Details
Title Brett, Alphonse
Alternate title A. Brett & Co.
Date 1823-August 18, 1889
Description Alphonse Brett, born in 1823 in France, was a noted chromolithographer of plates and cards, flower prints, building views, book illustrations, sheet music covers, and advertising prints in Philadelphia ca. 1846-1859. Brett printed lithographs delineated by local lithographers W. H. Rease, Christian Schussele, Friend & Aub, Alphonse Bigot, and Louis Haugg. In the early 1850s, he was listed in the Dun credit reports as reliable for credit and a "first-class workman, the best in this country," but as the decade passed, he experienced difficulty with partnerships and finances and ended his near-fifteen year career in Philadelphia in 1859.
Brett partnered with John C. Keffer at 12 Bank (i.e., South Bank) Street by 1846, and produced Christmas and Valentine's Day cards delineated by engraver Nicholson Devereaux. He also created illuminated plates in T. W. Gwilt Mapleson's "Pearls of American Poetry" (one imprinted with the address "12 Bank St.") in 1847. Although their partnership dissolved by mutual consent on February 24, 1847, Brett continued the business from the same location until ca. 1850.
Advertisements for his new shop at 169 Chestnut Street above Fifth Street appeared repeatedly in the "North American" and "Philadelphia Inquirer" between 1850 and 1852 and listed the variety of work he was capable of completing, "such as the drawing and printing of landscapes, views of buildings, architectural and ornamental design, portraits, music titles, maps and labels, executed either plain, or in the colored style of printing denominated Chromo-Lithograph, to perfect which he has procured himself all the latest improvements." These same advertisements also indicated that "he has lately returned from Europe," and an extant New York Passenger list, dated September 13, 1852, places him on the Humboldt ship arriving from Le Havre, France.
Brett subsequently partnered about 1852 until February 1853 with Scotsman David Chillas in A. Brett & Co. at Goldsmiths' Hall on Library Street near Fifth Street. Their short-lived partnership devolved into a court battle for a $1000 debt that reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and culminated in an auction of lithographic stones and other stock of A. Brett & Co. Despite this professional misfortune, Brett continued in business from 4 and 6 South Seventh Street between 1854 and 1856 from where he produced exquisite chromolithographic advertisements for perfumer Apollos Harrison. At the end of 1856, Brett faced misfortune again when his third-story establishment was destroyed by fire with a loss of over $7,000. It was reported that “a number of his customers, who had engraving and finished work in the establishment, are severe losers.” Conflicting reports indicated he had either $5000 in insurance or none. Brett did reestablish his business and between 1857 and 1859 operated from 13 South Sixth Street (i.e., N.E. cor. 6th and Minor). Subsequently, he relocated his lithographic business permanently to New York.
Brett encountered more professional setbacks in New York, including an 1868 incident where he was arrested and accused of assisting the firm Fisk & Hatch in forging checks against the Central Bank of Brooklyn. The following year he was again charged, with his business partner William Jones and other printers in New York, of printing counterfeit notes for the "Haytian Government." These incidents necessarily affected Brett's business, and on March 16, 1870, he filed for bankruptcy.
Nonetheless, the lithographic firm created by Brett in New York, renamed Brett Lithographing Co. in 1872, survived until 1958, when the United States Printing & Lithographing Company acquired it. Brett continued at his firm until his death on August 18, 1889.
During his career in Philadelphia, Brett married the French-born Maria (b. ca. 1826) and resided for several years at 533 Powell (i.e., Delancey Street) in Center City. They had two children, Charles (b. 1854) and Alphonsine (b. 1857), before relocating to New York in the late 1850s. Two more children, Mary E. (b. 1862) and Henry (b. 1864), were born after they relocated. By the time Brett passed away, he resided at 99 Keap Street in Brooklyn, New York.
Is part of Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Billhead from the private collection of David Doret.
References See Bigot, Alphonse; Chillas, David; Friend & Aub; Haugg, Louis; Keffer & Brett; Rease, W.H.; Schussele, Christian
Call number Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Bibliographic citation Annapolis Gazette, May 13, 1869
Census 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880
Equity Proceedings of the Court of Common Pleas of the County of Philadelphia, September Term, no. 13, David Chillas v. Alphonse Brett, Philadelphia City Archives
Groce & Wallace, 78
Last, 42-43
Library Company of Philadelphia research file
New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957
New York Times, March 16, 1870
Pennsylvania, Vol. 135, p. 39, R.G. Dun & Co. Collection, microfilm, Hagley Museum & Library
Peters, 108
Philadelphia Business & City Directories, 1848-1859 (intermittently)
Philadelphia Inquirer, January 17, 1852, January 29, 1852, February 11, 1852
Public Ledger, March 10, 1847 and December 1, 1856
WWWAA, 434