Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Untitled [Sketch of Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad with Ulysses S. Grant], 1865. Pencil drawing. Graphic Arts, GC040 Winslow Homer Collection. Gift of Mrs. David A. Reed.

After several years of extensive travel capturing Civil War scenes for Harper’s Weekly, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) stopped feeding the magazine images almost entirely in 1864. Out of the 52 issues that year, the only Homer drawings published were Anything for Me, if You Please? (a Brooklyn post-office scene) and Thanksgiving Day in the Army. In 1865, with the dramatic end to the war and the death of Lincoln, Homer only sketches three events for Harper’s: Holiday in Camp, Soldiers Playing Football; and the pair: Our Watering-Places, Horse-Racing at Saratoga, and Our Watering-Places, The Empty Sleeve at Newport.

Nearly twenty years later, The Century Magazine published Admiral David Dixon Porter’s account of “Grant’s Last Campaign,” illustrated with a number of wood engravings, including several previously unpublished drawings by Homer. One is in the Graphic Arts Collection, seen above, clearly initialed by Homer and dated 1865. These drawings are specifically cited as drawn from life.

Was Homer invited along with Abraham Lincoln when the president visited general Grant after the battle of Petersburg in April 1865? And if so, why weren’t his drawings of this historic meeting either published or incorporated into oil paintings?

According to the National Park Service report on the Battle of Petersburg (http://www.nps.gov/pete/index.htm) “On the morning of April 3, Lincoln was informed that Petersburg had finally fallen to Federal troops. He decided to go into the city and was accompanied by Admiral David Porter, Captain John Barnes, William Crook, and Lincoln’s son, Tad on a special train. Upon arriving at the station along the U.S. Military Railroad, Lincoln took his seat on Grant’s horse, Cincinnati and with the others rode into the city over the Jerusalem Plank Road.”

“Lincoln and his entourage arrived at the Thomas Wallace house and, while Lincoln and Grant discussed that Grant should defeat Lee and allow Sherman to defeat Joseph Johnston’s army in North Carolina, Tad grew restless until Federal general George Sharpe produced sandwiches. Tad eagerly grabbed them as he exclaimed that being hungry was what had agitated him. Thomas Wallace invited the President and General Grant inside but they opted to remain on the porch. After an hour and a half in the city, Lincoln left to return to City Point.”

Porter’s account in Century Magazine notes, “Mr. Lincoln soon after arrived, accompanied by his little son “Tad,” dismounted in the street and came in through the front gate with long and rapid strides, his face beaming with delight. He seized General Grant’s hand as the general stepped forward to greet him, and stood shaking it for some time and pouring out his thanks and congratulations with all the fervor of a heart which seemed overflowing with its fullness of joy. I doubt whether Mr. Lincoln ever experienced a happier moment in his life. The scene was singularly affecting and one never to be forgotten.”

Winslow Homer (1836-1910), President Lincoln, General Grant and Tad Lincoln at a Railway Station. Reproduced in The Century Magazine (November 1877), p. 134.

The Trail. Freedom, Friendship, & Charity. Improved Order of Red Men (Boston: Designed and published by T.C. Fielding, 1888). Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00908

The Graphic Arts Collection holds this elaborate broadside published for the fraternal organization known as the Improved Order of Red Men (IORM). According to their literature:

“The fraternity traces its origins back to 1765 and is descended from the Sons of Liberty. These patriots concealed their identities and worked “underground” to help establish freedom and liberty in the early Colonies. They patterned themselves after the great Iroquois Confederacy and its democratic governing body. Their system, with elected representatives to govern tribal councils, had been in existence for several centuries.”

“Today, The Improved Order of Red Men continues to offer all patriotic Americans an organization that is pledged to the high ideals of Freedom, Friendship, and Charity. These are the same ideals on which the American nation was founded. By belonging to this proud and historic organization you can demonstrate your desire to continue the battle started at Lexington and Concord to promote Freedom and protect the American Way of Life.”

While this is a male only organization, there is an auxiliary unit called the Degree of Pocahontas for women. The artist, Thomas C. Fielding is listed in business directories as “steel engraver and chart publisher,” specializing in prints for fraternal organizations such as the Masons, IORM, and others. He left publishing in the 1890s to bottle and market spring water.

See also:
Improved Order of Red Men. Great Council of Indiana. Records of the … Great Sun Council of the Great Council of Indiana, Improved Order of Red Men ([Indiana] : The Council, no date). Rare Books Off-Site Storage E78.C6 xI41.

Conestoga chief (Philadelphia, Pa.: H.L. Goodall, 1857). “Devoted to the Improved Order of Red Men — popular literature, instruction and amusement.” Rare Books: Western Americana Collection (WA) Oversize 2008-0020E

Improved Order of Red Men. Cherokee Tribe, no. 19 (Philadelphia, Pa.). Constitution, by-laws and rules of order of Cherokee Tribe, no. 19, Imp’d Order of Red Men (Philadelphia: [s.n.], 1897). Rare Books Off-Site Storage, HS1510.R32 P4 1897s

Published on Aug 27, 2012 by “Big Something” interns Jake Brownell and Brian Wray.

The weather in the fall of 1799 was particularly harsh, as seen in the top half of Gillray’s satire of the Tory Prime Minister William Pitt (1759-1806) and Whig politician Samuel Parr (1747-1825). The four winds blow on the upper right.

A well-known drinker, Parr is represented by the ‘pot of porter’ and Pitt is seen rising out of the beer as a monumental equestrian statue, except his is backwards. The title continues quoting Parr, “its all owing to the War & the cursed Ministry! – have not They ruind the Harvest? – have not They Blighted all the Hops? – Have not They brought on the destructive Rains, that we might be Ruin’d in order to support the War? – & brib’d the Sun not to Shine, that they may Plunder us in the dark?”

The pipe is also a reference to Parr, a smoker, and the introduction he wrote to an edition of three treatises of W. Bellenden, Praefatio ad Bellendenum de Statu, in which he praised Fox and attacked Pitt, among others. He also blamed Pitt for the rising cost of porter and the print notes the price on the mug.

James Gillray (1756-1815), Effusions of a Pot of Porter, – or – Ministerial Conjurations for Supporting the War, as Lately Discovered by Dr. P—r, in the Froth & Fumes of His Favorite Beverage, November 29, 1799. hand-colored etching and aquatint. Graphic Arts Collecton GAX 2014- in process

“Claudine Stella was apprenticed to her uncle Jacques de Stella. She did drawing and painting but gave up painting for engraving, which she preferred and taught to her two sisters. She did both burin engravings and etchings, mostly after Poussin and Jacques Stella. With her supple, fluid approach, she was unsurpassed in her ability to render the colour and genius of Poussin, as well as the more affected talent of Stella. In her will dated 1693, she lists the plates she engraved besides her early works; a grand total of 125.” Benezit Dictionary of Artists

Claudine Stella (1636-1697) after Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Untitled [The Arrest of Christ], no date (1600s). Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.01378

Like many women, Claudine or Claudia Stella lived in the shadow of her uncle, the celebrated painter Jacques de Stella. This print, in the Graphic Arts Collection, along with others in the series, was of questionable attribution for many years. Here’s a bit of Alexander Montgomery’s article “James Stella,” from The Illustrated Magazine of Art, 1854:

Stella sent to Lyons for his nephew, Antoine Bousonnet, and his three nieces, Antoinette, Francoise, and Claudine, taught them drawing, and having perfected them in that art, induced them to apply themselves to engraving, in which branch one of them, Claudine, became justly celebrated. Then were published the innumerable drawings which James Stella had brought from Rome. Francoise Bousonnet, who confined herself to burin engraving, published, in a series of fifty plates, a precious collection of vases, scent-bottles, salt-cellars, lamps, and chandeliers; and in another collection of sixty-seven plates, ornaments suitable for sculpture on different parts of architecture, guilloches, twine, roses, and flowers, imitated from the antique. Antoinette, less laborious, only executed a few etchings.

Claudine, who had taught her two sisters the art of engraving, divided her celebrity with her uncle. Rendered by this learned woman, the works of James Stella rose almost at times to the height of Poussin. This is so true, that the collection of pieces on the “Passion,” which Claudine Bousonnet engraved, and which death prevented her from finishing, were attributed to the painter of Andelys. In truth, one could almost detect in them his heads, and the strong effect and powerful energy of that artist. These compositions are in reality the finest productions of Stella.

Princeton University Library is fortunate to also have a set of 50 engravings by Claudia Stella in the Cotsen Children’s Library.

Jacques Stella (1596-1657), Les ieux et plaisris [sic] de l’enfance (Paris. Aux galleries du Louvre chez la ditte Stella, 1657). [2] 50 engravings. Prints by Claudine Bouzounet Stella. Paper and quality of impressions suggest a later restrike; inscription dated 1846. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) European 18 790

Henry Fenn (1845-1911), Street Scene, no date. Pen and ink on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02372

The watercolorist Harry Fenn (1845-1911) was born in Surrey (England) but moved to the United States in the 1863, eventually settling in Montclair New Jersey. He was a founding member of the American Watercolor Society, as well as the Society of Illustrators.

Along with this lovely pen and ink drawing of an unidentified street scene, Princeton holds 30 books illustrated by Fenn, including National Lyrics, 1865; Our Young Folks, 1865; Specimen of Designing and Engraving on Wood, 1865; Armsmear: The Home, The Arm, and The Armory of Samuel Colt. A Memorial, 1866; Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns, 1866; National Lyrics, 1866; Flower-De-Luce, 1867; Queer Little People, 1868; Snow-Bound; A Winter Idyl, 1868; Trenton Falls, Picturesque and Descriptive, 1868; Adventures in the Wilderness, Or, Camp-Life in the Adirondacks, 1869; Ballads of New England, 1870; Little Pussy Willow, 1870; Winter Poems by Favorite American Poets, 1870; Life of Jesus, The Christ, 1871; Song of the Sower, 1871; Winter Poems by Favorite American Poets, 1871; Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, 1872; Story of the Fountain, 1872; Songs of Nature, 1873; Child Life In Prose, 1875; Poems, 1876; Good Old Times: Or, Grandfather’s Struggles for A Homestead, 1878; Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant, 1878; Fifty Perfect Poems, 1883; Poetical Works of T. Buchanan Read, 1883; Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard, 1884; In The Track of The Sun; Readings from The Diary of A Globe Trotter, 1893; and Niagara Book: A Complete Souvenir of Niagara Falls, 1893.