Illustrations
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S.104.3 hand tinted illustration from volumes on the agriculture of various counties 1794.
Megatherium americanum was one of the largest animals in its habitat in South Anerica, weighing up to 4 tons with a shoulder height of 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) and length of 6 m (20 ft) from head to tail. It was one of the largest ground sloths, about as big as modern asian elephants.
From Philosophical Transaction sof the Royal Society
From a book owned by Viscount Tyrconnel dating to 1702. Perhaps he used it to mug up on his grand tour of 1710. Study, shelf 141. The V&A have the print, but not the book.
Heidelberg Tun
From the same book as th eone above, this huge wine barrel (Fass auf Deutsch) still exists on the tourist route at Heidelberg Castle.
Baxter used intaglio printing, the opposite of relief printing. Printing is done from ink that is below the surface of the plate. The design is cut, scratched, or etched into the printing surface that can be copper, zinc, aluminium, magnesium, plastics, or even coated paper. The detailed intaglio was printed on a rolling press. Then hand platen presses added colour from 12 to 20 tinting blocks. Register was obtained by several points on the press. His process was complex.
Antient Topograhy
Antient, an ancient spelling of ancient. This the only coloured plate in the book, carefully hand tinted. But the detailed monochrome images of a London known only to the Brownlows of the 18th century and earlier, are worth a look.
The earliest colour printing was a two-colour frontispiece to a Buddhist sutra scroll, dated 1346. Chinese wood block printing introduced colour from 1606, e.g. the 1679 Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden printed in five colours.
In this country, the move from hand-tinting didn't occur until George Baxter (1804–1867) became active. He was an English artist and printer based in London and is credited with the invention of commercially viable colour printing. His first known colour print, Butterflies, was published in 1829. Below is his, The Carrier Pigeon Number 46(41) 1837 Number 3 in the Cabinet of Paintings, this was used as the frontispiece.
Punch during WW1
Bound copies probably from Ashridge House as the supplier is
T. W. Bailey of Berkhamsted.
Joseph Ashby-Sterry (1836 or 1838 -1917) was an English poet, novelist and journalist. He contributed to Punch. His rather belittling descriptions of women was even in the 1870s criticised in the Spectator.
By 1920 the price had doubled!
Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. Last published in 2002.
Take a peek inside Punch.