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Imprint Annotated Bibliography - 2005
182. Donald R. Friary,
"Illustrations for a New
England Village: Print Collecting at Historic Deerfield," Vol.
30, No. 1
(Spring 2005), 2-13.
Donald Friary recounts the formation of the print collection at Historic Deerfield in an article that features and illustrates a selection of seventeen representative items. The museum's founders, Henry Needham Flynt (1893-1970) and Helen Geier Flynt (1895-1986), who established Historic Deerfield, Inc., in 1952, formed a small, but choice, collection of prints, primarily to hang on the walls of ten historic houses that they restored and furnished in the village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Among their rarities were a Paul Revere Bloody Massacre, John Faber.s mezzotint of Governor Jonathan Belcher, and Nathaniel Hurd.s tiny portrait of The Reverend Joseph Sewall. DD. Their view of prints as decorative arts is seen in two shellwork shadowbox frames made in Boston for Philip Dawe.s The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering and The Bostonians in Distress. Historic Deerfield.s curators took a more scholarly approach to print collecting and found several that appeared in early Deerfield probate inventories, as well as Boston imprints and local scenes. Thomas Johnston's first state (1759) of Quebec, The Capital of New-France is among the prizes. Recently, a collection of fashion plates has been formed to complement Historic Deerfield's outstanding collection of costume. The print collection now numbers more than 400.
183. Russell and Corinne Earnest, "Pen Work and Press Work: The Taufscheine Collection of Klaus Stopp Challenges Assumptions about Fraktur," Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 2005), 14-25.
The authors focus on the Taufscheine, or birth and baptism certificates, in the collection of Klaus Stopp. Such certificates are one type of fraktur, the term Americans use for hand-decorated manuscripts and printed forms made by and for Pennsylvania Germans from 1740 to 1910. Stopp.s collection challenges the prevalent assumption that freehand Taufscheine always preceded printed ones. The evidence suggests that many early and major fraktur artists probably preferred printed forms, such as those printed at Ephrata Cloister . especially bird-panel forms and three-heart forms . and at Reading, Pennsylvania . especially angel-type certificates. The authors discuss and give examples of the work of some of the major fraktur artists, including the Early Ephrata Artist, Heinrich Otto, Heinrich Dulheuer, Arnold Hoevelman, Friederich Speyer, Friederich Krebs, Martin Brechall, the Ehre Vater Artist, and Johann Valentine Schuller. They also consider why such artists might have used printed forms.
184. James Brust, "Unconventional Currier & Ives: A Followup," Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 2005), 26-31.
This is a followup to a 1999 Imprint article titled "Unconventional Currier & Ives," which presented a wide array of unusual items issued by Currier & Ives, and also examples of C & I images copied by others. Included are a map and book illustration by N. Currier, a charcoal and pencil drawing copied from a Currier & Ives print, an elaborately over-printed small folio lithograph used for advertising, and a 1905 real photo postcard that shows an 1845 Currier print. The discovery of these unconventional Currier & Ives items has become an ongoing process, and it is expected that others will surface in the future.
185. Bruce M. Wolf, "Authenticating a Monumental Lithograph of Pittsburgh," Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 2005), 32-38.
Wolf recounts how he determined that a large bird.s-eye view of Pittsburgh (43 x 85 inches) owned by Pittsburgh.s Duquesne Club is an original lithograph dating from ca. 1859-1861. With the help of many, including John Reps and Gary Grimes, Wolf was able to attribute the work to James T. Palmatary, who also produced large lithographs of Chicago, St. Louis, and Baltimore, among other cities.
186.
"Notes by James D. Smillie. upon Presenting His Father.s
Collection
of Engravings to the New York Public Library," ed. By Donald C.
O.Brien,
Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn 2005), 2-6.
James D. Smillie (1833-1909) prepared the "Notes" reproduced here in conjunction with presenting the print collection of his father, James Smillie (1807-1885), to the New York Public Library in 1901. The son describes his father.s work as an engraver in New York City beginning in 1830, after immigrating from Scotland via Quebec. James Smillie engraved plates after the works of numerous artists for several periodicals and for the American Art Union, always striving to effectively translate color into monotone.
187. Hijar, Katherine, "The Pin-up, the Piano, and the Parlor: American Sheet Music,1840-1860," Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn 2005), 7-21.
The piano was a central feature of many nineteenth-century American homes, and pictorial sheet music covers complemented musical pleasures with treats for the eyes. Hijar's essay draws on American sheet music covers from the antebellum period in order to explore some of the subtle ways that these everyday prints brought the erotic into American homes. Hijar looks closely at eight covers from the collection of the American Antiquarian Society to show how artists, lithographers, and publishers marketed imaginary women as objects of beauty and instruments of pleasure. Included in the discussion are lithographs by Eliphalet Brown, Jr.; P. S. Duval; Sarony; Sarony & Major; Sarony & Co.; Sarony, Major, & Knapp; J. H. Bufford; and Currier & Ives.
188. J. Robert Maguire, "His Excellency and Lady Washington: A Pair of Mezzotint Portraits by Joseph Hiller, Sr., or Samuel Blyth?", Vol. 30. No. 2 (Autumn 2005), 22-33.
Of the nearly nine hundred entries in Charles Henry Hart's 1904 Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington, the identity of the engraver of No. 1 on the list has from the start been the subject of speculation. In 1969, Wendy J. Shadwell, a noted authority, persuasively argued the case of Joseph Hiller, Sr., of Salem, Massachusetts, as engraver of the print, together with that of a companion portrait of Martha Washington. Newly considered evidence, however, suggests that the pair of mezzotint portraits may actually have been the work of another Salem engraver, Samuel Blyth. The scholarly collector Hall Park McCullough inspected the Washington print in 1908, and in an unpublished memorandum noted the similarity of the engraving to three unique mezzotints included in the 1904 sale of the celebrated Alfred S. Manson Collection. "It was ptd [painted] the same way," he wrote, referring to the "contemporary style" of hand-coloring mezzotints with liquid-soluble crayon, concluding that they "may all be by Blythe." While Nina Fletcher Little discussed the coloring medium in her authoritative 1972 study of the Blyth brothers of Salem, she did not at that date connect either brother with the rare companion portraits of George and Martha Washington--examples of which were present in the extensive collection she and her husband had assembled. By the time their collection was sold in 1994, however, the two scholarly collectors had apparently come to share Hall Park McCullough's opinion. A single lot in the sale that included the portrait of Lady Washington, two of the three engravings from the Manson sale and a fourth mezzotint, of Cleopatra, signed S. Blyth, are all "attributed to Samuel Blyth (Blythe)." The marked stylistic similarities in the engravings, as well as the coloring, tend to support McCullough.s attribution to Samuel Blyth.
189. Christopher W. Lane, "Even More Unconventional Currier & Ives," Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn 2005), 34-40.
The popular print publisher Currier & Ives used many sources for its prints. While most Currier & Ives prints were based on drawings made specifically for the firm, Nathaniel Currier and James Ives were not above issuing prints taken directly from previously- published images. A pair of previously-undocumented large folio prints, The Pirates and Slave Trade, were just slightly modified lithographic copies of European engravings after Auguste Francois Biard. Another unrecorded Currier & Ives print was simply a reprinting of a British print of New York City titled Broadway From The Bowling Green with a Currier & Ives imprint added.
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