Caustic and racist satire depicting African American life in the North as depraved, destitute, and corrupt. On "Lovely Lane," at the dilapidated house of prostitution - "Praise the Lord Bare Bones Colored Men Home" - Union soldiers and African American prostitutes carouse, fight, and are rousted by the police. A white man wearing a cross, possibly a caricature of Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, hands a "Tract on Slavery" to an older African American man beggar who sits beneath a notice of an abolitionist talk. Two African American grave diggers display and accept money for their exhumed corpse from a white man physician with the medical newspaper, "Boston Lancet," in his pocket., Inscribed upper left corner: 26., Issued as plate 26 in Sketches from the Civil War in North America (London [i.e., Baltimore]: [the author], 1863-1864), a series of pro-Confederacy cartoons drawn and published by Baltimore cartoonist Adalbert John Volck under the pseudonym V. Blada. The "first issue" of 10 prints (numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 21, 24), with imprint "London, 1863" were printed as etchings. The remaining 20 prints (numbered 4, 8, 9-11, 14, 17-20, 23, 25-27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 40, 45) headed "Second and third issues of V. Blada's war sketches" and dated "London, July 30, 1864" were printed as lithographs., Title and publication information from series at Brown University Library., Research file about artist available at repository., RVCDC, Accessioned 1935., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Creator
Volck, Adalbert John, 1828-1912, artist
Date
[1864]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Volck - Sketches - Volck 26 [2990.F.17]
