Despite their wide popularity and broad distribution, and their importance in the history of British caricature, the color-plate books and albums of Mary Darly are now quite rare.Who was Mary Darly?"Although most well-known cartoonists have been men, one of the most influential early figures in the field was a woman, Mary Darly. Though often overlooked in histories of the subject, women have played a significant part in the development of cartoons and caricature in Britain from its beginnings in the days of Hogarth almost 300 years ago right up to the present… However, the mother of them all, perhaps, was the...
When Jackie Met André: Jacqueline Kennedy’s Gift Book to Malraux
André Malraux (foreground, left) with Jacqueline Kennedyand JFK, state dinner at the White House, May 11, 1962.The personal gift of Jacqueline and President Kennedy to French Minister of Culture André Malraux, in celebration of his visit to Washington, D.C. in May of 1962, has surfaced.It is a book. Not just any book but a perfect copy of the great British caricaturist George Cruikshank's Remembrancer of a Tour on the Continent, a series of eight hand-colored aquatint engravings gently satirizing European travel.London: Published by H. Humphrey, June 30, 1821."[Jacqueline Kennedy] had a degree in French literature and was captivated by the...
Is This The Rarest Color-Plate Book Of All?
Death of Ponitawski, detail.Only one copy has come to auction in thirty-five years. There is only one copy in institutional holdings worldwide. So few were issued, in fact, that the publisher didn’t bother having a title page printed. Only four copies are known to exist. This is one of them.Manuscript title inlaid to window-panel with engraved border.The book is Military Duties, Occurrences &c. &c., a color-plate book of the utmost rarity by Henry Alken, one of England’s great artist-designer-engravers of the nineteenth century. The book is at my side as I write; it’s another great day in Rarebookadoon, the enchanted...