Category Archives: prints and drawings

prints and drawings

Francis Hoffman, writer and artist

Note the books illustrated in this religious broadside are only ones sold by the publisher of the sheet.

Francis Hoffman (active 1706-1750), The Heavenly Aurora, or, Dawn of Christ’s 1000 years reign [written, designed, and engraved by Hoffman] ([London]: Sold by B. Bragg in Pater Noster Row, [ca. 1710]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) in process.

Very little is known about the writer and printmaker Francis Hoffman, who was active at the beginning of the 1700s. An attempt at a bibliography was published by Edward Solly in Walford’s Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographical Review (Vol. 9, 1886). “When I commenced this article, I had utterly failed to find any record of Francis Hoffman as a writer, and thought I should have to end by the admission that I could find no evidence of the existence of such a person in 1712; but, even as I write, I have, by one of those curious little accidents which used so much to please Horace Walpole, met with a piece of evidence which is highly suggestive, if not conclusive.

Having read the valuable bibliographical note by Mr. Buckley in Notes and Queries, October 31, 1885, on the first edition, of Gulliver’s Travels, 1726, it was natural to turn to copies of the book and examine them by the light of his notes. . . . Attention was drawn to the head-piece, [where] the artist had placed his initials in the centre of the two end flower ornaments, a thing by no means common in such head-pieces, and these initials were F. H. . . . [and] there was clearly at the foot of the altar, “F. Hoffman.”

The hint thus given soon led to further inquiry, and, on looking into Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters, 1816, vol. ii. p. 695, something like evidence was found. He says: ‘This artist was probably a native of Germany, but he resided in England about the year 1711. He engraved a plate representing the portraits of the Right Honourable Henry St. John, one of the principal Secretaries of State; the Right Honourable William Bromley, Speaker of the House of Commons; and the Right Honourable Robert Harley, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Underneath is a printed account of the transactions of the House of Commons for the year 1711. It is etched in a coarse tasteless style, and inscribed Francis Hoffman fecit aqua forte. In Mr. Gulstone’s Collection was a portrait of Francis Hoffman drawn and engraved by himself, in which he is styled the inventor of Ships with three bottoms.'”

Sully goes on to list a number of books enhanced with ornaments and engravings by Hoffman, including T. Warner, Dennis’s Remarks on Steele’s ‘Conscious Lovers’ (1723); W. Meadows, Heywood’s Poems (1724); H. Woodfull, Davys’s Works (1725); B. Lintot, Somerville’s Poems (1727); T. Astley, Mrs. Thomas’s Poems (1727); and C. Ackers, Ralph’s Poems (1729) among others.

See also: John Bunyan (1628-1688), The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is To Come . . . And now done into verse [by Francis Hoffman] (London: printed by R. Tookey, 1706). Rare Books (Ex) 3653.372.15

Francis Hoffman, Secret Transactions During the Hundred Days Mr. William Gregg Lay in Newgate (London: [s.n.], printed in the year 1711). Rare Books (Ex) 14454.471

Anti-Catholic Broadside

Copies of this Paper may be had Gratis for posting on Church and Chapel boards.

Instruments of Torture in Use in English Convents ([London]: Published by the Protestant Evangelical Mission and Electoral Union… [no date, ca.1865]). Broadsheet, wood engraving & letterpress. Sheet size 755 x 500 mm (29¾ x 19¾ inches). Graphic Arts Collection GA2016- in process

Various scourges and belts supposedly used by Catholic nuns are displayed in this anti-Catholic propaganda broadside distributed free of charge by the Protestant Evangelical Mission and Electoral Union. “[The organization] had its start as the sponsor of public lectures by William Murphy, an itinerant lecturer whose violent anti-Catholic rhetoric kept England north of the Trent in an uproar from 1866 until his ultimately fatal beating in 1871. After the loss of its champion, the group continued a shadowy existence into the early 1900s, reprinting salacious tracts by Pierce Connelly, Blanco White, and Maria Monk.” –Denis G. Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England (Stanford University Press, 1992).

See also: Monthly record of the Protestant Evangelical Mission and Electoral Union (London: Protestant Evangelical Mission and Electoral Union, 1871- ).

A report of a public discussion on transubstantiation held in Victoria Rooms, Doncaster, on Saturday, December 2nd, 1866, between Mr. William Murphy, the Protestant Electoral Union, London, and Mr. Saynor, Roman Catholic of Leeds (London: Published at the Offices of the Protestant Electoral Union, 1866).

Browne’s Transparencies

Lit from the front
Lit from the back

Verso showing the tissue paper backing
There is little information on Mr. Browne of Browne’s Transparencies. The British Museum’s print described as “Scene in ecclesiastical ruins at night, with people gathered in the left foreground cooking over an open fire, and a couple walking further off,” transparency with hand-colouring recto and verso is probably also one of Browne’s Transparencies, although the label is torn.

Two comments about transparency prints that mention Browne were published in the July 8, 1882 issue of Notes and Queries. “These curiosities were more common some forty years ago [1842] than is generally supposed. Many of them were lithographs coloured by hand, and with one or more plates behind so perforated that when held up to the light the scene was completely changed. The first I remember (and still have) cost four or five shillings, and was the second of “G.W.’s Dioramic Views,” representing “A Village destroyed by an Avalanche,” and was published by Reeves & Sons, Cheapside, and W. Morgan, 64, Hatton Garden.”

“. . . One “G. T. B.” also issued a series of “Transparencies,” of which I have only No. 5; and “Browne’s Transparencies,” of which I have only one, “Ruins by Moonlight,” were also issued by Reeves & Sons, Cheapside, and Morgan, 64, Hatton Garden. All these are on cardboard “mounts,” and show best by artificial light. I have never seen any adapted for the lower panes of windows, but I have one of “A Smugglers’ Cave,” apparently that referred to by P. P., and the shape is “unsuitable for a window pane.” — Estb. Birmingham.

The second note followed: “These certainly were in existence about the year 1837, and I am inclined to believe that they were printed and published by a firm in Cheapside. They were artistically printed in colours, and by holding them before a strong light the subjects, which were varnished and pasted on at the back, became visible. The fire, for instance, was seen in the bandits’ cave; the gipsies [sic] appeared boiling their kettle in the ruins of Netley Abbey; the empty chairs in the continental cathedral were filled with occupants; Vesuvius sent forth its volumes of flame; and Napoleon, instead of standing alone at St. Helena, reviewed his Old Guard. The last-named transparent print was entitled “Napoleon powerless and Napoleon powerful.” They must at the present time be very scarce. – John Pickford, M.A. Newboume Rectory, Woodbridge.”

See also Edward Orme, An essay on transparent prints, and on transparencies in general (London: Printed for, and sold by, the author, 1807). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 8415q

The shop selling Browne’s Transparencies was W.J. Reeves & Son or Reeves & Sons (1819-1890). According to the Index to British Artists’ Suppliers, “By 1819 William John Reeves was 65 and the business became W.J. Reeves & Son, when his son, James Reeves (1794-1868), was taken into partnership. Subsequently in 1827 another son, Henry Reeves (1804-1877), joined the business. Following William John’s death in 1827, the business became Reeves & Sons . . . James Reeves retired in 1847 and in the following year two of his nephews, the brothers Henry Bowles Wild (1825-82) and Charles Kemp Wild (1832-1912), were taken into the business (Goodwin 1966 p.36); they were both listed as artists’ colourmen in the 1851 census, ages 26 and 18, residing with their father, Henry Wild, a wine merchant at 98 St Martin’s Lane. On the retirement of Henry Reeves in 1866, control moved to the Wild family who made the decision to remove manufacturing from Cheapside to a much larger site in Dalston, where they built a four-storey factory.”

The Princeton Print Club Scrapbooks Online

The first page of the Princeton Print Club scrapbook, now available online at http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/td96k526s, holds a small card that reads “Friends of the Princeton Library invite your presence at the opening of the house Forty Mercer Street Thursday, October seventeen, 1940 from four to six, R.S.V.P.”

The letterpress text is neatly set inside a decorative cartouche copied from a type specimen catalogue of Binny and Ronaldson owned by Elmer Adler (1884-1962). Around it on the page are placed no less than six articles announcing the opening of Alder’s printing library at Princeton along with a program of instruction in the graphic arts.

Writing in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, John F. Peckham, Class of 1940, noted that Princeton was not alone in recognizing a need for such a program. In 1938, the newly appointed librarian of Harvard University’s library, William Jackson (1905-1964), asked Philip Hofer (1998-1984) to head the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, the first such department in the country. That same year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology established the Dard Hunter Paper Museum and hired Hunter (1883-1966) as its curator.

Adler’s earliest Princeton supporters and collaborators in this venture were Lawrance Thompson (1906-1973), professor of English and American Literature, and curator of the Library’s Treasure Room, along with Francis Adams Comstock, Class of 1919 (1897-1981) professor of architecture and a talented visual artist. Thompson introduced Adler to the other Friends of the Princeton University Library (FPUL) in a long piece for the Princeton University Library Chronicle, published in November 1940. “Those of us who have admired the adventurous spirit with which Mr. Adler has embarked on a variety of uncharted seas, in the past, feel confident that his voyage to Princeton is the beginning of another equally successful saga.”

Thanks to Robert Cresswell, Class of 1919, chairman of the FPUL, and a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, Adler was invited to Princeton for a period of three years with the understanding that the total cost of the program, budgeted at $18,000, would be covered by the FPUL, while the “University would not bear any of the responsibility for financing or continuance of the program; and while Mr. Adler would be attached to the staff of the library as research associate in the graphic arts, he would not be given faculty rank and students taking his courses would not be given curriculum credit.”

Once the contract was signed, an early suggestion was to locate Adler in one of the eating clubs along Prospect Avenue. Lawrence approached the Cottage Club in 1939 but wrote Adler of his disappointment when, “They voted against the housing of the collection in the library . . . [since] the library room and particularly the room beyond was needed for football weekends when the house overflows with luncheon and cocktail guests.”

Another plot would have placed the collection in the damp basement of 20 Nassau Street, with Adler residing at the Nassau Club. It was only after Adler had “worn to a frazzle several real-estate agents, who showed him practically every available house to rent in Princeton, did he settle on the dignified, hundred year old and vacant Miller house at Forty Mercer Street.”

Within the first year of his tenure, Adler transformed the modest frame building on Mercer Street into a vibrant nucleus teeming with activities, displays, celebrated guests, and giveaways. Its most consuming project was The Princeton Print Club and 40 Mercer became known as its clubhouse. By the end of the 1940-1941 school year, the student’s monthly The Nassau Sovereign proclaimed Elmer Adler “an amazing man and his brilliant house—each a new nerve center of campus activity.”

With the fall semester quickly approaching, Adler swung into action and had University carpenters, painters, electricians, plumbers, and others renovate the building into a series of small meeting rooms and galleries, along with an apartment where he would live during the week. The three floors included a working print shop, a library, an exhibition gallery, print room, and in the basement, a smoking room where the anti-smoking, anti-drinking Adler rarely appeared.

By October, the doors on Mercer Street opened with a selection of Adler’s personal collection of prints and printed books on view. “Faculty members, students, and Princeton residents yesterday turned out for the first formal showing of a collection of over 8,000 books and 4,000 prints belonging to Elmer Adler, a research associate on the staff of the University Library,” announced the Daily Princetonian.

“The collection which will provide the basis for informal courses on various aspects of the graphic arts is located at 40 Mercer St. and is open to the public. . . Individuals wishing to use the collection for study and research should obtain admission cards from Lawrance Thompson in the University Library Treasure Room. However, those interested in the collection as an exhibit may take advantage of the open invitations, which will be arranged serially by the Friends of the Princeton Library.”

To learn more about the Princeton Print Club, visit the digital scrapbook at: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/td96k526s.

Although the book is inscribed: “Delivered August 14, 1947. Pasting through September 14, 1947 by Wm. G. McLaughlin Jr [Club President],” someone has added several more pages, including information on the new graphic arts curator Gillett Griffin in 1953.

The Golden Chain of Salvation

Isaac Taylor (1730-1807) after design by Reverend John Clark, The Golden Chain of Salvation (Published as the Act directs March 1, 1776 by the Rev. J. Clark). Engraved broadside. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

At the bottom of this illustrated broadside are two columns of printed text explaining the biblical allegory taken from the verse: Romans 8: 29-30. The journey to salvation is depicted as a chain of interlinking circles. According to the Dictionary of National Biography Isaac Taylor (1730–1807), “worked successively as a brassfounder, a silversmith, and a surveyor, owing this versatility to his father, who cast a chandelier for the Worcester town-hall in successful competition with a Birmingham firm, and who also engraved cards for tradesmen and silver plate for the county families.”

“About 1752 Isaac, thinking himself ill-used at home, made his way to London, walking by the side of a wagon. He found employment first at a silversmith’s, and then with Thomas Jefferys, the geographer, at the corner of St. Martin’s Lane. Under his guidance he executed a number of plates for the Gentleman’s Magazine. He gradually concentrated his attention upon book illustration, among the first that he illustrated being Owen’s Dictionary and Andrew Tooke’s Pantheon. Soon after its incorporation, in January 1765, Taylor was admitted a fellow of the Society of Artists, and in 1774 he was appointed secretary as successor to John Hamilton, being the third to hold that post.”

Portraits of George Cruikshank

Charles Gillot (1853-1903), People of the Period. –George Cruickshank. [sic] (The Champion of Temperance.) in The Period: An Illustrated Quizzical, Satirical, & Critical Review of What Is Going On, Sept. 17, 1870. Hand colored relief etching. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Daniel John Pound (active 1850-1860) after a photograph by John Watkins (1823-1874) and Charles Watkins (1836-1882), George Cruikshank, Esq., between 1858 and 1870. “The Drawing Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages Presented with the Illustrated News of the World.”
Graphic Arts collection GC022

R. Taylor & Company, A broadsheet “In memoriam” of George Cruikshank with a large central portrait of the artist. Wood engraving. London: Curtice & Co, 1878. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Unidentified artist after a photograph by Ernest Edwards & Cyril Mangin Bult, George Cruikshank AEtat 76, ca. 1868. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Alfred Croquis (pseudonym for Daniel Maclise 1806-1870), Geo Cruikshank. Author of ‘Illustrations of Time'” (London: James Fraser, [ca. 1832]). Note: British Museum incorrectly attributes this to Alfred Crowquill (pseudonym for Alfred Henry Forrester). Etching. Graphic arts Collection GC022

Unidentified artist, The Venerable George. He painted in oils the virtues of Water from The Hornet, December 6, 1871. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Cruikshank’s self-portrait in the frontispiece “Interior View of the House of God” published in The Scourge or Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly (London: W. Jones, November 1, 1811). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1811.2.

George Cruikshank can be seen at the bottom left as a young, debonair gentleman talking to M. Jones, the publisher of the magazine. Note: Cruikshank is holding one of his drawings. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

The Boxes

The 7s on the owl’s collars indicates the increase in theater prices to 7 shillings for these seats, the ‘pigeon holes’ at the top of the boxes.

The only one quietly paying attention to the play is the dog.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), after a design by John Opie (1761-1807), The Boxes, 1809. Hand colored etching. Inscribed “Opie invt/ Pubd Decr 12 1809 by T. Rowlandson No 1 James St Adelphi.” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014.00113. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

This print gives you an idea of the rioting audience members at London’s Covent Garden Theatre during the Old Price Riots of 1809 (also referred to as the OP riots). A devastating fire had leveled the theatre the previous year and rebuilding lasted through the summer. Finally, on Thursday September 14, 1809, the Morning Post confirmed that the newly built Theatre Royal would open the following Monday with the tragedy Macbeth, starring Mrs Sarah Siddons.

To subsidized the new theater, ticket prices were raised from 6 shillings to 7 for the boxes and from 3 shillings and sixpence to 4 shillings for the pit. On the opening night, riots broke out during the performance and continued all night. In fact, the riots lasted another 64 days.

Happily, the audience won the fight and the prices were reduced.

Note on the second tier the insignia “from N to O Jack you must go,” meaning: change the prices from the new to the old cost; and the owner, Jack Kemble, must go.

The print is inscribed at the bottom: “O woe is me, t’ have seen what I have seen / Seeing what I see.” Shakespear’ [Hamlet, III. ii]. 12 December 1809. Etching

The Boxes will be on view at the Princeton University Art Museum next fall when we celebrate the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with a small exhibit entitled “Remember Me: Shakespeare and His Legacy.”

Carte Odographique

Louis-Charles Desnos (1725-1805), Carte odographique de toutes les routes les plus fréquentées de Paris à toutes les capitales, ports de mer et autres villes comerçantes de l’Europe &c. (Graphic measurements of all the most popular routes from Paris to all capitals, seaports and other European cities of commerce &c.) (Paris: Desnos, Ruë St. Jacques à l’enseigne du Globe, 1763). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

This hand colored chart provides a graphic depiction of the distances between Paris and “the main cities of the kingdom.” It was designed by cartographer and engraver Louis Charles Desnos (1725-1805) who both made and sold maps, globes, atlases, instruments, and books from his shop on Rue St. Jacques “at the sign of the globe.”

See also: Louis-Charles Desnos (1725-1805), Nouvel atlas de la généralité de Paris: divisé en ses 22 elections. . . (Paris: [Desnos], rue S. Jacques à l’enseigne du Globe, 1762). Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books G1838 .D47 1762

Alexander Anderson Woodblock 1801

recto
verso, date should be 1801
cover
title page

Emblems of Mortality, Representing, in Upwards of Fifty Cuts, Death Seizing All Ranks and Degrees of People … with an Apostrophe to Each Translated from the Latin and French … to Which is Prefixed a Copious Preface, Containing an Historical Account of the Above, and Other Paintings on the Subject … 1st American ed. (Hartford: Printed by John Babcock, 1801). Sinclair Hamilton Collection (GAX) Hamilton 214

Joachim Murat executed

Attributed to Forceval (active 1814-1815), Thumy Macaromi, fameux voleur (Famous Thief), no date [ca. 1815]. Collector’s stamp of William J. Latta. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2016- in process

This French caricature depicts the public execution of Joachim Murat (1767-1815), brother-in-law of Napoleon I (1769-1821). The sign on the pole reads: Il a volé L[e] R[oyaue] de N[aples] (He stole the kingdom of Naples), referring to the fact that Napoleon named him King of Naples.

In 1812 Murat took part in Napoleon’s Russian campaign but when the campaign failed, Murat fled to Corsica, where he was arrested. Murat was put on trial for treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. The caricature changes this to execution by garroting (strangulation by a wire or cord), which was the sentence for a common thief.

In Alexander Meyrick Broadley’s Collectanea Napoleonica (Rare Books (Ex) Napoleon DA) this print is listed as Italian. Since then, the signature of a scorpion in the lower left has been attributed to the French printmaker known as Forceval (active 1814-1815). According to the British Museum “One [print] is identified in Bibliographie de la France as being published by Forceval. Nothing is known about him apart from his surviving prints, some of which were entered in the Bibliographie de la France by Martinet.”

No other copy of this rare print has these manuscript annotations on the title.