonishment of those to whom they were made payable. It becomes, therefore, a pleasant duty to chronicle the birth of a new organ of intelligence, The Wisdom Age, the printing of which, by the Republican job establishment was attended by the afore-and-above mentioned unusual business incidents, and the issuing of which to the world was delayed by these little idiosyncratic maneuvers of Euphemia Abia, Masonic Queen of Heaven, under whose auspices The Wisdom Age has been inaugurated.

In a letter dated March 2, 1831, J.J. Audubon (1785-1851) wrote to his engraver Robert Havell Jr., (1793-1878) requesting changes in the copper printing plates already completed at the Scottish engraving studio of W.H. Lizars (1788-1859). “I wish you to set about having the Plates reengraved I mean the Lettering as soon as possible and to employ such Engravers as well do Justice to the whole of it.”

The engraved title Great American Cock, usually plate no. 1 in the bound volumes of Audubon’s Birds of America, was to be removed and replaced by Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). In addition, he asked for changes in the legends of the first forty-four plates.

There is no explanation for the change in the name. Cock is the standard British term for a male bird, “especially domestic fowl.” However, Audubon’s legend is not part of the Linnaean taxonomy of birds but instead an enthusiastic description for his favorite bird. This may have been his attempt to improve the scientific precision of the work as a whole.

In the early 1800s when the Audubon family lived in Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, the house was filled with animals, both preserved specimens and live family pets. Most prized with a wild turkey, referred to in Audubon letters as “my favorite turkey cock.”

“Lucy [Audubon] become accustomed to, and even contented with, the strange ways of John James, who brought home a number of wild creatures from his excursions into the woods. She helped raise and care for the wild turkey that John James captured when it was only a few days old. The bird rapidly became a great pet to the Audubon children and the entire village. Anxious to protect the turkey from hunters, Lucy tied a red string around his neck so that he would be recognized while wandering about town. Each evening the gobbler could be seen roosting on the roof of the Audubon cabin.”– Carolyn E. DeLatte, Lucy Audubon: A Biography (LSU Press, Sep 1, 2008).

There is no way of knowing how many plates were produced with the title Great American Cock as Lizars began engraving them in 1826 before Havell reengraved the plate according to Audubon’s demand in 1831. The copper printing plate for the Wild Turkey was purchased from Lucy Audubon by William E. Dodge Jr. (1832-1903) and kept in the Dodge family, first with his sister Grace H. Dodge (1856-1914) and then her nephew Cleveland E. Dodge (1888-1982), Princeton class of 1909, who lent it to the Princeton University Library exhibition in 1959. Dodge served as a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, among other organizations, and ultimately donated the copper plate to AMNH for their Audubon room. Unfortunately, the engraved title at the bottom of the plate has been removed.