New season of Antiques Roadshow

I am sitting in a hotel room in Billings, Montana, just about to head off for the appraisers meeting for the second stop on this summer's Antiques Roadshow tour. Earlier this month, my partner Don Cresswell went to San Diego for the first stop. He saw the usual mix of good and bad items and was taped with a terrific map. I hope you will all be able to see this taping when the 2011 Antiques Roadshow series runs, beginning next January.


I arrived in Billings yesterday and was able to visit the Battlefield of Little Bighorn, which was quite a fascinating and moving experience. It was exciting and enlightening to see the actual site and get a good idea of the actual events (the National Park Service does a terrific job with exhibits and signs, etc.) of this legendary episode in the sad history of the relationship between the United States and Native Americans.

This battle was almost immediately obscured by myths that developed around Custer and the events which transpired exactly 134 years ago today. Part of the myth making, of course, came through the propagation of prints of the battle. As I have written a number of times in this blog, the relationship between actual events and the way they are depicted in prints, as well as the impact that prints have on history are subject that I am particularly interested in. I plan to write a blog soon on the subject of printed images of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

On that subject, there is one print, or more specifically a series of prints, of the battle which are more common and had more influence than any other. Those are the prints that were issued by Anheuser-Busch as advertisements for Budweiser beer. I would be very surprised if any reader of this blog has not seen this famous image somewhere, even if not one of the original prints. The print was first issued in 1896 but was revised and continued to be used to as late as 1962. The earlier examples have quite a bit of value, whereas the later ones do not. This is one print I would love to see come in tomorrow at the Roadshow, for it has a very interesting history and is graphically terrific.

So what else might come in for me to see tomorrow? As I wrote last year, I enjoy trying to guess what I might see. Even though Billings is quite a small city and not surrounded by a very large population base, I could see some unusual things. I would expect I might see some good folding maps, as these were often used by those who traveled out to this part of the world in the second half of the nineteenth century. There might be some interesting views of western settlements or perhaps nearby Yellowstone, such as the great series of prints by Thomas Moran.

There also could be some good western art. Most of what we think of as "western art" is more recent than the 19th century. At that time, the west was not as glamorous as it later came to be; it was a rough and dirty and primitive life out here and not many of the general public wanted images of that life nor were there many artists out here making prints of it. There are some good prints done, however, and I hope I might get to see a print by some of the work of, say, Karl Bodmer or George Catlin.

I'll write up a report of my experience next week and with luck you'll get to see one treasure that comes in when the 2011 season runs...

Indian Target Practice

One of the things I love about my profession of antique print & map seller is that I am always running into "new" old prints which I have never seen before and about which there is little or nothing written. It is always a treat to find such an item and then to try to figure out what was going on with it. We recently acquired just such a print, an image of an American Indian with a target stuck right in the middle of his face!

We have never seen anything like this and it seems pretty clear that this is an ephemeral print intended for use as a target. It could be for archery, but given the size of the target, I assume it was for rifle practice. The publisher is J. John & Moser from Magdeburg, Germany, who made postcards and other ephemeral items late in the nineteenth century or right at the beginning of the twentieth. This print appears to be a wood or wax engraving with hand color. It has "No. 2208" in the bottom left corner, so it seems that the firm did other similar prints, maybe a whole series of decorative targets for a German/European audience.


From our experience, the fact that an "Indian target" would be produced in Germany is not at all surprising. The Germans had long been interested in the American west and its "wild Indians." Throughout the nineteenth century, German visitors--tourists, scientists, and artists--traveled about the American west. Prince Maximilian of Wied and Karl Bodmer are probably the most famous, but there were many others such as Rudolph Cronau, who in 1881 was sent to the United States as a special correspondent for the German newspaper Die Gartenlaube. His assignment was to produce a series of articles documenting American landscapes, cities, Native Americans, and life on the frontier, a subject ever popular in Germany.

It fascinates me to look at this print and think about how the image of the Indian with a target drawn in the middle of his face reflects German attitudes to Native Americans (and probably that of many others at the time). I can just imagine a marksman dreaming of being on the frontier of America and taking aim at the wild Indian about to attack him. I suppose I may be reading too much into this print, but it certainly is a wonderfully thought-provoking image.

AHPCS Pittsburgh Meeting

On May 20 to 22, the American Historical Collectors Society held their annual conference in Pittsburgh. The conference, run superbly by Marilyn Bruschi, was filled with good company, interesting talks, and visits to some of Pittsburgh excellent institutions.

On Thursday we visited the Senator John Heinz History Center. The history center is the largest history museum in Pennsylvania and even includes the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum. We had a couple of interesting presentations by the Anne Madarasz, the Museum Division Director, and David Grinnell, the chief archivist. The library, archives and museum include a large number of rare views and books on Pittsburgh history and I spent many, many hours there researching Panorama of Pittsburgh. It was fun to get to revisit the History Center and for other members of the AHPCS to see what a great resource and fun museum it is.

At the end of the afternoon, we were the guests of Bruce Wolf at the famous Duquesne Club, founded in 1873, which has an impressive collection of paintings by local Pittsburgh artists, especially David Gilmour Blythe. The centerpiece in the visit was the viewing of the remarkable 1859 bird's eye view of Pittsburgh by James T. Palmatary. This is the only known example of this print and it was "discovered" and researched by Bruce, with help by AHPCS member John Reps.

Friday was a very busy day filled with exhibitions and lectures. We started at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where we heard scholarly lectures on natural history illustrations in 19th century museum journals, by Bernadette Callery, and on sheet music covers by Mariana Whitmer, from the Society for American Music at the University of Pittsburgh. While I know a reasonable amount about both subjects, I found the lectures filled with interesting facts and insights. Following, I presented a lecture about one aspect of views of Pittsburgh I noticed while writing Panorama of Pittsburgh, viz. that an awful lot of these prints were simply copied from previously issued prints. This happens everywhere, but seemed particularly common in Pittsburgh.

After lunch, we were treated to viewings of a number of wonderful exhibits at two of Pittsburgh's great institutions. We started at the Carnegie, where we viewed an interesting exhibit on "Sixteenth Century Tapestries and Related Prints," and an exhibit I particularly enjoyed on "Cariacature, Satires and Comedy of Manners," featuring prints by Hogarth, Daumier and Francisco Jose de Goya. Amanda Zehnder, who put together this thoughtful, fun and visually excellent exhibit, gave a personal tour, which was universally enjoyed. Following this we went to another Pittsburgh gem, the Hunt Botanical Library at Carnegie Mellon University, were we hear Lugene Bruno talk about botanical printmaking and were able to visit the library and its current exhibition. These exhibits are still up and I highly recommend them to anyone near Pittsburgh.

After this exhausting day, AHPCS members had the chance to explore some of Pittsburgh's superb restaurants and a number of us took the incline up to the top of Mt. Washington, where the view of Pittsburgh is unsurpassed. Unfortunately, I had to leave early the next morning before our visit to my favorite Pittsburgh institution, the Frick Art & Historical Center, the sponsoring institution for both the exhibit and book, Panorama of Pittsburgh. I was especially sorry to miss the presentation by George Nama, a friend who happens to be the most knowledgeable expert on Pittsburgh prints, as well as a terrific artist in his own right. I heard reports that his talk was wonderful, which would make it a fitting end to a wonderful annual conference!

Denver Here We Come!

My blogs have slowed down considerably since I was doing two a week until fairly recently. I have not even quite managed once a week, which is my current goal. There are a number of reasons for this, including presenting a paper at the recent AHPCS conference (that conference is the subject of my next blog, which I hope to get up soon), and the BIG NEWS, which is that I am moving to Denver!
My wife has accepted a terrific job offer from Denver Childrens Hospital and I am tagging along for the ride. Since I have too much fun in this business and with the Print Shop to do anything else, we are going to open a branch in Denver, "The Philadelphia Print Shop (West)." We should be opening sometime in the autumn and plan to locate in Cherry Creek North, which is a very nice shopping district in the city of Denver, not too dissimilar to where we are located in Philadelphia. Our shop in Chestnut Hill will, of course, remain as our primary location, but I'll be taking a good variety of material to Denver with an emphasis, naturally, on western material.
Denver is a wonderful city and my wife and I are really looking forward to the adventure of moving away from the East Coast. I hope anyone from that part of the country will come by and visit. We'll be making a more formal announcement once we have the shop opened, but if I am a bit tardy in posting my blogs, at least now you'll know why!

A puzzling Bunker Hill print

In my last blog I wrote about John Trumbull’’s paintings of events in the American Revolution and of the engravings that were made from three of these paintings: the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Death of Montgomery, and the Declaration of Independence. Trumbull had intended to make engravings of an entire series of his paintings, but it appears that these were the only ones he succeeded in bringing to press. The first two, produced in the late eighteenth century, were engraved by European craftsmen, as Trumbull could not find an American engraver with sufficient skill, but the last, made early in the following century, was engraved by the American Asher B. Durand.

I say that it appears that these were the only three paintings Trumbull was able to have made into prints because there is a fourth engraving of a Trumbull painting which it is possible that he was involved in having made. This is a very rare print which, in fact, is something of a puzzle.

The Trumbull images have been very popular with printmakers over the years, copied by other publishers into prints from early in the nineteenth century until the present day. These copies range from moderate sized, separately issued engravings to small book illustrations to popular lithographs by firms like Currier & Ives to modern color reproductions. The most unusual of these is a print of the Battle of Bunker Hill engraved by John Norman (ca. 1748-1817). That print is quite large (almost exactly the same size as the Müller engraving), may have been engraved in the eighteenth century (even possibly before the Müller engraving), and may (like the Müller engraving) have been commissioned by Trumbull

The print in question is entitled “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill, or the Death of General Warren.” The only credits on the print are “Painted by John Trumbull, Esq.” and “Engraved by J. Norman.” The print is 19 1/2 x 29 1/2 and created by the joining of two plates. There is no indication of publisher, nor of place or date of publication.

John Norman trained as an engraver in London and in 1773 he emigrated to Philadelphia, where he continued in his trade, producing mostly small engravings. In 1781, Norman moved on to Boston where he was particularly involved in engraving maps, becoming an important figure in the Boston chart trade. One of his most important works was the twelve plate “An Accurate Map of the Four New England States,” published in Boston in 1785.

Most of Norman’s earlier plates were copies of European models and the quality of his work is rather crude. The engraving of the Battle of Bunker Hill appears to fit this picture nicely. It seems to be a copy of a European model (Müller’s engraving) and it is definitely crudely done. The print is quite detailed and large, but the engraving quality is really rather poor. So, at first glance it appears that what we have with the Norman print of the battle of Bunker Hill is something fairly common of the period, a crude attempt at copying a European-made engraving.

The problem with this is that the Norman engraving really doesn’t fit this story that well. It just doesn’t make complete sense. A separately issued print like this would have been produced on speculation, with the intent of making money from sales, and who would have had the resources and interest in paying for such a print? This was not just a cheap copy of Trumbull’s image, but a large, elaborate and clearly expensive print. There is no evidence that Norman himself had the resources to undertake such an expensive proposition nor does it seem he ever had any inclination for such ventures.

But who else would, between 1798 (the date of publication of the Müller engraving) and 1817 (Norman’s death), have commissioned such an elaborate and expensive plate from an American engraver of, at least, suspect ability? Trumbull’s own print of the battle of Bunker Hill would have been readily available to anyone who wanted such an engraving and it did not sell that well. I can see someone producing a cheap copy, as the subject would likely have been fairly popular, but not such an expensive and elaborate copy when the original was still around. So if Norman himself did not undertake the production of this print and it doesn’t make sense that another publisher would have, who did?

There are only two names that appear on the print, Norman’s and Trumbull’s. Since we have ruled out Norman, let’s look at the other, John Trumbull himself. Why would Trumbull have commissioned an American engraved version of the Battle of Bunker Hill? There are actually a couple of possible scenarios that have me thinking that one of these is likely the true story of the Norman print.

Trumbull’s two European-made engravings, of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Death of General Montgomery, did not sell well, but in 1817 Trumbull decided to try again by producing a print of his image of the Declaration of Independence. Initially he hired English engraver James Heath to do the work, telling James Madison that he did not believe an American engraver had the experience or skill to produce a quality engraving of this magnitude. There was an outcry against using a European engraver for such a quintessential American subject, so this is when Trumbull turned to the American Asher B. Durand.

It seems possible that at some point previously Trumbull had heard the grumblings about his American subjects having been engraved in Europe and that he thought his prints might sell better if he had an American re-engrave them. He might then have chosen John Norman to do this re-engraving because Norman had shown himself capable of engraving on a large scale, for he had made the twelve sheet “Map of the Four New England States” in 1785. The plates for this map are 54 x 42 cm, which David Bosse argues was larger than any other plates done at the time in America. It is interesting to note that for Norman’s engraving of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which is printed from two plates, the larger plate is 54 x 43 cm.

Under this scenario, sometime in the early 19th century, Trumbull, finding that his European-made prints were not selling well, commissioned Norman to undertake an American-made version, only to be dissatisfied by the results (the print really is not very well made!) and so abandoned the project. This would make sense of a number of things about this print. It would explain who would be willing to put up the money to sponsor such an elaborate copy of Trumbull’s scene, why only Trumbull’s and Norman’s name appear on the plate, why there are so few of these prints around, and why Trumbull made the comment to Madison about American engravers not being able to produce a large print of sufficient quality.

One other scenario is that it was Trumbull who commissioned the print, but much earlier in the process. It took over two years for Trumbull to find an engraver for his Battle of Bunker Hill, so it seems possible that at that time Trumbull might have sent a copy of his painting to America to see if Norman could do the work. If this happened, Trumbull would have seen the quality of the engraving produced and then given up the hope an American could do the work. If this scenario is the true story of this print, the Norman engraving of the Battle of Bunker Hill will actually predate the Müller engraving!

It is fun to try to figure out why the Norman print was made, who paid for it, and when it was done. I have not found any clues in the available information on Trumbull or Norman, but a consideration of the print’s nature leads me to believe that it was Trumbull, at some point, who had Norman try his hand at copying his image. It didn’t work out well for Trumbull, but we are left with this very interesting and puzzling print.

John Trumbull's prints of the American Revolution

John Trumbull’s “Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill” is one of the most famous pictures of American history, an iconic image. In this dramatic scene, the British forces are shown cresting the last defenses of the rebels, who continue to fight bravely. Maj. Gen. Joseph Warren is seen lying mortally wounded, while one of his companions and British officer Maj. John Small restrain a ‘lobster back’ from bayoneting him. This image has appeared in many different formats since Trumbull first painted it in 1785-86, including in numerous prints issued for over two centuries. It is interesting that the publication of a print of this image was actually part of John Trumbull’s intent from the very beginning.

Trumbull, son of the Governor of Connecticut, was uniquely qualified to paint scenes of the American Revolution, as he served in the Continental army during the war and knew first-hand the characteristics of the American and British armies and the nature of this conflict. He also knew many of the participants of the Revolution and so was able to hear first-hand those events he did not himself participate in. During the battle of Bunker’s Hill, Trumbull was stationed in Roxbury, on the far side of Boston from Charlestown, whence he could hear the sounds of the battle.

Trumbull decided as a young man that he wanted to pursue a career as an artist and late in the war he sailed to England to study under Benjamin West, an American who had established himself so well there that he was appointed by King George III as historical painter to the court. At the time, historical painting was considered one of the highest forms of art, but most historical paintings showed mythological, sacred or classical history, and when contemporary events were depicted, the participants were shown in classical dress. West, had in 1770, broken with this tradition by painting the “Death of General Wolfe” with its participants in contemporary uniforms and setting.

There was some controversy over this, but West continued this course with further “modern” history paintings of “The Battle of La Hogue” and “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians.” West encouraged his pupil John Trumbull—-and possibly was even the originator of the idea—-to undertake a series of such painting on the history of the United States. West could not undertake this on his own because of his ties to the King, who would not have taken kindly to his court painter glorifying the recent victory of the Americans over the British.

In 1784, Trumbull took up this project as his main artistic ambition. He began with a painting of “The Death of General Warren at Battle of Bunker’s Hill” in the fall of 1785, finishing it the follow March. This canvas was called by Benjamin West “the best picture of a modern battle that has been painted” and it was well received by those who viewed it in West’s studio. Trumbull had absorbed the style and form of West’s work, but added to this his own personal knowledge of the individuals and the military dress, weapons and events of the time.

Trumbull was worried about the prospects of selling his American historical paintings, for not only would the subject likely rule out any English buyers, but there were in general less patrons who would purchase an historical painting than a personal portrait. To help with the financial situation, West encouraged Trumbull to have the paintings made into prints, for there was a better likelihood he would make money by selling prints than just from the paintings. West told Trumbull that West's painting of “The Battle of La Hogue” sold for only 500 guineas, but that the sale of prints, at one guinea each, had generated three times that amount. Thus from the start, Trumbull intended to have his American historical paintings made into prints, beginning with the first two canvases he was working on, the painting of the battle of Bunker Hill and one showing the death of General Montgomery at Quebec.

Through West, Trumbull met Antonio di Poggi, an artist and print publisher, who agreed to publish the prints for a share of the profits. They decided to look in Paris for an engraver, as no British engraver would dare to do the work on this subject matter. They searched through the summer and early fall of 1786 in Paris and then Frankfurt, with no success. When Trumbull returned to London in October 1786, Poggi kept the paintings to continue to look for an engraver. Poggi finally found Johann Gotthard von Müller, an engraver from Stuttgart, who agreed in July 1788 to undertake the engraving of Trumbull’s Bunker Hill.

In 1789, Trumbull sailed to America to work on promoting the sale of his forthcoming prints. At this stage the engraving by Müller was not progressing very fast. Trumbull tried to market his prints when he arrived and awaited proofs, which Poggi promised to send as soon as they were pulled, to show potential subscribers. In 1795, Trumbull visited Stuttgart and was satisfied with the progress Müller was making. Finally in July 1797, Trumbull heard from Müller that the plate was finished.

Shortly after that, the engraving of the “Death of Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec,” which had been assigned to other engravers, was also finished. Unfortunately, the sale of subscriptions for these prints did not go very well for Trumbull, covering only about three quarters of the cost of their production. This was likely primarily the result of the long delay between the original conception and its fruition, as by the end of the eighteenth century large patriotic engravings of the heroics of the Revolution were not in demand, as they likely would have been a decade earlier. The lack of financial success ended Trumbull’s plan to produce an entire series of engravings of the War of Independence.

Trumbull had, however, been working on a painting of the Declaration of Independence, for which he had spent much effort in making accurate likenesses of the participants. At the end of 1817, Trumbull decided to try again with the production of a print of this historical subject. Initially, he agreed to hire the English engraver James Heath, telling James Madison that he did not believe an American engraver had the experience or skill to produce a work of art of this magnitude. There was, however, something of an outcry about using a European engraver for this quintessential American subject, so Trumbull reconsidered and hired Asher B. Durand, the most accomplished American engraver of the period, to do the work.

The resulting print is a terrific example of both Trumbull’s art and Durand’s skill. However, Trumbull still had problems getting subscribers, even though he had already signed up the then four living Presidents—-Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. By the time the print was published in 1823, Trumbull had sold only about 275 subscriptions, just about breaking even.

These three prints, the Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery, and Declaration of Independence, are among the most desirable American historical prints ever made. They are quite rare, but do come on the market from time to time. Because Trumbull's images are so iconographic, they have appeared in many other prints over the years, including some of considerable quality and some that are merely decorative. In the next blog I will talk about one print that is of particular interest and something of a puzzle.

Steel engravings: large, frameable prints

In the last blog we talked about steel-engraved illustrations. These small prints were issued in very large numbers, usually bound into a book or magazine. Today we’ll look at another group of steel-engraved print, ones at the other end of the size spectrum.

Beginning in the 1840s and lasting primarily into the 1870s, very large steel engravings were issued as separate prints by publishers, intended for people to frame and hang for display. These prints were very popular as decoration in that period and they would have hung in many middle and upper class homes, not to mention in well-heeled offices. Similarly to the small steel engravings, these prints were issued uncolored and would have been displayed as such.

We discussed the advantages of steel engraving in the previous blog and many of these advantages apply also to the large, frameable steel engravings. For instance, steel allowed for the printing of very large numbers of prints without wear. While the large steel engravings were not issued in anywhere near the number of impressions of the book illustrations, they were still run off in large numbers. Also, steel engraving allowed for very fine lines and many of these large prints have an impressive amount of close detail.

One benefit of steel engraving which did not apply to the book illustrations was that it made it practical for printmakers to create larger prints than one could do easily with copper. Many of the frameable steel engravings of the period are quite large, often ranging in the mid-20 inch high by upper-30 inch wide size.

The American Art Union and up-market publishers like Goupil & Co. did produce some lovely genre engraving in steel, but most of the large American, steel engravings had historical subjects. Images of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and other famous American figures appeared time and again. Because of the size, these prints tended not to be just individual portraits, but were scenes at court, cabinet meetings, or other large gatherings of individuals. Political or historical allegories were also popular, and a number of battle scenes likewise appeared in this format.

When issued, these prints were considered not simply to be decorative, but also enlightening and ennobling. They were generally of high quality both in artistic rendering and skillful engraving; “fine” art, not simply “popular” art. They were “serious” prints, intended not just to decorate, but also to educate and inspire. It is interesting that at the time these prints were issued, these steel engravings were more expensive than the similarly-sized hand-colored lithographs, whereas today the opposite is true.

Their popularity seems to have been greatest in the antebellum period, and while they were issued later in the century, other types of large prints overtook them in popularity. At first, large hand-colored lithographs began to appear in greater numbers and then later in the century, large -sized chromolithographs offered just as much wall coverage, but for less cost and with color.

There was something of a revival of interest in large uncolored prints in the 1880s and 90s, with the etching revival, but by the 20th century such art fell well out of favor. It is because of this that many of these wonderful, mid-nineteenth century steel engravings were subsequently colored by printsellers, so that many are found "colorized" today. However, I am pleased to report this is beginning to change. A growing awareness of the historic importance and the visual appeal of these striking black & white images has led to a return of the appreciation of these prints both as fine antiques and as unique art for the home or office.