American Book-Plates. Allen Charles Dexter

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of book-plate collectors, not a word is said of his making book-plates.

      Of the seven plates by Anderson known at present, four are on wood, and three are on copper.

      Only one of those on wood is signed. The Lot Tripp and Josh. Russell plates are simple labels, and the Typographical Society of New York and the John Pintard, LL.D., which is signed, are pictorial. In the former, the emblems and implements of the printing trade are prominent, and in the Pintard, which is a fine example

      of Anderson’s best work on wood, the shield of arms is shown with a landscape for background.

      The plates on copper are the Anderson, which is a Chippendale, the Apprentices’ Library, and the Columbia College, which are allegorical.

      All the above will be found described in the List.

      There is a plate of the Apprentices’ Library Company of Philadelphia which strongly resembles the wood-cut work of Anderson, but as it is not signed it is not safely attributed to him. In the plate of A. Griggs of Philadelphia, an even more marked resemblance to his little designs on wood is seen, but this, too, is not signed.

* * *

      Annin and Smith. This firm consisted of W. B. Annin and George C. Smith, and they were established in Boston from 1820 to 1837. Annin died in 1839, in Boston, and Smith, who lived to quite an advanced age, died in 1878. They engraved a number of plates for the “Token,” and for other annuals so popular sixty years ago.

      The plates of Richard Taylor Auchmuty, A. L. Peirson, William H. Prescott, John Lowell, Jr., and an armorial plate for the Boylston Medical Library are signed by them, and will be found described in the List.

* * *

      Abel Bowen, whose name appears on one of the plates of Harvard College, was the first wood-engraver in Boston. He was born in New York state in 1790, and he took up engraving before he was of age. In 1812 he was a printer in Boston, probably attracted thither by his uncle, who was the proprietor of the Columbian

      Museum. Nathaniel Dearborn claims to be the first engraver on wood in Boston, but the honor is usually accorded to Bowen. He issued, in 1816, the “Naval Monument,” and in 1817 was associated with Dearborn in engraving for Shaw’s “History of Boston.” In 1834 Bowen, with others, founded “The Boston Bewick Company,” which was an association of engravers. In the following year they issued a map of Boston, and undertook the publishing of the “American Magazine.” They were burned out in this same year. Bowen died in 1850.

* * *

      John Boyd, who engraved the plate of Samuel Chase, which is taken to be the plate of the signer of the Declaration, was a Philadelphia engraver. This is the only specimen of his work on book-plates which we have, and it is a very pretty Chippendale design, delicately engraved.

      In Dunlap, a J. Boyd is simply mentioned, who was engraving in Philadelphia in 1812. This, if the engraver of the Chase plate, would make him rather young at the time of doing it, and it is very good work, and not the experiment of a novice. Whether this is the same engraver, I do not know.

* * *

      Joseph Callender was born in Boston, May 6, 1751. Very little is known about him, but he is reported to have acquired the plates of Peter Pelham, who was presumably the first to engrave on copper in America, and to have destroyed them. Callender made most of the dies for the second Massachusetts Mint, at a cost of £1 4s. each. This was considered an exorbitant price by the superintendent, who made a contract with a Newburyport artisan, Jacob Perkins. Callender received £48 12s. for making thirty-nine dies, and repairing three others, while Perkins received but £3 18s. 10d. for his work. Callender died in Boston, Nov. 10, 1821, and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground.

      The only Chippendale plate by Callender is a copy of the Atkinson plate by Hurd, and is for a member of the same family. As compared with its model, this plate shows very little difference, it is so close a copy, but the motto ribbon which is added is more graceful than those of Hurd usually were, the heraldic drawing is quite as good, and the lettering of the name is better. Callender, of course, would not have begun to engrave much before Hurd’s death; indeed, the preponderance of the Ribbon and Wreath style in his designs goes to show that his work dated towards the close of the century.

      His plates in this style are very light and graceful, with no overloading; and a faithful use of the usual features of the style is apparent.

      In the Russell plate he was again a copyist, using for his model the Joseph Barrell plate. The plates for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and for the Massachusetts Medical Society are practically alike; the curtain, and the

      ribbon and festooning are very similar, while the view within the oval frame is, of course, adapted to the use of the books of the respective societies. Callender would seem by these signs to have been a lazy engraver, or to have considered his designs so perfect as to call for no further effort.

      Cephas G. Childs, who engraved the plate of Henry D. Gilpin, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1793. In the years 1827 to 1830, he published a set of views of the city of Philadelphia and its vicinity (Baker).

      Henry Dawkins was an engraver of but few original ideas, if we may judge him rightly by his book-plate work. In this he was very largely a copyist. Working altogether in the Chippendale style, his designs for the most part are variations of one general plan, which seems to have been borrowed from an English-made plate. In his plates we see “Chippendalism run wild.” Here are introduced the love-sick swains who play upon the flute; the dandy shepherds in stiff clothes of the most fashionable cut, flowing curls, and large felt hats; the flirting young damsels in very low-cut bodices, who play at being shepherdesses for the sake of following the above-mentioned gentle keeper of sheep. Here are the music-loving Cupids, the scantily clad females who are attended by the Cupids, and who are far from home among the trees of the wood. In the James Duane plate we find a fountain is fixed to the side of the frame, and is spouting water from the mouth of a man’s head.

      But the plates of Samuel Jones, Samuel Stringer, and Peter W. Yates are proof that Dawkins could confine himself to the legitimate features of good Chippendale plates. In these no outside objects are introduced, and the design is good.

      We do not know much about Dawkins. Dunlap says he was probably from England, and that he was first noticed in New York. Originally he was an ornamenter of buttons and other small bits of metal, but in America he worked at anything that offered, “suiting himself to the poverty of the arts at the time.” Dunlap dates him about 1774, evidently on the strength of the word of Dr. Anderson, who remembered to have seen “shop-bills and coats-of-arms for books,” done by him previous to 1775. However, in 1761, he engraved music for a book of Psalm Tunes published in that year in Philadelphia. His earliest dated book-plate is that of John Burnet (1754). He was skilful enough to make counterfeit Continental currency, but not to avoid arrest; and in 1776 we find him suffering for this misdeed. Some time later, he forwarded the following unique petition to the Committee of Safety: —

      “May it please Your Honours, – The subscriber humbly relying on the known goodness and humanity of this honourable house, begs leave to lay his complaint before them, which is briefly as follows. That your petitioner was about six months past taken upon Long Island for a trespass which this house is thoroughly acquainted as by Israel Youngs he was led away to perform an action of which he has sincerely repented and your petitioner was torn away from an only son who was left among strangers without any support, or protection during the inclemency of the approaching winter, СКАЧАТЬ