Unidentified artist, “An Every-Day Scene, Bathing at Long Branch New Jersey,” in The New York Illustrated News, August 15, 1863. Wood engraving. Oversize 0901.D389f

Henry Collins Bispham (1841-1882), “Our Summer Resorts, Bathing at Long Branch. Sketched by our special artist, Mr. Bispham” in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 12, 1863. Wood engraving. Annex A, Forrestal Oversize 0901.L637f. On the following page is a brief article accompanied this wood engraving:

“Long Branch has this year centered all the lovers of surf-bathing and all who gather around the fair lovers of the salt water. Cape May being no longer accessible, except by way of Philadelphia, does not compete with it, while at Long Branch every house was crowded to its utmost excess. Fashions change even in the matter of bathing and enjoying the sea air. Our clever artist gives Life at Long Branch as it appears A. D. 1863. The incidents, our readers will admit, are happy and happily treated. The introduction amid the roaring billows, the crab-catching, the lolling in the sand, and especially the bathing scene, all look so refreshingly cool, and bear such an impress of the dolce far niente, that they quite prevent our describing them in a hot city with sufficient appreciation. Imagination must supply our deficiency.”

John Karst (1836-1922) after Winslow Homer (1836-1910), “The Beach at Long Branch,” in Appleton’s Journal of Literature, Science and Art, August 21, 1869. Wood engraving. Recap AE5 .A675

After Winslow Homer (1836-1910), “Bathing at Long Branch, Oh, Ain’t t Cold,” in Century Magazine v. 3, New Series, August 26, 1871. Wood engraving. CTSN Eng 19 151170

J. L. Langridge (1800-1899), after Winslow Homer (1836-1910), “On the Beach at Long Branch, The Chldren’s Hour,” in Harper’s Weekly, August 15, 1874. Wood engraving. Rare Books (Ex) 2010-0005F

After Winslow Homer (1836-1910), “American Sketches: Bathing at Long Branch, New York
[New Jersey],” in The Illustrated London News 1875. Wood engraving. Recap Oversize AP4 .I458q

John McLenan (1825-1865), engraved by J. W. Orr, The Inauguration at Richmond, March 15, 1862. Wood engraving published in Harper’s Weekly

“John McLenan, an able man much ahead of his time,” wrote Arthur Hoeber, in A Century of American Illustration, “who drew in a much freer way than his confreres and whose technique was, for those days, quite astonishing. He was also a man of much inventiveness and is affectionately remembered by his fellow workers.” Although he has been forgotten by contemporary historians, John McLenan (also written McLennan) had a sparkling career in book and magazine illustration from 1852 to 1865, when he died at the age of 39. His designs for Harper’s Weekly can be distinguished by the floral initials in the lower left “J M C” or sometimes “J M L”.

Born in Philadelphia, McLenan grew up in Cincinnati. A story is often repeated that his talent was discovered one day while he was working in a meat packing plant, drawing on the tops of the barrels. In truth, McLenan was already publishing his designs while living in Cincinnati.

In 1862, the Cincinnati Enquirer commented, “[McLenan] gained considerable reputation as an artist long before he left us to take up his abode among strangers and many is the wood-cut he has furnished to adorn the columns of the Enquirer. He left here a few years ago to try his fortune in New York, and it was a fortunate stroke in his life. When he first went to New York, his designs brought only a few dollars, where they now command twenty-five to one hundred dollars. it is stated that he receives $5,000 a year from the Harper‘s and has the privilege of outside jobs.”

I am working on a longer piece about McLenan, if you have more information about his brief career.

George Vertue (1684-1756), The View of the Charity Children in the Strand, upon the 7th of July, 1713, Being the Day Appointed by Her Late Majesty Queen Anne for a Publick Thanksgiving for the Peace . . ., 1715. Two engravings attached. Graphic Arts collection GA 2005.02092.

On July 7, 1713, approximately 4,000 children—girls on the left and boys on the right—filled the bleachers along the Strand to watch the procession for Thanksgiving Day for the Peace of Utrecht. This was one of several celebrations to mark the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of Spanish Succession.The three-hour procession was led by Queen Anne from Parliament House to St. Paul’s.

According to the British Museum’s research, Vertue’s engraving was commissioned by Sir Richard Hoare (1709-1754), who was Lord Mayor at that time. Panoramic in scale, the two joined sheets measure 37.2 x 127.4 cm (just over 4 feet).

The inscription at the bottom continues: “when both Houses of Parliament made a Solemn procession to the Cathedral of St Paul. / By the care & provision of the Trustees of the several Charity-Schools in & about London & Westminster near IV thousand Charity Children Boys & Girls, being new cloathed were placed upon a Machine extended in length 620 feet, which had in breadth eight ranges of feats one above another: During the whole procession which lasted near three Hours, they sung & repeated the Hymns, which were prepared upon the expectation of her Majesty’s Royal Presence. The Like View of the Charity Children was presented to his Majesty King George, on the south side of St Pauls, when he made his Publick Entry into the City of London, upon the XX of September, MDCCXIV.”

“At the public thanksgiving for peace in 1713, the charity children were placed in rising rows of seats in the Strand to see the procession pass, and the Queen go to St. Paul’s to return thanks—and bitter must have been the disappointment of the little ones at the Queen’s absence, on account of illness.”–John Ashton, Social life in the Reign of Queen Anne, Taken from Original Sources… with eighty-four illustrations by the author from contemporary prints (London: Chatto & Windus, 1882) Firestone Library (F) DA495 .A82 1882

Arthur William Heintzelman (1891-1965), Albert Schweitzer, no date. Etching and drypoint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00426

In 1947 the Daily Princetonian announced “Undergraduates are invited to view an exhibition of etchings and dry points at the Princeton Print Club at 36 University Place. The show, beginning tomorrow and extending through February 28, will be open from 2-5. To highlight the display, Arthur William Heintzelman, renowned for his work with brush, crayon and needle, will speak February 27 at 8 p.m. at the Print Club on the “Art of Etching.” Mr. Heintzelman, a member of numerous museum associations, has earned many awards for his fine artistic work.” Heintzelman also provided curator Elmer Adler with a number of his own prints for the Print Club’s lending library.

Born in Newark, Heintzelman entered the Rhode Island School of Design at the age of fourteen. After a successful career as a printmaker in his own right, Heintzelman helped to establish a print department at the Boston Public Library, where he became the first Keeper of the Prints of the Albert H. Wiggin Collection and of the Print Department in 1941. For nearly forty years, he hung popular exhibitions in the Wiggin Gallery [seen below] and added important impressions by Picasso, Dürer, Daumier, and many others.

Boston Public Library. Albert H. Wiggin Gallery. Exhibition. Contemporary American Prints [ca. January 5, 1953–January 31, 1953]. Gelatin silver print. Pictured: Paul B. Swenson, assistant (left), Arthur W. Heintzelman, keeper of prints (center), and Muriel C. Robinson, first assistant (right). BPL Accession #: 08_02_004463

Arthur William Heintzelman (1891-1965), Mendient Italien, 1927. Etching and drypoint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.01428. Gift of Russell T. Mount, Class of 1902.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired 61 proofs dating from 1861-1881, for The Cornhill Magazine. The illustrations were designed by George Du Maurier (1834-1896), Arthur Hopkins (1848-1930), Francis Wilfred Lawson (1842-1935), and Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914); and wood engraved by Joseph Swain (1820-1909). The excellent provenance is from the collection of George Smith of Smith, Elder & Company (1824-1901), the founder and publisher of The Cornhill.

All of these plates were exhibited in 1986 by the Christopher Mendez Gallery in London and selected ones were lent by Smith to the seminal exhibition Modern Illustration at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1900.

The benefit of having proofs is to see each design clearly and as the artist intended, not always possible once the large editions are printed and bound into the magazine.

The majority of these proofs are by George Du Maurier, a celebrated Victorian cartoonist and novelist, known in particular as the author of Trilby (1894). Du Maurier worked as a social cartoonist for Punch and satirized the fashions and manners of the Victorian social elite. He also famously parodied the Pre-Raphaelites and the aesthetic movement.

However, for Cornhill he produced straight illustrations for its short stories and poems by authors that included the founder George Smith and first editor William Thackerey.

“George du Maurier” by Henry James:

“…He was the man in the world as to whom one could most feel, even as, in some degree, a junior, that not having known him all one’s own did not in the least prevent one’s having known him all his life. Of the so many pleasant things his friendship consisted of none was pleasanter, for a man of imagination in particular, than this constant beguiled admission, through his talk, his habits of remembrance, his genius for recollection and evocation, to the succession of his other days—to the peopled, pictured previous time that was already a little the historic and pathetic past, that one had, at any rate, for one’s self, just somewhat ruefully missed, but that he still held, as it were, in his disengaged hand.

When the wonder at last came of his putting forth Trilby and its companions my own surprise— or that of any intimate — could shade off into the consciousness of having always known him as a story-teller and a master of the special touch that those works were to make triumphant. He had always, in walks and talks, at dinner, at supper, at every easy hour and in every trusted association, been a novelist for his friends, a delightful producer of Trilbys. If there were but one word to be sounded about him, none would in every particular play so well the part of key-note as the word personal; it would so completely cover all the ground of all his sympathies and aptitudes.

…His sense of things had always been, and had essentially to be, some lively emotion about them— just this love or just this hate; and he was full of accumulated, inspiring experience because he was full of feelings, admirations, affections, repulsions. The world was, very simply, divided for him into what was beautiful and what was ugly, and especially into what looked so, and so far as these divisions were—with everything they opened out to—a complete account of the matter, nothing could be more vivid than his view, or more interesting.” –Henry James, “George Du Maurier,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (September 1897): 594–609.

The Cornhill Magazine (London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1860- . 181 volumes (v. 48-74 called new series). Founded by George Smith (1824-1901) with William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) as first editor. Rare Books: Robert Metzdorf Collection (ExMe) 0901.267 and Rare Books: Morris L. Parrish Collection (ExParrish) 2015-0050F.

Display case in the American Wing of the MFA, Boston

The earliest American portrait print was drawn, cut, and pulled by the Boston artist and educator John Foster (1648-1681).

Born in South Boston, Foster was baptized by the Congregational minister Richard Mather (1596-1669). After graduating from Harvard College in the class of 1667, he became a teacher in the suburb of Dorchester. Foster taught himself printing and by 1675, left teaching to open a print shop on Boylston Street near Washington.

The Graphic Arts collection holds one impression of his first woodcut, a portrait of Richard Mather, printed soon after the minister’s death. There are five known impressions held in public institutions.

John Foster (1648-1681), Portrait of Richard Mather. Woodcut, ca. 1670. Given in memory of Frank Jewett Mather Jr. by his wife, his son, Frank Jewett Mather III, and his daughter, Mrs. Louis A. Turner. Graphic Arts Collection, GA 2006.00728

Foster died of tuberculosis in 1681 and was buried in the Dorchester cemetery not far from Mather’s grave. In the artist’s will funds were set aside to have a pair of ornate gravestones erected to his memory (the text is transcribed above). To preserve the carving, the stones have been removed from the graveyard and are now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Mather’s stone can still be found in the cemetery. http://www.cityofboston.gov/parks/hbgi/DorchesterNorth.asp

At least two elegies were written in honor of John Foster; one by his friend and fellow Dorchester resident Thomas Tileston and the other by Joseph Capen, who graduated several years behind Foster at Harvard. A portion of Capen’s verse is below:

…The Heav’ns which God’s glory doe discover,
Have lost their constant Friend & instant Lover
Like Atlas, he help’t bear up that rare Art
Astronomy; & always took his part;
Most happy Soul who didst not there Sit down
But didst make after an eternal Crown
Sage Archimede! Second Bezaleell
Oh how didst thou in Curious works excel!
Thine Art & Skill deserve to See the Press,
And be Composed in a Printers dress.
Thy Name is worthy for to be enroll’d
In Printed Letters of the choicest Gold

…Thy Body which no activeness did lack
Now’s laid aside like an old Almanack
But for the present only’s out of date;
Twil have at length a far more active State.
Yea, though with dust thy body Soiled be,
Yet at the Resurrection we Shall See
A fair edition & of matchless worth,
Free from Errata, new in Heav’n Set forth:
Tis but a word from god the great Creatour,
It Shall be Done when he Saith IMPRIMATUR
–Joseph Cafen

Sinclair Hamilton, “Portrait of a Puritan, John Foster’s Woodcut of Richard Mather,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 18, no.2 (Winter 1957): 43-48.

Gillett Griffin, “John Foster’s Woodcut of Richard Mather,” Printing & Graphic Arts 7, no. 1 (February 1959).

Samuel Abbott Green, John Foster: The Earliest American Engraver and the First Boston Printer (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1909).