Victorian Portrait Prints

'Anti-Vivisection' Vanity Fair portrait of The Hon. Stephen Coleridge Hentschel-Colourtype. 1910. Stephen William Buchanan Coleridge (1854-1936) was an English author, barrister,...

Vanity Fair portrait of General Sir Francis Grenfell KCB Chromolithograph, 1889. Field Marshal Francis Wallace Grenfell, 1st Baron Grenfell, GCB, GCMG, PC was a British Army offic...

'Hydrophobia' Vanity Fair medical portrait of Louis Pasteur. Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable b...

'Badminton' Chromolithograph. 1897. Vanity Fair portrait of Alfred Edward Thomas Watson (1849-1922) who was a Music and Drama Critic. He wrote for the Saturday Review and occasion...

'Joe' Hentschel-Colourtype. 1910. Vanity Fair portrait of Sir Joseph Lyons who founded the famous Cafe shops. 380mm by 265mm (sheet)

'Aldershot Cavalry' Vanity Fair portrait of Major General The Hon. Reginald Talbot CB. (1841-1929). He was Governor of Victoria, Australia, from 25 April 1904 to 6 July 1908, taking...

'A Good Soldier' Chromolithograph. 1884. Vanity Fair portrait of Lt.General George Wentworth Alexander Higginson. He joined the Grenadier Guards at 19 and fought in the Crimean W...

'R.A.M' Chromolithograph. 1904. Vanity Fair musician portrait of Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847 - 1935) who was a Scottish composer, conductor and teacher best known for h...

'The Lord Mayor' Chromolithograph. 1902. Vanity Fair portrait of Sir Joseph Cockfield Dimsdale (1849-1912), Lord Mayor of London 1901-1902. With original descriptive text. 395mm...

'Repton, Oxford & Somerset' Vanity Fair portrait of Lionel Charles Hamilton Palairet (1870-1933) who was an English amateur cricketer who played for Somerset and Oxford University....

'Finger Prints' Chromolithograph. 1905. Vanity Fair portrait of Sir Edward Richard Henry, 1st Baronet GCVO KCB CSI KPM (1850-1931) who was the Commissioner of Police of the Metropo...

'Position' Chromolithograph, 1874, after Ape (Carlo Pellegrini 1839-1889) Vanity Fair portrait of the Duke of Devonshire. 380mm by 260mm (sheet)

'Giorgio Washington' Stipple engraving by Giovanni Antonio Sasso (active 1809-1816) after Jean Bosio (1767-1832), 1818. 220mm by 155mm (platemark) 295mm by 220mm (sheet) George W...

'Eduard Strauss' Chromolithograph, 1895. Vanity Fair musician portrait of Eduard Strauss (1835 – 1916) the Austrian composer. 400mm by 270mm (sheet)

'The Cavalry Division' Vanity Fair portrait of Field Marshall John French (1852-1925). He was an English commander who served in the Soudan, Boer War and World War I. Godfrey Doug...

'Corney Grain' Chromolithograph. 1885. Vanity Fair portrait of Corney Grain (1844-1895) playing the piano. Corney Grain was a British barrister turned actor, entertainer, and music...

'The Speaker' Chromolithograph, 1887. Vanity Fair portrait of The Rt. Hon. Arthur Wellesley Peel PC (1829 - 1912), who was a British Liberal politician who sat in the House of Com...

'The Lobster' Vanity Fair cricket portrait of Digby Jephson. Jephson was an all-rounder for Surrey who is best remembered for his lob bowling, a style he cultivated after employing...

'Beer' Chromolithograph, 1871, after Ape (Carlo Pellegrini 1839-1889) Vanity Fair portrait of Michael Thomas Bass (1799 -1884) was a British brewer and MP. Under his leadership, Ba...

'Little Darling' Chromolithograph. 1897. Vanity Fair musician portrait of Charles John Darling (1849-1936), lawyer, politician and High Court judge. 395mm by 265mm (sheet)

'First Violin' Chromolithograph, 1884, after Ape (Carlo Pellegrini 1839-1889) Vanity Fair portrait of Alfred (1844-1900), the second son of Queen Victoria. He was known as the Duke...

'New York Tribune' Chromolithograph. 1902. Vanity Fair portrait of Whitelaw Reid who was a US politician and newspaper editor. 395mm by 265mm (sheet)

'Praise and Prayer' Chromolithograph, 1874, after Ape (Carlo Pellegrini 1839-1889) Vanity Fair portrait of Ira D. Sankey (1840 -1908), known as The Sweet Singer of Methodism, who w...

'Crystal Palace' Chromolithograph. 1895. Vanity Fair portrait of Sir August Friedrich Manns (1825-1907) who was a German-born conductor who made his career in England. After servi...

Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish wicketkeeper for Middlesex and England. Tayler was an English artist who was a member of the Royal Academy of Painters. He was a cricketer himself, a...

'a good soldier'. Vanity Fair portrait of Lt.General George Wentworth Alexander Higginson, who was born in 1826. He joined the Grenadier Guards at 1...

'Frank Wootton' Hentschel-Colourtype, 1909 Vanity Fair portrait of Frank Wootton. (1893 -1940), known as "Frank" or "Frankie", and sometimes referred to as "The Wonderboy", who wa...

'Bobby' Vanity Fair cricket portrait of Robert Abel. Abel was a right hand batsman and bowler for Surrey and England. 390mm by 265mm (image)

Leonard Braund was a bowler for Somerset and England. Tayler was an English artist who was a member of the Royal Academy of Painters. He was a cricketer himself, and in 1905 he made...

Vanity Fair color chromolithograph caricature of "First Violin " Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gothan by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini)...

'His religion is the worship of all sorts of winged and finny freaks' Chromolithograph, 1905. Vanity Fair portrait of of Sir Edwin Ray Lankester. KCB, FRS (1847 -1929) was an inve...

'Impromptu' Chromolithograph. 1908. Vanity Fair portrait of Mark Hambourg (1879-1960) who was a distinguished Russian-British concert pianist, among the most famous of his age. ...

Vanity Fair color chromolithograph caricature of Rev. Edgar Sheppard "A Great Marrier" by Spy (Leslie Ward) March 14, 1904 from the "Clergymen" series....

A Vanity Fair chromolithograph caricature of Sir Henry James, M.P., ("Nervous"), Statesman by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) March 7, 1874, No. 164 from the ...

A hand colored Vanity Fair caricature of a 19th century opera singer, M Jean de Reszke, entitled 'Polish Tenor'. The print was created by the most famou...

'The Cavalry Division' Vanity Fair portrait of Admiral Sir Compton Edward Domvile GCB GCVO (1842-1924) who was a distinguished Royal Navy officer in the Edwardian era. 390mm by 26...

'Sam Loates' Vanity Fair portrait of Samuel "Sam" Loates (1865 - 1932) was a British Thoroughbred horse racing jockey who was the Champion Jockey of 1899. 395mm by 265mm (sheet)

'Top of the List' Vanity Fair portrait of William Higgs (1880-1958). Higgs was a Irish jockey who was Champion Jockey on two occasions He won the 2000 Guineas on Slieve Gallion. ...

'H Searle, Professional Champion Sculler of the World'. Vanity Fair rowing portrait of Henry Searle (1866-1889), an Australian sculler who raced in...

London: Thomas McLean, 1818. Third Edition. Etching with hand coloring in watercolor on cream wove paper, (published August 1st, 1835), 9 1/2 x 13 3/4 in...

London: Thomas McLean, 1835. Etching with hand coloring in watercolor on cream wove paper, 4 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches (120 x 165 mm), full margins. Printed by Thomas McLean. Light, small c...

Walter Lees was a bowler for Surrey and England. Tayler was an English artist who was a member of the Royal Academy of Painters. He was a cricketer himsel...

This is a 19th century Vanity Fair color chromolithograph caricature of William Booth "The Salvation Army" by Spy (Leslie Ward) November 25, 1882, No. 2...

From, The Progress of a Midshipman, Exemplified in the Career of Master Blockhead 1860 (plate 7) Etching with handcoloring in watercolor on cream wove paper, 8 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches (2...

London: Thomas McLean, 1820. Second Edition. Etching with handcoloring in watercolor on cream wove paper (published 1835), 8 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches (210 x 29 0mm), full margins. Second...

'Kismet' Vanity Fair portrait of Mr Oscar Asche (1871 -1936) who was an Australian actor, director and writer, best known for the record-breakin...

'A Connoisseur' Vanity Fair portrait of John Seymour Lucas (1849-1923) who was a Victorian English historical and portrait painter as well as an accompl...

'Frances Sargent Osgood' Steel-engraving after the painting by Chappel. 1872. Facsimile signature below the image. Frances Sargent Osgood (1811-1850) was an American poet and one of the most popular women writers during her time and was also famous for her exchange of romantic poems with Edgar Allan Poe. Alonzo Chappel...

Love and Death (after George Frederic Watts, R.A., H.R.C.A. 1817 - 1904). 1900. Mezzotint. Hardie 71 between i and ii. 24 1/2 x 12 (sheet 27 1/4 x 13 3/ 8). Edition 350 in state one. London, Published May 1st 1900 by Robert Dunthorne ,5 Vigo Street, London W. Rubbing and discoloration from a previous mat in the margins, well outside the image. A rich proof printed on Japon paper. Signed in pencil by Watts and by Short. Housed in an archival folder ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Winged Love...

Hand-coloured tableau of a weeping spirit and her guardians, immobilised in marble. A disjointed narrative looking at recovery and protection, the angels shield the spirit with tender embraces and cry for her when alone. Taken from The Sialia Marbles, a series of portraits containing ephemeral human sculptures taken between 2016-19. Together these works act as tales contained in a fictional sculpture hall, in direct reaction to Andre Malraux’s 1947 Le Musee Imaginaire (Museum Without Walls). During the beginning of the 'Museum Age' in the 18th century , writer Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe discussed mythical...

'Ape' Vanity Fair portrait of Carlo Pellegrini (1839-1889), nicknamed 'Ape', who was an artist who served from 1869 to 1889 as a caricaturist for Va...

'a sculptor' Vanity Fair portrait of Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland-Leveson-Gower. He was a connoisseur and collector. He practised as a sculpto...

'Rhinology' Vanity Fair portrait of Dr Robert Spicer, 'a specialist in matters relating to ears, noses and throats'. Accompanied by original descriptive text. 380mm by 260mm (sh...

Artist: Currier & Ives after Chaz Zellinsky after J. Cameron Title: The Grand Racer Kingston by Spendthrift Year: 1891 Medium: Hand-colored Lithograph Image Size: 19 x 26 inches Fram...

'Popular Astronomy' Vanity Fair portrait of Irish astronomer Sir Robert Stawell Ball (1840-1913). In 1867 he became Professor of Applied Mathema...

'He painted '"he Doctor"' Vanity Fair portrait of Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, KCVO, RA (1843-1927) who was an English painter and illustrator born at Liverpo...

The present hand-colored lithograph is an excellent example of patriotic mid-nineteenth century American imagery. The print shows the battle and several of the major figures involved in the Battle of Lake Erie: At the center is a view of several frigates on the lake, embroiled in conflict. Above the battle is the quotation: "We have met the enemy and they are ours." Surrounding are laurel-lined roundels with portraits of Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819), Stephen Dicateur (1779-1820), Johnston Blakeley (1871-1814), William Bainbridge (1774-1833), David Porter (1780-1843), and James Lawrence (1781-1813) - all of these framed by American flags, banners and cannons. This print shows that the Battle of Lake Erie, part of the War of 1812, still held resonance for American audiences several decades later and was part of the larger narrative of the founding of the country. 9.5 x 13.5 inches, artwork 20 x 23.38 inches, frame Entitled in the image Signed in the stone, lower left "Lith. and Pub. by N. Currier" Inscribed lower right "2 Spruce N.Y." and "No. 1" Copyrighted lower center "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1846 by N. Currier in the Clerk's office of the Southern District of N.Y." Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting and housed in a gold gilded moulding. Nathaniel Currier was a tall introspective man with a melancholy nature. He could captivate people with his piercing stare or charm them with his sparkling blue eyes. Nathaniel was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 27th, 1813, the second of four children. His parents, Nathaniel and Hannah Currier, were distant cousins who lived a humble yet spartan life. When Nathaniel was eight years old, tragedy struck. Nathaniel’s father unexpectedly passed away leaving Nathaniel and his eleven-year-old brother Lorenzo to provide for the family. In addition to their mother, Nathaniel and Lorenzo had to care for six-year-old sister Elizabeth and two-year-old brother Charles. Nathaniel worked a series of odd jobs to support the family, and at fifteen, he started what would become a life-long career when he apprenticed in the Boston lithography shop of William and John Pendleton. A Bavarian gentleman named Alois Senefelder invented lithography just 30 years prior to young Nat Currier’s apprenticeship. While under the employ of the brothers Pendleton, Nat was taught the art of lithography by the firm’s chief printer, a French national named Dubois, who brought the lithography trade to America. Lithography involves grinding a piece of limestone flat and smooth then drawing in mirror image on the stone with a special grease pencil. After the image is completed, the stone is etched with a solution of aqua fortis leaving the greased areas in slight relief. Water is then used to wet the stone and greased-ink is rolled onto the raised areas. Since grease and water do not mix, the greased-ink is repelled by the moisture on the stone and clings to the original grease pencil lines. The stone is then placed in a press and used as a printing block to impart black on white images to paper. In 1833, now twenty-years old and an accomplished lithographer, Nat Currier left Boston and moved to Philadelphia to do contract work for M.E.D. Brown, a noted engraver and printer. With the promise of good money, Currier hired on to help Brown prepare lithographic stones of scientific images for the American Journal of Sciences and Arts. When Nat completed the contract work in 1834, he traveled to New York City to work once again for his mentor John Pendleton, who was now operating his own shop located at 137 Broadway. Soon after the reunion, Pendleton expressed an interest in returning to Boston and offered to sell his print shop to Currier. Young Nat did not have the financial resources to buy the shop, but being the resourceful type he found another local printer by the name of Stodart. Together they bought Pendleton’s business. The firm ‘Currier & Stodart’ specialized in "job" printing. They produced many different types of printed items, most notably music manuscripts for local publishers. By 1835, Stodart was frustrated that the business was not making enough money and he ended the partnership, taking his investment with him. With little more than some lithographic stones, and a talent for his trade, twenty-two year old Nat Currier set up shop in a temporary office at 1 Wall Street in New York City. He named his new enterprise ‘N. Currier, Lithographer’ Nathaniel continued as a job printer and duplicated everything from music sheets to architectural plans. He experimented with portraits, disaster scenes and memorial prints, and any thing that he could sell to the public from tables in front of his shop. During 1835 he produced a disaster print Ruins of the Planter's Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O’clock on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom Escaped with their Lives. The public had a thirst for newsworthy events, and newspapers of the day did not include pictures. By producing this print, Nat gave the public a new way to “see” the news. The print sold reasonably well, an important fact that was not lost on Currier. Nat met and married Eliza Farnsworth in 1840. He also produced a print that same year titled Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Evening, January 18, 1840, by which melancholy occurrence over One Hundred Persons Perished. This print sold out very quickly, and Currier was approached by an enterprising publication who contracted him to print a single sheet addition of their paper, the New York Sun. This single page paper is presumed to be the first illustrated newspaper ever published. The success of the Lexington print launched his career nationally and put him in a position to finally lift his family up. In 1841, Nat and Eliza had their first child, a son they named Edward West Currier. That same year Nat hired his twenty-one year old brother Charles and taught him the lithography trade, he also hired his artistically inclined brother Lorenzo to travel out west and make sketches of the new frontier as material for future prints. Charles worked for the firm on and off over the years, and invented a new type of lithographic crayon which he patented and named the Crayola. Lorenzo continued selling sketches to Nat for the next few years. In 1843, Nat and Eliza had a daughter, Eliza West Currier, but tragedy struck in early 1847 when their young daughter died from a prolonged illness. Nat and Eliza were grief stricken, and Eliza, driven by despair, gave up on life and passed away just four months after her daughter’s death. The subject of Nat Currier’s artwork changed following the death of his wife and daughter, and he produced many memorial prints and sentimental prints during the late 1840s. The memorial prints generally depicted grief stricken families posed by gravestones (the stones were left blank so the purchasers could fill in the names of the dearly departed). The sentimental prints usually depicted idealized portraits of women and children, titled with popular Christian names of the day. Late in 1847, Nat Currier married Lura Ormsbee, a friend of the family. Lura was a self-sufficient woman, and she immediately set out to help Nat raise six-year-old Edward and get their house in order. In 1849, Lura delivered a son, Walter Black Currier, but fate dealt them a blow when young Walter died one year later. While Nat and Lura were grieving the loss of their new son, word came from San Francisco that Nat’s brother Lorenzo had also passed away from a brief illness. Nat sank deeper into his natural quiet melancholy. Friends stopped by to console the couple, and Lura began to set an extra place at their table for these unexpected guests. She continued this tradition throughout their lives. In 1852, Charles introduced a friend, James Merritt Ives, to Nat and suggested he hire him as a bookkeeper. Jim Ives was a native New Yorker born in 1824 and raised on the grounds of Bellevue Hospital where his father was employed as superintendent. Jim was a self-trained artist and professional bookkeeper. He was also a plump and jovial man, presenting the exact opposite image of his new boss. Jim Ives met Charles Currier through Caroline Clark, the object of Jim’s affection. Caroline’s sister Elizabeth was married to Charles, and Caroline was a close friend of the Currier family. Jim eventually proposed marriage to Caroline and solicited an introduction to Nat Currier, through Charles, in hopes of securing a more stable income to support his future wife. Ives quickly set out to improve and modernize his new employer’s bookkeeping methods. He reorganized the firm’s sizable inventory, and used his artistic skills to streamline the firm’s production methods. By 1857, Nathaniel had become so dependent on Jims’ skills and initiative that he offered him a full partnership in the firm and appointed him general manager. The two men chose the name ‘Currier & Ives’ for the new partnership, and became close friends. Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone grinders at work. The fifth floor housed the coloring department, and was one of the earliest production lines in the country. The colorists were generally immigrant girls, mostly German, who came to America with some formal artistic training. Each colorist was responsible for adding a single color to a print. As a colorist finished applying their color, the print was passed down the line to the next colorist to add their color. The colorists worked from a master print displayed above their table, which showed where the proper colors were to be placed. At the end of the table was a touch up artist who checked the prints for quality, touching-in areas that may have been missed as it passed down the line. During the Civil War, demand for prints became so great that coloring stencils were developed to speed up production. Although most Currier & Ives prints were colored in house, some were sent out to contract artists. The rate Currier & Ives paid these artists for coloring work was one dollar per one hundred small folios (a penny a print) and one dollar per one dozen large folios. Currier & Ives also offered uncolored prints to dealers, with instructions (included on the price list) on how to 'prepare the prints for coloring.' In addition, schools could order uncolored prints from the firm’s catalogue to use in their painting classes. Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives attracted a wide circle of friends during their years in business. Some of their more famous acquaintances included Horace Greeley, Phineas T. Barnum, and the outspoken abolitionists Rev. Henry Ward, and John Greenleaf Whittier (the latter being a cousin of Mr. Currier). Nat Currier and Jim Ives described their business as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures" and produced many categories of prints. These included Disaster Scenes, Sentimental Images, Sports, Humor, Hunting Scenes, Politics, Religion, City and Rural Scenes, Trains, Ships, Fire Fighters, Famous Race Horses, Historical Portraits, and just about any other topic that satisfied the general public's taste. In all, the firm produced in excess of 7500 different titles, totaling over one million prints produced from 1835 to 1907. Nat Currier retired in 1880, and signed over his share of the firm to his son Edward. Nat died eight years later at his summer home 'Lion’s Gate' in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Jim Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895, when his share of the firm passed to his eldest son, Chauncey. In 1902, faced will failing health from the ravages of Tuberculosis, Edward Currier sold his share of the firm to Chauncey Ives...

'Eliza Cook' Steel-engraving after a photograph by John Watkins, 1872. Facsimile signature below the image. Eliza Cook (1818 - 1889) was an English author, Chartist poet and writer...

'PRA' (President of the Royal Academy) Vanity Fair portrait of Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet, PRA, who was an English painter, designer, ...

'on 1 China station' Vanity Fair portrait of Admiral Sir Edmund Robert Fremantle GCB CMG (1836 –1929). 400mm by 270mm (sheet)