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- Title
- The first steamboat on the Missouri
- Description
- Album page with pre-printed lithographic border containing a drawing and unattributed poem about the first steamboat on the Missouri from the 1838 edition of "The Token and Atlantic Souvenir." Drawing is after Joseph Andrew's engraving of the work by painter John Gadsby Chapman. Depicts two Native American men on a rock, one seated, and portrayed with a forlorn expression, and the other standing with their arms raised in an anguished pose, watching a steamboat in the distance. Poem, "The Indian's Farewell to the Missouri, on seeing the First Steamboat on its Waters," addresses the power of the white man and the steamboat as a harbinger of his usurpation of Native American territories., Title from album page., Date from album page., LCP exhibit catalogue: African American Miscellany p. 45., RVCDC, Description revised 2022., Douglass, an African American artist and early photographer, was an active member of the Philadelphia anti-slavery and civil rights movement.
- Creator
- Douglass, Robert M. J., 1809-1887, artist
- Date
- September 25, 1841
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Martina Dickerson album [13859.Q.70]
- Title
- [Proofs after plates from McKenney and Hall's "History of the Indian Tribes of North America"]
- Description
- Series of three proof, possibly trial, prints after plates from the seminal work about early 19th-century Native American culture containing 117 portraits, several after paintings by Charles Bird King. Depicts No. 3 "Mo-Hon-Go, An Osage Woman"; No. 4 Shar- I-Tar-Ish, A Pawnee Chief; and No. 6 "Se-Quo-Yah, Inventor of the Cherokee Alphabet." Plates possibly trials for the Rice & Rutter edition published 1865-1870., Title supplied by cataloger., Contain registration marks., Contain plate numbers., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
- Date
- [ca. 1865]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Specimens Album [P.9349.63a & 64a&b]
- Title
- [Job printing specimens for certificates, bank notes, receipts, labels, and billheads]
- Description
- Series of specimens (some proofs) depicting masonic, military, allegorical, and patriotic imagery, transportation views, women, agriculture, buildings, animals, and machinery. Includes views of locomotives traveling railroad tracks; sailing and steam boats; mines and mine workers; distilleries and refineries; farmers, farm hands, and farm animals; female allegorical figures of liberty, justice, and bounty; and sailors, blacksmiths, and steam factory workers. Imagery also depicts Native Americans; peasants; sheep herding; the American eagle; masonic emblems; historical and patriotic figures, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin; storefronts, factories, and government buildings, including A. Exton cracker bakery (Trenton, N.J.) and Phoenix Iron Foundry (Wilmington, Del.); military camp and solider; deers, dogs, and children with animals; state and corporate seals, including Pennsylvania; and a city block on fire and an erupted volcano., Title supplied by cataloger., Various printers, including Ehrgott & Fobriger, Klauprech & Menzel, Stein & Jones, and Jacob Weiss., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
- Date
- [ca. 1860-ca. 1865]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Specimens Album [P.9349.155-162]
- Title
- [Specimens album]
- Description
- Scrapbook of print specimens and proofs probably compiled by a printer associated with the Philadelphia lithographic firm Stein & Jones. Contains book and periodical plates and illustrations; sheet music covers; proof prints; collecting cards; trade cards (several glossed); bank notes, checks, billheads, and receipts; certificates; advertising calendars; and chromolithographed labels and scraps. Majority of contents include several plates from Thomas Allom's "China: In a Series of Views,..." (London, 1860), Albert Barnes's "Scenes and Incidents in the Life of the Apostle Paul" (Philadelphia, 1869), John Fleetwood's "The life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Philadelphia, 1871) and Daniel March's "Our Father's House , or The Unwritten Word" (Philadelphia, 1871); illustrations and plates depicting genre, religious, sentimental, historical, natural history, scientific, and scenic views from children and gift books, and periodicals, including "Leila in England" and "Leila at Home" (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1875-1880), "Peterson's Magazine" (plates engraved by Illman Brothers), "Ladies Companion," "Graham's Magazine," "Odd Fellow's Casket," "Transactions and Proceedings of American Entomological Society" and "Annals Lyceum of Natural History"; and several works printed by Stein & Jones and Cincinnati lithographers Klauprech & Menzel and Ehrgott & Fobriger, including trade cards, labels, tickets, invitations, certificates, receipts, checks, bank notes, sheet music covers, advertisements, and book illustrations., Bank notes, receipts, checks, and certificates document primarily Philadelphia and New York bank, coal, oil, steel, and real estate businesses, including Bank of Fashion, Belmont Petroleum Refinery, and Union College Bank. Trade cards, tickets, invitations, and labels represent primarily Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York, Cincinnati and Chicago businesses and organizations, including printers and art supply dealers; perfume, patent medicine, wine, dry goods, and clothing dealers; doctors and dentists; bankers and brokers; and manufacturers. The materials contain patriotic, agricultural, and transportation vignettes, views of buildings, anaglyptography (i.e., medal engraving), allegorical figures, and Centennial Exhibition (1876) imagery. Sheet music covers, predominantly printed by Ehrgott & Fobriger, depict mainly genre and Civil War scenes, portraiture, including images of entertainers, and advertisements such as "Sewing Machine Polka." Work by the Cincinnati lithographers also include several book illustrations depicting Ohio and Cincinnati asylums, institutes, seminaries, and landmarks, as well as uncut sheets of views of cemetery monuments for "The Cincinnati Cemetery of Spring Grove..." (Cincinnati, 1862). Several of the ephemera also printed by Grattan & Co., Theodore Leonhardt, and Wm. F. Murphy & Sons., Scrapbook also contains 1860s Berlin wool work patterns ("Peterson’s Ladies National Magazine"); ornate border print specimens, some with cut-out overlays; proofs and final states of textile, fruit, liquor, druggist labels, and tobacco labels printed predominantly by Stern, Jonas & Co. and Steng & Paxson and depicting romantic, patriotic, and mystical themes, including "I Am Free" logo illustrated with an African American man ; European prints, including plates from Bernard-Romain Julien "Cours Elementaire," and issued by German publisher A.H. Payne (some hand-colored); ca. 1855 Bowen & Co. plates of birds from "United States Pacific Rail Road Expedition and Survey"; color printed and numbered proof lithographs depicting Mo-Hon-Go; Shar- I-Tar-Ish; Se-Quo-Yah after plates in McKenney & Hall's "History of the Indian Tribes of North America"; Philadelphia Sketch Club signage; portraits of Catholic bishops, celebrity and political figures, and lithographers Rudolph Stein and Alfred Jones; mechanical views printed by William Boell; job printing specimen vignettes depicting masonic, military, allegorical, and patriotic imagery, transportation views, women, entertainers, agriculture, buildings, animals, and machinery; collecting cards showing George and Martha Washington, Civil War generals, celebrities, including Lydia Thompson and Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosasea, wild life, Biblical animals, fashion, and satiric scenes; and chromolithographic scrap portraits of women., Stamped on spine: Specimens., Various artists, engravers, lithographers, and printers including Ackerman; John Alexander; Thomas Allom; William Boell; John T. Bowen,; Bowen & Co.; Byram & Slack; C. E. Wemple & Co.; Donaldson Brothers ; G. Dow; Ehrgott & Fobriger; Dominque Fabronius; Grattan & Co.; The Hatch Lith. Co.; Otto Knirsch; L. H. Bradford & Co.; Klauprech & Menzel; Theodore Leonhardt; London Printing and Publishing Company; McLaughlin Bros.; Antoine [Maurin?]; A.H. Payne; Prang & Co.; Rawdon, Wright & Hatch; William H. Rease; Sarony & Major; John Sartain; Samuel Sartain; R. Trembley; J. Shobe; Steng & Paxson; Stern, Jonas & Co.; A. B. Walter; and Wm. F. Murphy & Sons., Index of general subjects illustrated available at repository., Several items found loose in album removed and housed separately., Gift of Margaret Robinson, 1991., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
- Date
- [ca. 1852-ca. 1876]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.9349], https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A120747?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=a3bf36a0044447b21c5b&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0#page/3/mode/1up
- Title
- [Geo. S. Harris & Sons print specimens]
- Description
- Series of specimens, primarily for trade cards and labels, printed by the prominent Philadelphia lithographic firm. Subjects include fanciful, allegorical, and sentimental scenes and portraiture with women, children, and flowers; hunting and recreational scenes; international iconography; animals (dogs, horses, and an alligator clutching a Black baby in its jaws); political and military imagery, including President James Garfield; land and marinescapes; and mythological and fairy tale views. Collection also includes specimen without an imprint and probably printed by Harris showing a plantation scene with a white man, attired in a straw hat, a white collared shirt, white pants, and a sword on his waistband, placing his right hand on the shoulder of a barefooted Black man, attired in a straw hat, a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and white pants that are torn at the bottom, who carries a hoe. They stand before a body of water surrounded by flowers and trees with the plantation in the background. Racist scene shows a white female angel with wings pouring packages of tobacco from a cornucopia to a group of men and women from various ethnic groups and nationalities, including Native Americans, Chinese, Spanish, and Middle Eastern people, many of which smoke cigars, hookahs, and pipes. Specimen depicting a man, attired in a turban with a dagger in his waistband, kneeling with a rifle beside him. Surrounding him are palms and desert plants. In the right background, a lions stands and looks on., Title supplied by cataloger., Publication date inferred from content of one print depicting President James Garfield., Originally part of Specimens Album [P.9349]., Gift of Margaret Robinson, 1991., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
- Date
- [ca. 1881]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Specimen Album Loose Prints Collection - Geo. S. Harris [P.9349.279, 283-284, 292, 298-307, 309, 317-318, 321, 328-329, 332, 436-437, 439, 441-442, 447, 451-453 & 455-456]
- Title
- Engravings by William Humphrys
- Description
- Scrapbook of print specimens and proofs engraved by Philadelphia and London engraver William Humphrys. Contents include postage stamp proofs, book and periodical illustrations, tile pages, portrait prints, advertisements, and cut outs of banknote and certificate vignettes. Majority of graphics depict allegorical imagery or illustrations of genre, religious, sentimental, and literary scenes, some from the plays of Shakespeare. Illustrations include scenes of courtship; female friendship; children with animals; a ghoulish-looking woman with a torch; a European man smoking a hookah; Jesus Christ; Adam & Eve; and imagery from Edmund Spencer's "Faery Queen", John Milton's "Palemon's Story," and John Gay's "Thursday: or The Spell." Allegorical works depict the figures of Columbia, Minerva, Mercury, Neptune, Bounty, Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Hope, and Apollo, as well as scenes with the American eagle; caducei for the "Liverpool Apothecaries Company"; citizens fighting a fire; cherubs charting a globe; Native Americans; a family; sailing ships; and symbols of farming, trade, and industry. Vignettes also show a portrait of Benjamin Franklin; Pocahontas saving John Smith; and a female warrior slaying a man of royalty captioned "Sic Semper Tyranus.", Portrait prints, some probably from the British periodical "Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country," depict Israel Putnam; George Washington; Gustavus Adolphus; Mrs. Sloman, of Covent Garden Theatre in the Character of Baltimore; Thomas Carlyle; William Dunlop; Letitia Elizabeth Landon; D. M. Moir; and Henry Purcell. Scrapbook also contains an 1844 banknote specimen of "La Provincia de Buenos Aires" illustrated with vignettes of ostriches; ca. 1845 postage stamp proof depicting Queen Victoria after the Chalon portrait; a full-length portait of an unidentified man, possibly Humphrys; and an advertisement for the Philadelphia artist Joshua Shaw showing a man leading his horse down a bucolic path, as well as engravings after his work of a landscape and an advertisement for Cohen's Lottery Exchange Office, Baltimore., Title from stamp on spine., Morocco binding., Various American and British artists, including W. Chatfield, John Opie, Joshua Shaw, Robert Smirke, C. R. Leslie, Charles L. Eastlake, W. E. West, George Smithard, Carlo Dola, A.E. Chalon, J. Wood, J. Stephanoff, Pastorini, Alfred Croquis (i.e., Daniel Maclise), A. F. Tireggi, John James Barralet, J. Banks, J. M. Wright, Thomas Stothard, P. Williams, Camille Roqueplan, and R. Westall., Various American and British printers and publishers, including H. S. Singleton, J. P. Davis, and James Fraser., Manuscript letter by Humphry completed January 10, 1865 to Anna Holloway pasted on opening page to scrapbook. Letter details his ill health, which in spite of, he still appreciates "the brightness of the sun, the greeness of the earth, and the beauty of extreme nature.", Some scrapbook pages contain manuscript notes identifying the genre of the specimen., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1967, p. 55., William Humphrys (1795-1865), born in Dublin, immigrated to the United States early in his life and studied engraving under George Murray in Philadelphia. He worked as an engraver in the city circa 1815-1823 producing book illustrations, advertisements, and banknote and certificate vignettes. He also served as secretary for the Association of American Artists. Relocating to England, he produced similar work before returning to the United States in 1843. In 1845, he moved to Dublin to engrave "The Reading Magdalene" for the Royal Irish Art Union before returning to England where he worked as an engraver for the firm Perkin, Bacon, and Co. During this employ, he was noted for his re-engraving of the head of Queen Victoria for the 1 d postage stamp. Humphrys retired from engraving in his later years and worked as an accountant for the printing firm Novello & Co. He died at the Novellos' Genoa villa on January 21, 1865.
- Creator
- Humphrys, William, 1795-1865
- Date
- [ca. 1817-ca. 1845]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Humphrys [7607.F]
- Title
- American celebrities album
- Description
- Two volume set of albums containing predominately cartes de visite photographic portraits of prominent American 19th-century figures in politics, education, and the arts. Portraits depict actors, artists, authors, Congressmen, educators, governors, military leaders, physicians, publishers, religious leaders, social reformers, scientists, and U.S. presidents and their spouses. Includes mostly vignette and bust-length portraits and a small number of full length portraits. Also contains a small number of trimmed portrait engravings, tintypes, and a photo-collage depicting evangelist D. L. Moody with the under photograph copyrighted 1877. Small number of sitters are unidentified., Men sitters include P. T. Barnum; Henry Ward Beecher; John Brown; Ned Buntline; Samuel Clemens; Jefferson Davis; O. S. Fowler; Oliver Wendell Holmes; Abraham Lincoln; Samuel Morse; Thomas Nast; Hiram Powers; Winfield Scott; Gerrit Smith; Cornelius Vanderbilt; John Wanamaker; Brigham Young; Native American chiefs Ouray, Spotted Tail, and Sitting Bull; and African Americans Frederick Douglass and performer "Blind" Tom. Women sitters include presidential spouses Frances Cleveland and Lucretia Garfield; reformers Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull; authors Louisa May Alcott, Helen Hunt (Jackson), Harriet Beecher Stowe; sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Vinnie Ream; and performers Maria Albani, Charlotte Cushman, and Kate Field., Title from item's cover., Photographers include Mathew Brady, E. & H. T. Anthony; Jeremiah Gurney; and George Kendall Warren., Majority of sitters identified by a manuscript note on the album page or on portrait or an inscribed label., Brown leather bindings with gilt, stamped in gilt on front boards: Volume I: American Celebrities. Vol. I.; Volume II: American Celebrities. Vol. II. Stamped in gilt on spines: Album., Purchase 1985., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., See "American Celebrities Album" item-level records for digital images of all identified individual sitters.
- Date
- [ca. 1870-ca. 1890]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9100.1 & 2]