The Able Doctor in Freebetter’s Almanack, 1776

This woodcut engraved caricature was used as a frontispiece to the 1776 edition of Freebetter’s New England Almanack. It is a copy of an English caricature entitled The able doctor, or America swallowing the bitter draught which was originally published in the London Magazine in 1774. The American artist has reversed the image and deleted the Earl of Bute, who is shown standing at the far right of the English edition, carrying weaponry which symbolises the imposition of martial law on the unruly colonists.

Almanacs were extremely popular during the eighteenth-century, with annual sales in England exceeding the total of all other publications combined. As a such they were also one of the few forms of publication to be regularly bought by people drawn from the lower and middling ranks of the social spectrum. The almanac’s popularity was derived from its utility and low retail price. For a few pence, customers were able to purchase a pocket-sized book which simultaneously served as a calendar, diary, reference book and source of entertainment. The core function of the almanac was an agricultural calendar which also carried feast days, holidays and other notable events. However from the 1730s onwards, publishers began to insert useful articles on subjects ranging from health to astrology, stories, travel information, and conversion charts. Sadly few of these publications have survived and the relatively poor quality of the materials used to make them means that those which have are often in poor condition.

Americans inherited the English obsession with the almanac, with the first domestic edition being published in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1639. By the time the Revolution broke out in 1775, the American colonies boasted dozens of domestically produced titles with annual circulation figures likely to have been in the high tens or low hundreds of thousands. Freebetter’s New England Almanack was published by Timothy Green in New London, Connecticut, between 1772 and 1792. Green was a prolific publisher of all manner of printed materials and its possible that he also sold imported English books and prints. This would certainly explain how he was able to obtain a copy of a caricature from the London Magazine. It’s an interesting reminder of the geographic and social spread of English caricatures in this period.

This is one of a set of twelve American almanac titles published between 1776 and 1784 which are being offered up for sale in a US auction next month. They carry an estimate of $800 – $1,000 (£650 – £850), which seems reasonable given that a number of online dealers are currently asking around $600 for an individual 1770s edition of Freebetter’s… For more on the English almanac trade see James Raven, Publishing Business in Eighteenth-Century England, Woodbridge, 2014. pp. 201 – 205.

Raven after Boilly, Les Cinq Sens, Snuffbox c.1825

Tags

Louis-Leopold Boilly

This papier-mâché snuff box has been decorated with a copy of Louis-Leopold Boilly’s Les cinq sens [The Five Senses], one of ninety-six lithographic plates later grouped under the collective title Recueil de grimaces [Collection of Grimaces] which were published in Paris between 1823 and 1828.

The underside of the lid is signed by Samuel Raven (c.1774 – 1847), a Birmingham artist who specialised in portraiture and works in miniature. Raven had begun his career working for the japanner Henry Clay but the popularity of his work was such that by 1815 this relationship had inverted, with Clay supplying plain boxes for Raven to decorate on his own account.

By 1820 Raven’s work had become highly regarded and sought after by royalty and other assorted members of the aristocracy. The following notice, which appeared in Aris’s Gazette of 21st February 1820, provides some indication of the extent of his popularity at that time:

‘His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, after having personally expressed himself to S. Raven that he was highly gratified with the Segar [sic] Case lately presented to him, was pleased to command that Portraits should be taken, by the same Artist, of his Royal Highness and the late Duke of Kent; which being now finished may be seen previous to their transmission to Kensington Palace, at Mr. Cooke’s, Carver and Gilder, New Street’.

It was presumably around this time that Raven began adding the postscript “Patronaged by H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex & Prince Leopold” to his signature as a means of advertising his famous clientele. This box may have originally carried the same message, as there are clearly traces of further writing below the  words ‘Raven pinxit’ on the underside of the lid which have subsequently been obliterated.

---

 

Notes

1. A short biography of Samuel Raven, including examples of his work on snuff boxes and a self-portrait of the artist can be found on the Eighteenth Century Birmingham blog.
2. Most snuff boxes were small items intended for personal use. The box shown here measures 9.5cm in diameter and was small enough to place in a coat pocket. However Raven also decorated larger boxes for use in taverns and other communal spaces. The V&A has one of those boxes, decorated with a portrait of George IV, in its collection.