The Printshop Window

~ Caricature & Graphic Satire in the Long Eighteenth-Century

The Printshop Window

Monthly Archives: January 2018

The Up Shut or Bonny-Fire

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by theprintshopwindow in Caricature and material culture, Transfer-print pottery

≈ 1 Comment

This interesting creamware jug caught my eye whilst browsing through some auction catalogues this week.

It’s 15cm high and probably dates to circa 1815. The body is decorated with two transfer-printed designs. The first and most substantial of these is a caricature entitled The Up Shut or Bonny-Fire. It depicts Napoleon, bound and gagged, hanging from a gallows above a pile of combustible materials to which John Bull is about to set light. The following text has been crudely etched into a speech bubble above John’s head:

Fore George! You’ve quieten’d him, He’s made a stir in’t world long enough, now’s my turn. I’ll stir him when my fire lights. 

Whilst most satirical designs which appear on creamware during this period were copied from printed caricatures, I’ve been unable to identify a source print for this image. Therefore, I can only assume it’s either an original image created by the potter, or that it has been copied from a print which has subsequently been lost to history.

In contrast to the scene of gleeful immolation displayed on this side of the pot, the obverse is decorated with a nice bunch of flowers.

Rediscovering W. Newman, fl. c.1834-35

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by theprintshopwindow in C.J. Grant, G.S. Tregear, W. Newman

≈ Leave a comment

The name of the artist-engraver W. Newman appears on a handful of satirical lithographs published in London during 1834-35. These works have previously been attributed to William Walker Newman (1817 – 1870), an artist who would go on to provide illustrations for the early editions of Punch before emigrating to America to pursue a career as a political satirist [1]. Assuming this attribution is correct, Walker’s early plates, produced whilst he was still a teenager, remain uncatalogued in any of the major institutional collections of British satirical prints [2]. This post therefore aims to address that deficit by providing a brief summary of these works.

One of the earliest plates to appear carrying Newman’s name was Female Emigration! which was published by G.S. Tregear of Cheapside in October 1834. The print mimics the style of C.J. Grant’s Every Body’s Album & Caricature Magazine, a popular fortnightly broadsheet of caricatures and scraps published by John Kendrick (and latterly Thomas Dawson) of Leicester Square, and presents a wholly unflattering view of life in Britain’s Australian colonies.

Newman’s name appears on the undated Frontispiece to Useful Knowledge which was also published by Tregear. The design was once again adapted from earlier works by C.J. Grant, in this case the Frontispiece for the Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Vols. 1 & 2 which were published by Edward Lacey and  George Purkers respectively. The latter plate is dated 9th May 1833 and it is possible that Tregear hired Newman to produce his derivative version around this time, although the satirical frontispiece remained a popular trope in Grant’s work throughout the mid-1830s and the print could conceivably date from any point between 1833 and 1835.

The four plates of a satirical scrap-sheet entitled The Odd Volume represent the most substantial product of Newman’s short-lived collaboration with Tregear. The project appears to have been conceived as a rival to the aforementioned Every Body’s Album… with the publication dates seemingly calibrated to ensure that each edition was issued a few days before Grant’s magazine. The four plates in the series are dated as follows: No.1 October 15th 1834, No.2 October 29th 1834, No.3 November 12th 1834 and No.4 November 26th 1834 [3].

Newman also claimed to have engraved an unspecified number of plates for Flights of Humour and Rum Jokes, two long-running series of humorous lithographs published by G.S. Tregear over a number of years between c.1832 – 35. It’s not possible to quantify the extent of Newman’s contribution to either series, because the prints were normally issued without a publication date or artistic attribution. However it seems reasonable to assume that his involvement coincided with the period in which he was working with Tregear on the prints outlined above [4].

Finally, Newman’s name appears on at least two other lithographic satires published around this time. The first is Frontispiece to the Law-List, which is very similar in style to Frontispiece to Useful Knowledge and was published by Orlando Hodgson of Clare Market. The second is Frontispiece to the Botanical Magazine, which was published by James Pattie from his self-styled “Wholesale Periodical & Caricature Shop” at No. 16 High Street, St Giles. This print is the most interesting of the two, being executed in a style which so different from that of Newman’s other works that it could almost be by a different hand altogether. Although the print is a lithograph, it has been etched in the manner of a copperplate engraving and is made up of deep lines that have been hastily scored into the stone. There are also numerous spelling and engraving errors in the text which have not been corrected prior to publication. The overall impression is of an artist working at speed on a low-budget product which was bound for an audience drawn from the bottom end of the market for printed images.


Notes

  1. B.E. Maidment, ‘Subversive Supplements: Satirical Title Pages of the Periodical Press in the 1830s’, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 43, No. 2, Periodical Supplements (2010), pp. 133-148  The remainder of W.W. Newman’s career is outlined in Jane E. Brown and Richard Samuel West, William Newman: A Victorian Cartoonist in London and New York (Easthampton, MA: Periodyssey Press, 2008).
  2. The plates could be the work of William Richard Newman (1797 – 1855), a lithographic engraver and printer whose workshop was located at 27 Widegate Street in the City of London. Newman was the son of a copperplate engraver, William Newman (1770 – 1827), who specialised in the production of trade cards, tickets, and other ephemera, and certainly possessed the technical skills required to engrave satirical print. Newman traded under the name W. Newman, or Newman & Son. The business remained active under the latter name until the twentieth-century.
  3. My thanks to Mike and Daphne Tregear for providing me with an image of The Odd Volume No. 4.
  4. Newman signed Frontispiece to the “Law-List” as follows: “Designed & Lithographed by W. Newman. Author of the “Odd Volume”, “Female Emigration”, “Frontispiece to Useful Knowledge”, “Flights of Homour”, “Rum Jokes”, & c. & c.”.

© Mathew Crowther and The Printshop Window, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Mathew Crowther and The Printshop Window with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Pots with Attitude: Political and Satirical Prints on Ceramics

04 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by theprintshopwindow in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

From the press release: Pots with Attitude: Political and Satirical Prints on Ceramics The British Museum, London, 12 January — 13 March 2018 Curated by Patricia Ferguson Ceramics are rarely confrontational, but the pugnacious mugs, jugs, and plates in Pots with Attitude: Satirical and Political Prints on Ceramics, in Room 90a, a display at the […]

via Exhibition | Pots with Attitude: Political and Satirical Prints on Ceramics — Enfilade

Recent Posts

  • C.J. Grant, The Caricaturist, A Monthly Show Up, 1831-1832
  • J.V. Quick, A Form of Prayer to be Said… Throughout the Land of Locusts, 1831
  • A Designing Character: A Biographical Sketch of Joseph Lisle (1798 – 1839)
  • Original works by John Collet (1728 – 1780)
  • The Origins of The Plumb-Pudding In Danger?

Recent Comments

Jonny Duval on C.J. Grant, The Caricaturist,…
theprintshopwindow on C.J. Grant, The Caricaturist,…
jonny duval on C.J. Grant, The Caricaturist,…
C.J. Grant, The Cari… on Guest Post: “They quarre…
C.J. Grant, The Cari… on Every Body’s Album &…

Archives

  • December 2022
  • December 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • October 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013

Blogroll

  • Boston 1775
  • Cradled in Caricature
  • Francis Douce Collection Blog
  • Georgian Bawdyhouse
  • Georgian London
  • James Gillray: Caricaturist
  • Mate Sound the Pump
  • My Staffordshire Figures
  • Princeton Graphic Arts
  • The Droll Hackabout
  • The Lewis Walpole Library Blog
  • The Victorian Peeper
  • Yesterday's Papers

C18th caricatures for sale

  • Sale listings

Online resources

  • Resource archive

Useful sites

  • British Museum Collection Database
  • British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
  • Brown University Collection of Napoleonic Satires
  • Locating London's Past
  • London Lives
  • Old Bailey Online
  • The South Sea Bubble Collection at Harvard Business School
  • Treasures of Cheatham's Library

Contact me

printshopwindow[at]gmail.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • The Printshop Window
    • Join 114 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Printshop Window
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...