James Tissot (1836-1902), The Thames, ca. 1876. Drypoint and etching, from the portfolio Ten Etchings. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

James Tissot (1836-1902), On the Thames (or How Happy I Could Be with Either), ca. 1876. Oil on canvas. Hepworth Wakefield Art Gallery.

Thanks to the generous gift of William and Sally Rhoads, the Graphic Arts Collection is the new owner of Ten Etchings. First series (London (17 Grove End Road, St John’s Wood): J.J. Tissot, 1876). This rare portfolio of drypoints, 1876-1877, each with the artist’s red monogram stamp (L. 1545) on various laid papers, was published by James Tissot (1836-1902) in a total edition of 50 (of which 25 were for subscribers and 25 for sale).

Mr. Rhoads notes “The portfolio was purchased in the 1920s or 30s by my grandfather, Wm. S. Bertolet, M.D., and then owned for 50 years by my mother, Mary B. Rhoads, who was a long-time member of the Friends of the Princeton University Library. She would be delighted that they will reside in Firestone.”

In the early 1870s, James Tissot left Paris and settled in St. John’s Wood, outside London, at 17 Grove End Road (around the corner from Abbey Road and later, Abbey Road Studio). One day, he happened to meet Kathleen “Kate” Newton (née Kelly; 1854–1882), an unwed mother of two, who had also moved to St. John’s Wood where her married sister had a home. Tissot and Newton met, fell in love, and for the next six years, lived together, unmarried, in what the artist called “domestic bliss,” until Newton died of tuberculosis in 1882.

During this period, most of Tissot’s paintings and prints feature Newton, her children, and their quiet family life. Some scenes included Kate’s sister but the views of two young women unsupervised with an adult man scandalizing the London public.

Between 1876 and 1877, Tissot assembled and published a selection of prints in a portfolio titled simply Ten Etchings. Six of these prints, including The Thames at the top of this post, were reproductions of his paintings and two are based on drawings he made while part of the Paris Commune in 1871. The other two are unidentified portraits.
These figures are thought to represent Tissot and Newton.

Portrait 1876 James Tissot 1836-1902 Purchased 1927 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N04271

“…In addition to the editors, François Bonneville (Nicolas’ cousin) was hired to engrave portraits of revolutionaries for the “Chronique du mois.” Each issue featured on its frontispiece one of Bonneville’s portraits, usually depicting a leading Girondin. The first seven issues included portraits of Condorcet (January), Fauchet (February), Mercier (March), Auger (April), Garran-Coulon (May), Paine (June), and Brissot (July).

François Bonneville became one of the best known portrait engravers of his day, and his works were sold individually at the Imrprimerie du Cercle Social. At the same time, his engravings helped to spread the fame of the Griondin leaders, whom he often portrayed in a neoclassical style that emphasized their likeness to the ancient heroes of Greek democracy.” –Gary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins, and the French Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1985, jstor: 2014)

La Chronique du mois: ou, les cahiers patriotiques, [The Chronicle of the Month] was founded by Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet (marquis de), Étienne Clavière, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat marquis de Condorcet, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Nicolas de Bonneville, abbé Athanase Auger, and John Oswald. They called their imprint the Printing Press of the Social Circle. Working together with these men from his studio on Rue Saint-Jacques, François Bonneville designed, engraved, and published the portraits with each man wearing his official uniform, including a hat with enormous plumes and a velvet coat.

The Graphic Arts Collection has only two of the portraits, seen here. To appreciate the entire grand costume, see Bonneville’s full figure image from the Musée Carnavalet: http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/sieyes-membre-du-directoire-executif-en-grand-costume

François Bonneville (active 1793-1802), Merlin, membre du Directoire exécutif, 1797. Etching, pointillé, Graphic Arts Collection 2019- in process

François Bonneville (active 1793-1802), Em[m]anuel Joseph Sieyes, membre du Directoire Exécutif. Né à Fréjus le 3 may 1748, 1797. Etching, pointillé, Graphic Arts Collection 2019- in process

Read more M.E.T. Hamy, “Note sur diverses gravures de Bonneville, répresentant des Nègres (1794-1803) in Anthropologie (1900): 42-46.

In 1797, Pierre Didot (1761-1753), the most esteemed printer of his day, commissioned a series of illustrations for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, from the French artist Louis-Joseph Lefèvre (1756-1830).  Abbé Pierre François Guyot Desfontaines’ French translation was used and the designs engraved by Louis-Joseph Masquelier (1741-1811).

Didot’s brother, Firmin Didot cut the type and the book was bound by René Simier, Relieur du Roi, in four small volumes, each representing one of Gulliver’s trips. The book was printed in two issues, one for Didot himself and the one acquired by Princeton for Pierre-François Bleuet jeune, in an edition of 100.

Although there is no English language edition recorded from Didot’s press with the Lefèvre illustrations, one might have been planned since several sheets of proofs with the captions in English have been found in the Graphic Arts Collection. Note special trouble was taken to add the date, 1797, at the center of each caption.

These should not be confused with the 1797 English language edition published by Charles Cooke, which has very different plates by W. Hawkins (active 1797-1803) after Richard Corbould (1757-1831) [seen at the far bottom].

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Voyage de Gulliver [translated by Pierre-François Guyot Desfontaines] (Paris: De la I’mprimerie de P. Didot L’Ainé, 1797). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process. English language proof on the right.

Charles Cooke edition with plates by W. Hawkins (active 1797-1803) after Richard Corbould (1757-1831).

Godefroy Engelmann (1788-1839), 50 dessins représentant les principaux traits de la Bible (Mulhouse & Paris: de la Lithographie de G. Engelmann, ca. 1824). Graphic Arts Collection.    GAX 2019- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the first and only edition of this rare set of biblical illustrations by one the pioneers of French lithography, Godefroy Engelmann (1788-1839), with 50 plates depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament. The lithographs were, according to the tile page, initially offered in five collections of ten; the 1824 issue of the Journal général de la littérature de France suggests that they “peuvent server à orner toutes les éditions in-8. De l’ancien et du nouveau Testament,” although it is not clear if they were ever put to this use.

These prints are some of Engelmann’s earlier works. Having trained both in Switzerland at both La Rochelle and Bordeaux, he began to study lithography in Munich in 1814, returning the following year to his home city of Mulhouse, where he founded La Société Lithotypique de Mulhouse, followed by a workshop in Paris the following year. Among his contributions to lithographic technique was the development in 1819 of lithographic wash, followed by his pioneering work in chromolithography as details in his 1837 Album chromo-lithographique, ou recueil d’essais du nouveau procédé d’impression lithographique en couleurs, inventé par Engelmann père et fils à Mulhouse.

[10 places to visit today in Mulhouse, including the Musée de l’Impression sur Etoffes de Mulhouse: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/the-top-10-things-to-do-and-see-in-mulhouse/]

See also Engelmann company scrapbooks digitized at Princeton: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/3484zk471

E.C. [Sometimes attributed to Edward Williams Clay], Practical Illustration of the Fugitive Slave Law, [1851]. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was designed to make it easier for owners of enslaved men and women to recapture those persons who escaped to the North. It affirmed that “fugitive slaves” were the owner’s property and could be redeemed anywhere in the free states. This satirical print, produced in Boston around 1850-51, illustrates the antagonism between Northern abolitionists on the left and supporters of the Fugitive Slave Act, including Daniel Webster (1782-1852) on the right.

Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) holds a formerly enslaved woman in one arm and points a pistol toward a burly “slave catcher” on the back of Webster. The slave catcher represents the federal marshals or commissioners authorized by the act to apprehend and return escaped persons to their so-called owners.

Fugitive Slave Act 1850: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/fugitive.asp

Section 6: And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

Alphonse Léon Noël (1807–1884) after William Sidney Mount (1807–1868), The Power of Music, 1848. Lithograph and watercolor on wove paper, framed. Graphic Arts GAX 2019- in process

Although difficult to photograph through the plexiglass, it is important to note the arrival of this rare American lithograph to the Graphic Arts collection. Special thanks to Steve Knowlton, Librarian for History and African American Studies, for spotting it.

“William Sidney Mount, an American artist born at the beginning of the 19th century, painted this intimate scene of musicality and reflection. His lifetime saw first the emancipation of slaves in his native state of New York and then the universal abolition of slavery during the Civil War. The artist was born in Setauket, a Long Island community located within reasonable commuting distance of the growing metropolis of New York City. While living in the city as a young man, he received formal artistic training at the still-new but already prestigious National Academy of Design. When he returned to Long Island, he maintained close contact with the art world of the city, including its rapidly growing class of patrons and critics.

By the time this compelling image was created, Mount was renowned as one of the pre-eminent painters of genre or everyday life. A man of many talents, he was just as passionately devoted to the art of music as he was to painting. Many of his works quite naturally feature the leisure-time activities of music-making and dancing.

The Power of Music was commissioned by Charles M. Leupp, a prominent businessman and art patron from New York. Finished in 1847, it was displayed the same year at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. The canvas immediately garnered favorable critical notice and was soon reproduced as a lithograph by the French firm of Goupil, Vibert and Co. In response to the dynamics of an emerging international art market, the print was marketed both in the United States and in Europe.”–Part of “The Image of the Black in Western Art Archive,” at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

To continue reading: http://www.imageoftheblack.com/

William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), The Power of Music, 1847. Oil on canvas. (c) Cleveland Museum of Art

See also Frederick C. Moffatt, “Barnburning and Hunkerism: William Sidney Mount’s “Power of Music,” Winterthur Portfolio 29, no. 1 (1994): 19-42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1181449.