Walter Besant (1836-1901) English social reformer, novelist and editor, born at Portsmouth, Hampshire. First chairman of the Society of Authors (1884). Wood engraving 1895.
?The Nile, Basra and Dendera', Watercolour. David Roberts (1796-1864) Scottish artist and orientalist. Boat on the river Nile, pyramids in the background, Egypt.
Battle of Marengo, 14 June 1800. French under Bonaparte defeat the Austrians. French charge led by Francois Kellermann (1770-1835), son of Marshal Kellermann. Early 19th century Sevres plate.
Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) 356-323 BC. Alexander being told that, great conqueror though he is, he himself will be conquered by death. Persian manuscript of 1425.
Scene from 'The Magus', opera by Jules Massenet (1842-1912) French composer, libretto based on Zoroaster (Zarathushtra). Premier, 16 March 1891 at at Opera Garnier, Paris. From 'Le Petit Journal', Paris, 21 March 1891. Music
Guiseppe Arcimboldo (c1530-1593) Italian painter. Costume designs for classical deities. Diana/Artemis and Mars/Ares. Guiseppe Arcimboldo (c1530-1593) Italian painter. Pen, blue ink and watercolour on paper.
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) teacher and ornithologist. Born in Paisley, Scotland, he emigrated to America in 1794 and became an American citizen in 1804. Considered by many to be the father of American ornithology. At the time of his death seven of the planned nine volumes of his American Ornithology (1808-1814) had been published. The final two volumes were completed by his friend George Ord. From The Naturalist's Library edited by William Jardine (Edinburgh and London 1839-1854). Engraving.
St Jerome in the Desert' attributed to Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516) Italian painter. Jerome (c340-420) a father of Western Christian Church and compiler of the Vulgate reading, his lion centre. Book Beard Cave Old Aged Hermit
Opening up of Japan. US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry (1794-1858) meeting with the Imperial Commissioners at Yokohama. Perry signed Convention of Kanagawa on 31 March 1854. Lithograph 1856. Trade Commerce America
Manchester, England, from the River Irwell, showing the new buildings, including an imposing factory chimney, of a prosperous city contrasting with the small, old, crumbling industrial buildings on the right. Manchester was the centre of the British cotton industry and was one of the earliest cities in Britain to be industrialised. Engraving, mid-19th century.
Fashionable Parisian women being vaccinated against smallpox. From 'Le Petit Journal', Paris, 29 January 1894. France, Medicine, Vaccination, Immunisation, Prophylaxis, Prevention, Disease, Epidemic
World War II: May 1940, German motorcyclists in France exhausted by the speed of their army's advance. Illustration from 'Signal', 1940, German propaganda magazine. Military, Transport, Invasion
'Piazza del Carmine, Naples' by Jean-Auguste Bard (b1812, active 1831-1861) French painter. Behind the Church of Santa Maria Carmine , centre right , Mount Vesuvius is gently issuing smoke.
Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871. Battle of Bapaume 3 January 1871. French Army of the North under General Faidherbe, centre, attacking Prussian 1st army. Successful at first, French did not press advantage. Prussian victory. Coloured woodcut.
Air Raid Precautions: Set of 50 cards issued by WD & H0 Wills, Britain 1938, in preparation for the anticipated coming of World War II. Representation of Barrage Balloons which formed part of the defences of London against German bombers.
Kate and Sue having fortunes read in the cards (Cartomancy), while Tom and Jerry attract their attention. Food is cooking in pot on fire; old woman's bed is folded against wall (right)and her pet cat sits beside her. Illustration by IRC and G Cruikshank for Pierce Egan Life in London 1821. Aquatint
Itinerant Tinker and his boy assistant: Woman brings utensil for repair. Leather tool bag doubles as bellows creating draught for little forge. Piemonte (Piedmont) district, Northwest Italy. From Airetti Italian Costume, Scenery and Customs London 1825
On road, porters carrying loaded baskets on shoulder pole and mendicant monk holds his hat. Women collect water at spring and downstream man washes feet, c1835. Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Ukiyo-e artist. Wind Water
Edward Jenner (1749-1823) English physician, vaccinating a child against Smallpox using Cowpox serum. Artist's impression from Le Petit Journal, Paris, 1901.
Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905: Cameraman from Le Petit Journal filming Russian troops in Manchuria for an early newsreel. From Le Petit Journal, Paris, 5 June 1904.
English suffragettes Edith New and Mary Leigh being carried triumphantly through London streets after being released from Holloway Prison, 22 August 1908. From Le Petit Journal, Paris, 6 September 1908.
One of several campaign banners Nathaniel Currier is known to have produced for the Democrats in 1844. It features two laurel-wreathed, oval portraits of Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates James K. Polk (left) and George M. Dallas (right).
Political campaign button for the 1864 United States Presidential election showing bust portrait of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), facing right. Photograph by Barady, 8 January 1864.
USA; America; Mining; Metal; Nineteenth century; 19th century
Description
Hydraulic gold mining in California. Using strong jets of water to wash down the gold-bearing rock greatly reduced the labour of digging. Engraving c1875.
Bullfighting: Bull charging as matador plays the cape. Lake Price (c1810-1896) English artist. Spain Corrida Torero Tradition Costume Blood Sport Spectacle
Minoans Traders: wall painting from Acrotiri in Thera (Santorini) showing Minoan ships. Bronze Age (3200-1050 BC). The exchange of products with distant countries was served by the well-organized shipping and the foundation of commercial stations in significant ports in the Mediterranean.
Sick of the property tax or ministerial influnza': Prince Regent (later George IV) gouty and on crutches labelled 'More Money', and 'Increase in Income, and holding documents naming his extravagant expenses, hobbles towards his ministers who are vomiting new taxes into a sack labelled Budget. Cartoon 1816.
Archibald Joseph (AJ) Cronin (1896-1981) Scottish novelist. Graduated in medicine, 1919, and practiced until 1930. Cronin had success with novels drawn from his medical experiences, particularly The Citadel (1937) and The Keys of the Kingdom (1941). From a series of cards of Famous British Authors (London, 1937).
Artist's reconstruction of a forest during the Carboniferous period when the coal measures were laid down. From Die Naturkrafte by M Wilhelm Meyer (Leipzig, 1903)
Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons, (1790-1858) British naval officer born at Burton near Christchurch, Hampshire. Entered the Royal Navy in 1803. Commander of British Black Sea fleet from 1855 during Crimean (Russo-Turkish) War 1853-1856. Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean fleet 1855-1858. Rear-Admiral 1850. From The Illustrated London News (London, 8 July 1854).
Charles Francis Brush (1849-1929) American inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, born at Euclid Township, Ohio. Inventor of the Brush dynamo. Engraving from Scientific American (New York, 4 October 1884).
The Inn at Capel Curig from Moel Siabod' near Betws-y-Coed, Snowdonia, North Wales. In the left foregroud a simple wooden plank bridge spans the Afon Lugwy. In the centre of the picture Thomas Telford's London to Holyhead road, the A5, winds through the valley. Lithograph c1850.
Uraniborg, Tycho's observatory on the island of Hven, Denmark. Tycho Brahe (Tyge Ottesen Brahe - 1546-1601) Danish astronomer, astrologer and alchemist who built astronomical instruments which enabled him to make the most accurate observations of his time. Engraving from Le Journal de la Jeunesse (Paris, 1883).S
Napoleonic Wars. The Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805. The French victory over Austria and Russia led to the Treaty of Presburg, 26 December 1805.
John Tradescant the Elder (1570-c1638) English plant collector, naturalist and gardener. In the service of Charles I. Employed by Robert Cecil, Lord Wotton and the Duke of Buckingham. Engraving.
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil, 3rd Marquis of Salisbury (1830-1903) English Conservative statesman. Prime Minister 1885, 1886, 1895-1902. Entered the House of Commons as a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1853 and was known as Lord Robert Cecil. On the death of his father in 1868 he inherited the title of Marquis and took his seat in the House of Lords. He is shown here addressing the Lords. Cartoon by 'Ape' (Carlo Pellegrini - 1838-1889) from Vanity Fair (London, 20 May 1871). Chromolithograph.
Pont-y-Cysyllte aqueduct on the Ellesmere Canal where it passes through the Vale of Llangollen, Wales. The most notable of all the iron trough aqueducts in Britain. Built by Thomas Telford (1757-1834) Scottish civil engineer. Opened in 1805, it is 307 metres long, with 19 arches and is 30.7 metres above the river Dee. It cost
Ben Jonson (1572-1637) English dramatist. Scene from his play The Alchemist (1610), a satire on cupidity. Abel Drugger the tobacconist, the main comic role, here played by English actor James William Dodd (1734-1796). Engraving published London, 1791.
The Reception of Captain Cook in Hapaee'. Ceremonial reception of James Cook (1728-1779) British navigator, explorer and cartographer on his visit to the Friendly Islands (Tonga) on his second voyage in 1773. Engraving from Captain Cook's Original Voyages Round the World (Woodbridge, Suffolk, c1815).
One of the nine illustrations by Henry James Holiday (1839-1927) for the nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll (London, 1876). On the top deck are the Bellman, the Baker and the Barrister. Below are the Billiard marker, the Banker, the Bonnet maker, and the Broker. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of the English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898).
The Adventure of the Yellow Face'. Jack Grant Munro rejecting his wife because she will not disclose the secret behind her suspicious behaviour. From The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle from The Strand Magazine (London, 1893). Illustration by Sidney E Paget, the first artist to draw Sherlock Holmes. Engraving.
"Steller's Sea-Cow (Hydrodamalis gigas/Rhytina gigas), extinct aquatic mammal. Artist's realisation of the giant sea-cow discovered by Georg Wilhelm Steller 1709-1746) Russian ornithologist on the Danish navigator Vitus Bering's (Behring) second Kamchatka expedition, 1741. From ""Extinct Monsters"" by the Rev. HN Hutchinson (London, 1893). Halftone. Science. Natural History."
Cossacks displaying their horsemanship. From the steppes of Eastern Europe and Russia with a reputation as fierce warriors and superb horsemen. Engraving published Paris, 1875.
American Civil War 1861-1865. First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas, Virginia). Defeat and stampede of the Union troops, 21 July 1861. From The Illustrated London News (London, 1861). Engraving.
Steam ship 'Deutschland' wrecked on the sandbank off the Thames Estuary known as the Kentish Knock during a storm on the night of 6th to 7th December 1875. Among those on board who were lost were five Franciscan nuns, refugees from Germany's anti-Catholic Falk Laws. The English Jesuit poet Gerard commemorated the event in his poem The Wreck of the Deutschland (1876). Engraving from The Sea by F Whymper (London, c1890).
Gardeners at work. The man on the left is using a sharp knife, perhaps to remove a bud for grafting, while the man on the rights is grafting new wood on to the stump of a tree, a procedure often followed when it was necessary to rejuvenate an old tree. Engraving from an 18th century edition of Virgil's Georgics.
Claude Louis, Comte Berthollet (1748-1822) French chemist who assisted Lavoisier. Worked on dyes and chlorine for bleaching for the textile industry. Engraving from Les Merveilles de l'Industrie by Louis Figuier (Paris, c1870).
Alan Alexander (AA) Milne (1882-1956), English author best known for his creation of Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). From a series of cards of Famous British Authors (London, 1937).
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) German composer, seated, with Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) Hungarian violinist and composer and director of the Berlin Conservatory. Halftone from a photograph.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) German composer at the age of 20. After silver-point by JJB Laurens executed at the request of Robert Schumann (1810-1856).
'Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate themselves' 1846: Joseph Mallord Willliam Turner (1775-1851) English artist. Oil on canvas.
Batle of Aspern-Essling 21-22 May 1809. French under Napoleon defeated by the Austrians under Archduke Charles. Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello, mortally wounded. He died on 30 May. Popular French hand-coloured woodcut.
Napoleon I in the Pesthouse at Jaffa touching plague victims, 11 March 1799.. Propaganda story putting him on the same plane as annointed kings who could effect miraculous cures through divine intervention. 19th century French popular hand-coloured woodcut.
French map of Central and South America, showing Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Islands and Antilles, River Plate, Conquistadors in Peru, Cannibals, Gold Mines, Parrots, etc. 1550. British Museum
Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) English antarctic explorer. Postcard commemorating Scott's ill-fated expedition. Scott (inset) and 'Terra Nova' trapped in ice. Photograph.
Mozart and the mysterious stranger, 1791 (c1914). The stranger was a messenger from Count Walsegg-Stuppach with a commission for a Requiem for voices and orchestra. The Requiem was for the Count's wife, Anna, who had died in February 1791 at the age of 20. It was the Count's intention to pass the work off as his own. Mozart died before he could complete the Requiem but it was finished by one of his pupils and duly delivered. From A Day With Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by May Byron. (London, c1914).
First Anglo-Afghan War 1838-1842: Encampment of lst Bengal European Regiment. Regiment struggling over mountains with the artillery. From J Atkinson Sketches in Afghanistan London 1842. Hand-coloured lithograph.
Threshing Rape. Women threshing rape with flails. The seed is small and scatters easily as the seed pods split open, so it was threshed on sheets in the field. Brassica napus, a member of the cabbage family and closely related to mustard is grown as a forage crop and for the oil contained in its seed which is used for cooking and now for producing fuel for vehicles. Aquatint from The Costume of Yorkshire by George Walker (Leeds, 1814).
Mary and Joseph finding the young Jesus in the Temple where he had been sitting with the Doctors. St Luke:2. Illustration by J.J. Tissot for his Life of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, 1897. Oleograph.
Britain; England; Textiles; Industrial; Revolution; Factory; Employment; Child; Labour
Description
'The Factory Children' from George Walker The Costume of Yorkshire, Leeds, 1814. Boy and girl employees walk to work carrying day's food in baskets. In background typical West Riding mill for wool or cotton In field, cloth put out to dry on tenterhooks. Aquatint
Napoleon at the Battle of Lutzen, 2 May 1813. Napoleon forced the Prussian and Russian forces to retreat but, with an inexperienced army and a lack of cavalry, he was unable to pursue the enemy. Popular French hand-coloured woodcut.
St Anne holding her daughter the Virgin Mary, St Catherine of Alexandria (d307) and St Margaret standing on Devil who visited her in prison. Marble. French school, 15th century.
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) French General and first President of The Fifth Republic. Commemorative poster celebrating the Liberation of France in 1944.
Marco Polo (1254-1324) Venetian traveller and merchant. 'Book of Marvels ...' early 15th century manuscript illustrated by Masters Boucicaut and Bedford. Kublai Khan (1214-94) paying for his purchases.
