On pulling a historical thread to research a traditional Regency Silhouette, finding a tale of sadness, delight, spirit and a happy ending. It begins with British court beauties which is too often a story of plot and counter-plot, jealousy, envy, hatred, malice. It is refreshing, therefore, to find in this 18th century period of artificiality a figure so delightful as that of Lady Sarah Lennox. Her first husband, Sir Charles Bunbury, was a neglectful husband, but she eventually found  a good man and delighted in her eight children. Lady Sarah also has the distinction of being most fortunate to painted by esteemed portrait masters and discovered by myself as a example of a modest silhouette as a Mrs Napier, when she was most content.

Her Royal Encounter with Edward II

Her journey begins as an orphan of the The Duke and Duchess of Richmond, when she was five. Lady Sarah went to stay with her grownup sister, Lady Caroline Fox, at Holland House in London. When playing one day in Kensington Gardens she broke away from her nurse, dashed up to the elderly George II, cried "How do you do, Mr. King? What a lovely, big house you have here, haven't you?" The King was delighted, and carried her off into Kensington Palace. One day he shut her into a great china jar to test her courage, and the only effect it had was to start her carolling the old French rhyme, "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre!" When she was a little older, Lady Sarah went to Ireland to her grandmother, and did not come back to London till she was fourteen. Hearing of her return, George II sent for her to visit his Court, in spite of her youth.

British Portraiture: Sir Joshua Reynolds

By the time she was fifteen Lady Sarah was a radiant creature, of whom a delightful description has been left by her uncle: "Her beauty is not easily described, otherwise than by saying she had the finest complexion, most beautiful hair, and prettyest (sic) person that ever was seen, with a sprightly and fine air, a pretty mouth, and remarkably fine teeth, and excess of bloom in her cheeks, little eyes - but this is not describing her, for her great beauty was a peculiarity of countenance, that made her at the same time different from and prettyer (sic) than any other girl I ever saw." Thankfully we need not imagine her beauty as esteemed Portrait painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, made her the subject of a portrait still hanging on the walls of Holland House. Thackeray describes it as, ‘a magnificent masterpiece...canvas worthy of Titian.’ She is depicted holding a fragile bird, looking up the window, next to the young black-eyed Charles James Fox her nephew, before whom there lay a parliamentary career of the highest distinction.

A Besotted George III

When George III became King, the question of his marriage very soon arose. It is written that he was besotted by Lady Sarah Lennox. A Princess of Brunswick was mentioned, but his heart was far nearer than that. He had become enchanted by Lady Sarah.To this friend, the influential Lady Susan, George III practically proposed to Lady Sarah. Lady Sarah’s family developed an ambition that she would be the next queen. Largely for this reason, the young king was discouraged from selecting her as a wife. The royal match was scotched by the King's advisors, particularly John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who feared losing his royal influence to Henry Fox,1st Baron Holland, Lady Sarah's brother-in-law. So it was the “pret-tyest person that was ever seen”, next meet with George III as one of 10 bridesmaids to his future Queen Charlotte. Lady Sarah confided in Lady Susan, "Luckily for me, I did not love him, and only liked him".

Sir Charles Bunbury, 6th Baronet

Indeed she was happily in love with a sporting, racing, hunting squire, very good-looking, and fairly well off, and to him she was married a few months after the King married . Thus she became My Lady Bunbury at the age of seventeen, and wife of the man who was afterwards known less as the husband of a historic beauty than as the "Father of the Turf," and owner of the first Derby winner, Diomed. For a time she was very happy, but Sir Charles was more interested in his horses than in anything else.It seems she became notorious for having affairs as a distraction from an unhappy marriage. After a few years he neglected his beautiful wife, and left her to the attentions of others. She left her husband in February 1769, after the birth of her daughter Louisa Bunbury, and eloped with her cousin and Louisa's biological father Lord William Gordon, the second son of the Duke of Gordon. Bunbury's divorce on the grounds of adultery was finally granted by Parliament on 14 May 1776.

Lady Sarah Finds Contentment

At the age of thirty-six we find her beautiful, gracious, witty, and humble; a model mother, being wooed by the Honorable George Napier. He had very little money, but poverty she did not mind now that she had found a peace for which she had long given up hoping. She married him in 1781. A tall man at six feet & 2 inches, most handsome, and as clever as he was good-looking. To bring up this family Sir George and Lady Sarah never had more than a thousand pounds a year, but the high-spirited girl who, "if she had had a grain of artfulness in her," would have been Queen of England, was quite content and do without for the sake of her devoted husband. Napier died in 1804, and left her absolutely broken-hearted. She was poor, too, until the King granted a pension of 800 a year to his old love in recognition of Napier's services.This journey of discovery was possible thanks to this simple Regency Silhouette.

©Sandra Ker, Antiquarian Print Gallery/History Revisited, South Australia 2015

Let us start at the very beginning of the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. When first published, this garden design map was compiled and drawn at the "Office of the Surveyor General By E. P Laurie From a survey by Master Surveyor J.W. Jones, Surveyor General’s Office, Adelaide. Frasor S. Crawford Photo-lithographer, 1874." This was all cutting edge printing technology at the time.

This map of Adelaide Botanic Garden and Park is remarkable in its scope of both botanical functions, but also as a rudimentary source of other colonial sporting, artistic and recreational activities, including the early zoological exhibits. Yes, gardens are a botanist's delight, and in their creation, they serve as environments for many other pursuits. Dr. Schomburgk was nothing if not ambitious in his civic ambitions. Here we see a birdseye vision of "all good things like a rich Christmas Pudding" from the perspective of a dedicated botanist who knew the benefits of entertaining the public, in an age before radios, cinematography, and the push-button entertainment of computers and television. Fast forward 140+ years, any of these once made portable, can also be enjoyed in his creation, for example the  Moonlight Cinema, and more recently (March 2024), Adelaide Fringe "Natural Wonders" Illuminations. What had been achieved already by the first superintendent and then director, George William Francis, was incorporated in this map.  However, it was the far-reaching scope of his vision incorporating so many contemporary features, within the boundaries of the  River Torrens, Hackney Road, North Terrace and Frome Road. Ambitious indeed! Many remain today, like the Directors Residence, where Dr Moritz Richard Schomburgk lived, the Head Gardner's Cottage & the proposed site for the Palm House. Other features of note were the reserve for horticultural exhibitions and music, Orangery, Experimental Garden, Victoria Regis House, original Rosery, bird aviaries & animal enclosures, Aquarium, Croquet Lawn, Archery Range, the avenue for Monocotyledons /Dicotyledons, Medicinal Garden, Diana's Island within the original lake, and more. It also visually explains the proximity to the Hospital grounds, 'Lunatic Asylum' (eventually accommodated by Parkside's Glenside), while indicating where the South Australia Company's Mill was located on Hackney Road, near the current location of the Hackney Hotel (built 1883). Perhaps the SA Company Mill was included to illustrate the economic success of the grain growers, helped along by the active research by Schomburgk's botanic Antipodean institution.

Dr Richard Schomburgk, Botanical Gardens Director, Adelaide

South Australia Act was passed in London in 1834 with the Colony being proclaimed by Governor John Hindmarsh in December 28, 1836. Surveyor Colonel William Light unveiled his Plan of the Adelaide in 1837. Light had envisaged a Botanical Garden from the "get-go" to be in the west Parklands while completing the town survey of Adelaide, and later the District Blocks of the surrounding land. That survey's arrival in London in 1837, sparking a Victorian Era "Buy Off Plan Property" investment opportunity, had all the features of "A Slice of London in the Antipodes" to be either sold directly off the plan, or later at on-site land auctions, to prospective investors and settlers in/from England. In London, Royal Parks and Gardens were celebrated contributors to London’s landscape. Botanical institutions, like Kew Gardens and the Chelsea Physics Gardens, were vital to the study of international botany as botanical specimens returned with celebrated Voyages of Discovery, like those of Captain James Cook & Sir Joseph Banks, and Matthew Flinders' Voyage of scientific discovery 1800-1804. It was in these Botanical Science hubs that the potential for advancing medical science and commercial cropping was investigated and recorded by scientists, recorded by artists, destined to become beautiful & educational prints.

Already, three attempts had been attempted to make the public garden dream a reality but failed due to flooding and lack of funds. The South Australian Agricultural and Horticultural Society had been established in 1842 as a matter of urgency. Eager colonists wanted, and needed, to understand the nature of this topsy-turvy southern hemisphere environment as a matter of survival. In 1860 the Botanic Act was passed including the establishment of a Botanic Garden, Botanic Park, and Adelaide Zoo, all evidenced in this 1874 plan. George William Francis was the first Director in 1860, who first established the Herbarium, a botanical Library, and saw the need for a Museum of Botanic Economy like the one established in London's Kew Gardens. When Dr Richard Schomburgk took over in 1865, it was he who first saw the necessity of setting up forest reserves to preserve the already threatened local flora. This work was eventually made real by John Edne Brown, who published "Forest Flora of South Australia" 1882-1890. 

Brown was greatly assisted on the botanical services offered by the Botanical Gardens. It was Schomburgk who established the Museum of Economic Botany in1881. This was dedicated to the discovery of "useful plants" to propagate in our challenging soils. A federal grant of $1.125 million has restored this old dame during the first decade of the 21st century. A much welcomed use of this commanding space was its use to house botanical exhibitions. As we see at the center of the 1874 map, there was a designated "Exhibition" area.  It was an exhibition of aforementioned John Edne Brown's Forest Flora of South Australia" that the newly formed Picture Framer's Guild of Australia visited in 2009, as part of our AGM itinerary. I will note here, at the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in the Crystal Palace designed by Joseph Paxton, that the South Australian exhibit displayed wheat from Mount Barker. Remarkably, only 15 years after settlement John Frame was one five Mount Barker wheat growers "who contributed samples of wheat that gained first prize in the Great London Exhibition, in 1851"

Colonial Garden Sports: Archery and Croquet

Archery is linked to Colonel William Light who was a keen proficient of the sport, arriving in the new Colony with two long bows & "many sets of arrows". Although there seems to be no formal archery Club until 1850, it is noted that the original plan of Adelaide had reserved land for that purpose in Light's celebrated Parklands. It seems the decedents of this early club were to become Australian, Olympic and World Championship holders for South Australia.

Garden Croquet: Formerly known as the "Police Paddock", in 1873 Schomburgk assigned newly allocated land to the Promenade and the Croquet Lawns (as seen on this plan). Garden Croquet was popular in Britain and proved a leisurely activity among the colonists. Basically, balls hit with mallets through hoops laid out in a sequence laid out like billiards. Croquet was elevated to an Olympic sport at the second modern Olympics as part of the Paris in 1900.

John Stevens & the South Australia Company Mill

On an indulgent personal note, I am thrilled to see the inclusion of the SA Company's Mill on this map located in the upper right on the River Torrens. My ancestor, John Stevens, operated the Mill and the adjoining experimental Park Farm. Regrettably, the Company's Mill was demolished in 1875. Park Farm, set up to test the crop viability, was also part of the Mill. Both important contributors to the economic survival of the South Australian colony have been reduced to a metal sign closer to the river bank. My great great grandfather leased the mill in the 1850s through to his death in 1871, three years before this map was printed. There were many grain mills in Adelaide. The fluctuating price of grain, drought, and mining discoveries caused great highs and lows in local markets. However, "Who dares wins", especially in the colonial era. It was a great opportunity to be in the milling business, especially after the gold discoveries in Victoria & New South Wales. Bread was a major staple to any mining community's diet. South Australia's agrarian-based economy presented enormous opportunities to a miller who had migrated from the environs of Chichester on Britain's south coast. It also underscores the essential efforts of the Agricultural & Horticultural Society' & Schomburgk, to match crop to soil types. The fluctuating successes of my ancestor and his sons may have been more desperate it it wasn't for the emergence of Captain Cadell & the Murray Riverboat trade during the 1850s. 

Stevens could not escape the impact of Victorian gold that was to rob the smaller colony of South Australia of its valued free labor. However, like the recent Chinese tariffs placed on Australian agricultural and mining exports in 2020-21, John Stevens found other opportunities of intercontinental markets & trade with Valparaiso grain growers in Chile. If the valuable labor was leaving the colony, John Stevens, his sons & partners, would take advantage of the emerging riverboat trade, taken up by Captain William Randell & Captain Francis Cadell. The opportunity to trade with neighboring colonies on the Murray River to send South Australian flour, & contraband liquor (evidenced in original letters between Stevens and his new business partner James Charles Coke), answered gold mining digger's needs. It would have been a modern-day "Pop-up Shop" on the River Murray banks. Another surprising opportunity had also manifested due to the colonial Victorian government placing a Chinese goldfield quota on entry to coastal ports: many Chinese tracked overland from Robe in South Australia. This was a perilous journey on foot. But maybe smuggling Chinese migrants to the gold fields on the riverboats was a safer, quicker and more profitable option? Interesting times were afoot indeed...

The City of Adelaide clipper, with her sister-ship, the Cutty Sark, represent the last of the commercial ridgy-didge sailing ships that utilised renewable wind power to get cross oceans. As the only surviving composite hulled sailing ships, they are constructed at the end of a 60 year window between timber Napoleonic wind-powered oak First Rate Battleships and the steam-powered metal begemoths. Both had an anticipated life of 25- 30 years, but somehow have survived a scrap yard fate. The Cutty Sark, as a tourist attracting, history-celebrating, money generator in front of the Greenwich Maritime Museum, London. TICK. The other? Forgotten on a lonely, cold, silted slipway on the Irvine River ("Please Sir, where's that?", "Why laddie, that is in South West of Scotland") . City of Adelaide clipper, after 22 years of loyal service, was decommissioned, to continue as a WWI hospital ship, WWII female billet accommodation & a Naval Officers Club, just before the hull leaked and she sunk…twice. It was the Scottish Maritime Museum wishing to emulate the success of its English counterpart, that retrieved the hull destine for further purposeful reinvention. Problem was the memo to pay the agreed storage fee was habitually lost. By 2007, the land owner took decisive action in the form of a demolition order. Enough was enough! Now the gloves came off, as interested parties garnered their resources...

Clipper's New Home, Port Adelaide

Enter the long and winding road of South Australian action group, “Bid to save the City of Adelaide”. The Late Prince Philip was their knight in shining armor to sway push the pendulum in South Australia’s direction. The nail-biting continued with an epic journey of the City of Adelaide hull on the M/V Palanpur in February 2014. The determined efforts of the many dedicated South Australian volunteers achieved this remarkable outcome, though many detractors thought it impossible. Maybe this is Lesson One = DON’T GIVE UP

The actual city of Adelaide now has this colonial life-savor in Port Adelaide, a port it had known so well. Why? Lesson Two: Because it was built before the concept of “Designed Obsolescence”. As action group saviors seeks a once-and-for-all permanent home for this amazing chunk of visual history, let’s see what we can learn about survival. Humanity is always in need of that.

LESSON ONE: The Original "Recycled" Paper

Well into the 20th Century Rag 'n Bone Men patrolled the city streets to gather unwanted recyclable goods to sell to manufacturers. Let's see a few examples:  animal skin/tenders/bones for glue makers,  animal bone orPotter's Bone China, rags for paper makers

Ask most people today what paper is made of, and the answer would be “Trees”. However, was an 18th century poem,"Rags make Paper, Paper makes money, Money make Banks Banks make loans, Loans make Poverty, Poverty makes Rags"

Before 1883, over 75-90 % of paper was made with hemp & flax products. This was often in the guise of worn-out clothes, curtains, diapers, old hemp fishing lines and worn sail-cloth. Now, SAIL CLOTH is the focus of this third lesson. Wind fatigue, salt and canon balls took their toll on these vital air-catching membranes. They were costly to make so ship owners sold them to scrap dealers, or “Rag ‘n Bone Men”. In an age of limited resources, if it was not fit for its original purpose, there was a thing called "mend and make-do", and the yesteryear “steptoes” will attest to money in "them-there cast-offs". Cloth was a primary resource of paper production. Rag paper was the epitome of the phrase ‘waste not want not’. Laid paper was the most stable and durable paper ever made. Problem presented in the labor intensity required limited its production.  Warning! “Red Herring”- Just think, if they could genetically test rag paper to identify sails that had once been used by Captain James Cook’s discovery of Australia’s East Coast on the “Endeavour”, or Sir Horatio Nelson’s Battle of Trafalgar's “Victory” (I’m just saying...). Paper making techniques did change but rag made of flax and hemp was a constant. Well that was about to change with big consequences. The source of the problem to be solved was the adaption of steam power to solve the problem of more reliable maritime trade and human transport.

LESSON TWO: Stable Rag to Unstable Wood Paper

The Demise of the Tallship was predicated by the success of Steam Engine technology. 

Don’t forget, the clock of history is ticking. We are in the heady cross-hairs of the Industrial Revolution meets the Enlightenment, each eagerly feeding the other. The Merchant Class (the modern Middle Class), saw the opportunity to equal, if not surpass, the wealth and power of the nobility. They competed with each other to predict problems that they could solve to gain wealth. What if this steam power thing takes off? Where will paper makers get their critical mass of supply to feed the ever-growing demand of the Printing Industry, which was satiating the demand of an increasingly literate and growing world population? Remember, we can ONLY go forward…

Turns out an enterprising German inventor, Frederick Gottlob Keller, was ahead of the crowd to solve the anticipated decline of sailcloth. He had invented the machine that set about testing more readily available resources. It was generally thought that trees were an inexhaustible resource were they not? Keller’s machine settled on softwood conifers. "STOP THE PRESS, Major Marketing Coup: the primary source was inexhaustible, (isn't it?) and here is the kicker, it is cheaper". Merchant bottom-line bean-crunchers rejoiced! So this is the story of how wood pulp paper became the default source for the printing industry after 1883. Little did Keller know he had cast the pebble causing a tsunami wave of aging lignin acid for twentieth-century Libraries of the World.

 “What causes yellowing paper in some books but not others? What is this Evil Menace?" It is a necessary resident of botanical resident in tree cells that ensures the battle with gravity is won every day, Lignin.  "How can we prevent our depositories of knowledge from dissolving into mounds of dust?” In the mid-1980s I worked in Book Orders at a University Library and spent a good amount of time decommissioning books. They were destined for the foreseeable future, to live in a purpose-dug hole to act as a cellar does for fine wine. Here the optimum temperature would hopefully buy the time needed until we can afford to employ the solution.

The happy postscript to this conundrum was the WORLD-WIDE WEB. Ignoring all of the annoying conspiracy theorists, spam, trolls and Cybercriminal activity, it has been a savior of knowledge, especially if you type in the best KEYWORD for the answer you seek, “which brings me back to the beginning…” where we began this Blog Lesson…

LESSON No.3 : Why Cotton & not Hemp & Flax Archival Paper?

In the 1990s, such bodies as the Library of Congress in the United States were leading the way in research into the cause of paper degradation. As an Antique Print & Map dealer, it made sense to source conservation frame presentation materials to preserve finite treasures, and the intrinsic value of all Art.  e cotton mat boards seemed like a naturally superior fit. However, why have Flax and Hemp, the mainstay of past high-quality hand-made paper, been ignored? It turns out that hidden agendas may have much to answer for on this front. Finance Empire Builders like Dupont and Hearst Paper Manufacturing, were primarily responsible for their demise. They had Petroleum monopolies, their choice of plastic-making product. But it turns out the first "plastic" was made using the Hemp plant. It was easy to condemn all four strains of cannabis by citing the THC-psychoactive evils of Cannibis indica.  Cotton requires large quantities of freshwater making it unsuitable for any but lands of high rainfall. As proposed by hemp advocate, Professor John Jingles, Flax and Hemp were the most valuable plants the late 1700s due to Naval and Maritime trade demands. Now its value is the adaptability for agriculture as both plants require 25% water per crop. High water requirements of Cotton in Australia, for example, Cubby Station, have majorly stressed the Murray/ Darling river system impacting on the environment, the nature it supports, and other vital food producers. The different features of both plants can make fabrics, archival paper, construction materials, and oils useful in industry as an alternative to petro-chemicals eg linseed oil prevents the incidence of rust on machinery while in the diet, and provides Omega essential fatty acids so has medicinal qualities as well

LESSON No 4 : Wind Power Lessens Carbon Output

With Global concerns about the Human Carbon Output and its effect on climate change (also read the opinions of Ian Plimer in "Heaven & Earth" ), the cargo ship operators sought a way to reduce the cost of producing that carbon by burning the crude fossil fuel necessary to power this huge craft. In the Sydney Morning Herald January 23^rd, 2008, the MS Beluga, the world’s first modern cargo ship, set sail from Germany bound for Venezuela partially powered by a 160-square-meter GIANT KITE (now where have we seen that before?)

“During the next few months we will finally be able to prove that our technology works in practice and significantly reduces fuel consumption and emissions,” said Stephen Wrage of Skysails. The huge vessel is pulled along by a computer-controlled kite attached to the bow of the ship. The computer regulated the sail efficiency retracting it when wind conditions changed hence achieving the optimum benefit. The result was the kite and modern technology attached to it assisted the engine, reducing fuel consumption by “up to 35 percent depending on the prevailing conditions”

• a) Reduces Carbon output hence the amount of Offset when Carbon trading is introduced
• b) Saves money in fossil fuel costs
• c) Proves that what worked for humankind for centuries is still relevant and can be made more efficient by applying modern technology.
• d) History and the future are symbiotic. If all the generations get together just think of what can be achieved!

CONCLUSION.... and the biggest lesson

Most lessons have already been practiced and the results, beneficial or not, are recorded by Historians. As an Antiquary specializing in prints generated by the inhabitants of the past, and a practicing Conservation framer, I maintain Conservation is more cost-effective than Restoration (and designed obsolescence = landfill and pointless waste) 

History is a noble teacher: as it is revealed to us we can chuckle at being unaware and benefit from the knowledge it imparts.

The Life of Napoleon...

We know of the man, Napoleon Bonaparte, who became the the first emperor of France. He had a desire for military expansion that would change the world. Enemies ridiculed him as “that Corsican Upstart”, the island of his birth. Napoleon set his aims high as he wished to follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great & Julius Caesar.  Bonaparte’s supporters hail him as the founder of modern France, one of the great conquerors of history. Here is where we note the London publisher, illustrator George Cruikshank and "by Doctor Syntax". I fear this is not going to be good for Napoleon Bonaparte...

So, what is a “Hudibrastic poem” and what are “cantos”? 

Hudibrastic poetry was created by Samuel Butler who published Hudibras between 1674-78. The work is a satirical polemic starring Roundheads, Cavaliers, Puritans, Presbyterians etc. during the English Civil War, the first one. Butler had much to work with in this era. A "Canto"  is Italian for a “song”, given the Island of Napoleon's birth most appropriate. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a canto as “a convenient division when poetry was more usually sung by the minstrel to his own accompaniment than read” as there is no specific format, construction, or style for a canto is not any one type of poetry. Like the rich pickings of the politics and characters of the English Civil War, this model of poetry suited the protagonist of Combe's Life of Napoleon perfectly.

So, Who was Doctor Syntax Character?

In the 1760s an Anglican Cleric, teacher, artist, and author, William Gilpin, embarked on an ambitious quest in search of "the Picturesque" on which he wrote prodigiously. Some 40 years later William Combe, known as a "hack writer", invented a mischievous and satirical character, Dr. Syntax, to make fun of this Mr. Gilpin. This Dr. Syntax character was a poor curate setting forth on a straggly mare, usually to his discomfort, oblivious to the realities of the world around him. From 1809 to 1811 Combe wrote for Rudolph Ackermann's The Poetical Magazine. It was here that he serialized this comic poem The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque. The verse was descriptive and moralizing, just like William Gilpin perchance? This character was so well received he wrote two more in the series, the last in 1821. The caricaturist was Thomas Rowlandson to great effect.

Combe's Dr. Syntax Model is Put into Service Again!

It would seem this mocking tribute to Gilpin’s quest for the “Picturesque” would be the perfect fit to “have a go” at one you wished to “cut down to size”. We have Doctor Syntax as the interpreter of Napoleon's European Ruler quest by "poetry". We read a most entertaining Napoleon setting off to stumble and bumble his way through the various notable battles as illustrated by the celebrated social satirist George Cruikshank. Now here was a man that was notorious for throwing sand in anyone's face to make social satire sting.

George Cruikshank and the Power of Caricature as Propaganda

From George Cruikshank’s illustrated title page, we see our “hero” leaving the island of his birth, climbing to power over a guillotine holding a bloody sword so he can sit astride the world with the Imperial trappings of that he earlier condemned, but with England just beyond his grasp, before he slides down a lightening bolt losing all his trappings of power, to come to rest on a toadstool like a disgruntled pixie of the island of Elba. All thirty engravings are Cruikshank’s pictorial commentary full of ruthlessness, deceit, mistakes, betrayal, and hopelessness of his journey from the island of his birth, Corsica, to the island of his imprisonment, Elba. 

"The Life of Napoleon, a Hudibrastic Poem in Fifteen Cantos by Doctor Syntax" William Combe. Contemporary scarlet-grained morocco gilt, slightly rubbed pg 260 with 30 hand-coloured engravings by George Cruikshank. Dated Nov 10th 1814 and Jan 23 1815. Some offsetting and browning but a nice book. First Edition for T.Tegg, 1817

©Sandra J.I. Ker, Antiquarian Print Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia, 2016

In the 1970s a very young me was introduced to the concept of luxury train travel, long before I knew about such thing as the Orient Express, for example. My father purchased two unloved ornate brass light fittings. "Well, these used to be in Railway carriages, but give them a clip, would make fine lamps, don't you think?" So, Dad made it happen. He found two matching pairs of acid etched colored lamp shades, one Ruby, the other Lapis Blue-TICK + rang his "Chippie Mate" to fashion cedar timber bases-TICK + organized new/old wiring with cloth cords-TICK = Mum was over the moon as they were perfect by her cross-stick-embroidery projects (problem solved and harmony ensued). Forty years they remind me of my parents every day. Eventually, this Silver Gelatin Photograph of an exquisite Art Nouveau "Interior of Parlour Car" Train Carriage came into my gallery. My childhood experience found historical context. Just look at those marvelous light fittings on that Carriage ceiling!

A Momentary Flash of Ancestor Envy

As a rational dweller of the Present, I seldom yearn to live in the Past. No convenient showers, flushing toilets, clean drinking water, dentistry, or corsets, the list is endless.

But would you like to think of your fortunate ancestors traveling in this Art Nouveau interior with its velvet/cane chairs, exquisite stained glass windows, delicately patterned lace curtains, and convenient Gentleman's Bar complete with brass foot-rail? Well, I did ponder that reality. If only such an option was still available today...

Well, a quick search engine retrieval answered that pondering. Some of the great train journeys that remain, like the Legendary Ghan here in South Australia/Northern Territory, have restored those many original carriages to their former glory. For a modern take on a similar carriage layout, I found this Los Angeles-Seattle Amtrak Parlour Carriage still very much in use see left). Less Cane work, no fancy Lead-light windows or light fittings. Instead, more comfy seats and high-tech illumination with the added convenience of air-conditioning, no doubt.

Sasmee Park: a Childhood Memory

Soon after this lamp episode, our family moved to a street that had a train station at either end. The eastern end took us into Adelaide's hinterland aka Mount Lofty Ranges, Barossa Valley etc. through dark tunnels and all those good scary things when young. The western end, Clarence Park Station, took passengers up to the "Big Smoke", the grand Adelaide Railway Station. However, just across the road from said suburban station was a magical place called Sasmee Park, like a secret squirrel hide-away for kids & retired engineers. This is an Aladdin's Cave, a monument to engines-driven transport of all sorts. It was deliciously hidden behind the local Delicatessen/Milk Bar (5 cent lolly bags), a hairdresser (Permanent wave central), and an old bookshop. The only entrance to this wonderland was a discreet lane-way (blink and you would miss it) between two 1920 suburban bungalows. For us kiddies in the 1970s it was F-U-N 'choofing' around on miniature trains driven by equally enthusiastic retired engineers that were living their Best-Ever retirement dream! All generations concerned were glowing with delight! Is this the answer to World Peace in our time?

Thespians Unite to Bruise Adelaide's Ego - Star Trek Wormhole?

If my study of South Australian history had taught me anything it was that, "the

best thing about Adelaide is a ticket to Melbourne". This idea is to be seen on page 12 of Thistle Anderson's mischievous satirical Arcadian Adelaide published in 1905. Thistle was a Scottish Stage actress who married an Adelaide stockbroker, Herbert Fisher, in London in 1901. A death in his family, (ere-go possible inheritance?), brought them back to our humble shores. She hit a whole mess of nerves with a sledgehammer statement, among many others she penned for her South Australian odessey. Not surprisingly, this unassuming grey booklet proved to be a best-seller in Melbourne making it a financial gift that kept giving. Thistle reminds the reader that such a prudent ticket purchase "... provides the principal link between Adelaide and Civilization" (KAPOW!). Spin the time wheel to June 2021 Scottish/American Comic Alan Cumming continued Thistle's proud tradition of Adelaide-dissing. Mr Cumming had just been the celebrity director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. From the safe distance of  Melbourne (did he catch the train I wonder?) he bags Adelaide for being a mob of thieving mongrels (Sadly, Gumtree/eBay is always hungry for Famous-Anybody-Stuff). At least it proved South Australia is not so different when all is "sledged and done". And Thistle? Well, she would have been grinning like the Cheshire Cat, as if she had penned Alan's words her-very self. Adelaide's predictable response in 2021 would have rivaled Mrs F. Elllis' "Scratch from and Adelaide Cat"  (Hansell & Son, 4 Franklin Street, Adelaide, 1905). Whether Mr. Cumming was as history-aware as I am now giving him credit for, "BRAVO! Clever effortless social network-twitching marketing!"

Colonial Rail History : Trains from Melbourne to Albury

Anyway, I have gone off-rail. First things third...find out about the "Colonial Railways of Things" so we can place the significance of this handsome carriage interior. Turns out the first Australia public railway was between Melbourne and Port Melbourne in 1854. Sydney was linked by rail to Parramatta in 1855...and so the colonial tech transport competition begins. Until this new tech was introduced, the colonials relied on tall-ships, paddle-steamers and stage coaches. Albury/Wodonga shared respective border riverbanks on the Murray River between these two colonies. The issue with colonial rail gauges was, New South Wales chose the "Standard Gauge" and Victoria the "Broad Gauge". Albury Railway Station(pictured Left) was opened in February 1882 and was considered the more magnificent station. Soon Albury would be the major exchange point for all rail passengers and cargo. This was the destination of our "Parlour Car" passengers. It certainly looks to be a grand alighting point for the necessary rail gauge interchange.

Parlour Car Seating to Accommodate Fashion?

Back to Thistle's pithy observation, I too would fancy a ticket to anywhere in such Art Nouveau ambiance. What an embodiment of an era! Such a seating arrangement would have comfortably accommodated the Victorian/Edwardian ladies' fashions, given the Gentlemen would have bunched up at beyond distant bar. Whether they would have born any resemblance to the Adelaidean gents described as "Celluloid collars, Narrow-toed Booted, Shallow-Brained Fools...(with a) large devotion to Bacchus" (on pg 23 of Thistle's Tome) I shall leave up the discerning reader.

("One of Adelaide's ...Shallow-Brained Fools" a la Thistle Anderson to the right, the husband of Mrs F. Ellis, aka "Adelaide Cat")

Classic Old Rail Carriage Air B&B Worthy?

If you can turn shipping containers into livable spaces, that is exactly what enterprising Bed & Breakfast entrepreneurs are achieving with these beautiful old carriages. What is one Enlightened era's "Golden Age of Travel" can become the Ethically Friendly era's "Rest & Relaxation with a Twist". These mechanical creatures were created before designed obsolescence and deserve all the re-imagined relevance they have earned. Is the spirit of the "Waste-Not-Want-Not" in our Post-G20 Era worthy of a red wax stamp of approval?

Photographs Worth Preserving?

Many family trees have Silver Gelatin photos passed from branch to branch. It was the dominant photographic process from the 1880s. Before that, it was Silver Albumen circa the 1850s. Such tangible family treasures are irreplaceable. Silver value increased exponentially, becoming more valuable than gold at the height of its demand around the globe. The problem was the contemporary wood pulp ply and cardboard materials employed to make them presentable have compounded their fragility over time. The silver responded to the developing chemicals to turn black. Double enemies of wood pulp acid and Ultra Violet light can cause the silver to re-emerge causing a ghostly cloud on the surface. It usually begins in the darkest shadows. Also, the photos may look like negatives of their former self over time. It is essential to have all ancestral photographs scanned as soon as possible, to preserve these images. You could frame the copy, or re-install the original replacing acidic original materials with Conservation or Museum mat-boards & backing. The next step is install Conservation or Museum glass that Blocks 99% of Ultra Violet light. Lastly, only display with limited exposure to strong light and heat. Members of the Picture Framers Guild of Australia (PFGA) are informed on the grades of custom framing required in such situations. The Find a Framer tab is a great place to start if you have valuable sentimental treasures or custodians of investments. © Sandra J I Ker, Antiquarian Print Galllery/History Revisited.

In 2012 I joined a small business mentor. Eager participants followed him around the wide brown country of ours. He was convinced that business success is a matter of finding a niche "an inch wide and a mile deep”. The bigger the problem it solves the more successful the business. My background is art and history. I had been researching May Gibbs (1877-1969) for an Australia-themed Illustrator print exhibition...of course! Ms. Gibbs, of ‘Bush Baby’ fame, was such a person. She would have ticked many of his commandment boxes to business success. 

May Gibbs was adamant not to follow the fairy folklore model of Children's story telling. That was the dominion of European storytellers & illustrators. Here, she did step around “not reinventing the wheel” commandment. However, in so doing she focused on the bigger problem, the need for Australians to define their point of difference after Federation in 1901. Then there was the need for connection during World War I, not only to each other but to those far away fighting in the northern hemisphere. Where best to start than the incubator of future generations, children! So, N-O to fairies, mischievous pixies, & evil goblins. Fast Forward to 2020 during a Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown,  I discover a new type of mentor/business trainer, Navig8biz.com. Their tagline is “Purpose. Passion. Legacy.” In these three words, again, I see the favorable comparison with May Gibbs.

Ms.Gibbs certainly had "Purpose" and "Passion" to identify that “big, hairy, audacious goal” that defines the brand and

integrity of an entrepreneurial enterprise. ("Thank you Joanne Brooks") Cultural identity through our uniquely Antipodean imagery gave the idea of being "an Australian" a unique foundation on which to build. Her "Legacy" is embodied in the The Northcott Society & Cerebral Palsy Alliance that inherited her generous gift of branding/copyright after a long and rewarding career.

Childhood Memories, Inspiration of Purpose

May Gibbs was four when her English family immigrated to Adelaide, South Australia, in 1881. They lived in Norwood. May Gibbs has a dedicated plaque on the Norwood Parade, corner of Queens St to prove it. However, her father's collaborative farming venture failed. Given the challenging inconstancy of soil types, traditional European farming techniques had wild degrees of success. The Gibbs' were not alone in their disappointment. Consequently, her family moved to Perth with other relatives. While playing with her Western Australian cousins, “…we came across a grove of Banksia trees and sitting in almost every branch were these ugly little men…” She had unknowingly identified her future Bad-Guys-No.1 = Tick.

Then there was the ongoing floral war between the Good-Guys, let's take Golden Wattle,

& native insect pests, Bad-Guys-No.2 = Tick, Tick. Conversely, she also employed the services of spiders to weave trampolines for Boronia Babies to bounce around on, so insects can be the friendliest of collaborators as well. May Gibbs may have been inspired by Australian native flora but a holistic approach cleverly recruited native bugs and fauna as well. As she grew familiar in this Antipodean environment, so did her familiarity with human activity in her adopted home. As Yoda would say, add those grand elements together, "a story you have". Traditionally for a story to have impact, it was necessary to build the tension between good and bad. Miss Gibbs was well on her way. However, she still needed to acquire additional skills  to create the legend she was to become.

Chimney Pot Community in London

Aged 22, May traveled back to London. She studied at a Chelsea Polytechnic in 1901-04. She traveled back to England again in 1909 where she continued to complete her illustrating assignments for her British publisher. One such task was a fantasy featuring London Chimney Pot dwellers. She also had a more political edge to her chosen career path, that of drawing cartoons for the suffragettes cause. She was 17 years old when South Australian women had lead the world in gaining, not only the right to vote, but also political representation, in 1894. In 1901 the Federation of Australia adopted this stance of gender equality. YAY to South Australian enlightened colonial politicians! She was obviously an independent woman who dared to tread where others would not, but still no sign of the future source of her success. Ill-health made it necessary to return to Australia in 1913, this time to Neutral Bay in Sydney. Here she seized on another opportunity. Troops were leaving Circular Quay for Egypt and Europe, to fight for King and Country.  She used her art training to draw portraits, maybe the last opportunity they would have. 

Australian Soldiers & World War I

The poignancy of their leaving would not have been lost on her. Here were Australian labourers, farmers, butchers, businessmen, traveling to fight for an empire, ‘to do their bit’. With her time in the land of elves, fairies, pixies and dragons she had resolved to draw her inspiration from the Australian bush only, as this was the Australian reality.  At this point she strays from Business mentor's successful business model aka “don’t reinvent the wheel, use what is already there". However, she does follow his success-mantra by insisting to ”stay uniquely you”. May Gibbs certainly did. Indeed, she defined the first generation of sovereign Australians. This she did by providing those unique points of difference, our zoology, entomology, ornithology and botany.

Bush Baby Facilitator

It started with an artist's innocent rendering of a friend's toddler finding comfort with his best furry buddy, a much-loved puppy. Little did she, or he, know it would snowball into a life-long career of native-flora themed babies all with the same cute bottom, the epitome of innocence and vulnerability. How could we not but love them?

Forging the Post-Federation Australian Identity

There is an undeniable recurring theme in all of her subsequent illustrations, that were fit-for-purpose to address the Australian need to define an identity. Bush Baby illustrated cards, calendars etc were sent to sons, husbands and fathers in the trenches of Gallipoli and the Western Front in France. Memories of home sent by loved ones, especially of the younger variety, would have been a powerful medicine. May had profoundly captured that need and desire for a “oneness”, to show support and, in turn, be supported.

Through our unique flora and fauna, be they mammals, reptiles, insects, amphibians, May Gibbs identified that which connected us as a nation. She turned the immigrant fear of the unknown into the known: with respect to nature, she identified what harmed, healed and helped, just like Aboriginal dream-time stories.

Lessons of Environmental Awareness

In 1986 I worked at the Barr Smith Library. During lunchtime I wondered into the audio library. It was here I found a radio recording of an ABC presenter interviewing May Gibbs in 1969, the year of her death. The presenter asks May Gibbs how she discovered the Bush Babies. May Gibbs replied, “Oh! My dear, they found ME”. Silence. So the legend is alive and well, as are the Babies that dwell in the native bush all around us to this very day. In many ways May Gibbs did not invent anything new. She echoes the very wants and needs of many today, to take care of natural habitat aka take care of that which takes care of us all!
Paul Kelly wrote the words in his Aboriginal tracker solo in One Night the Moon: "This land is me (not the Corporations, banks or stock exchange)...this land owns me (the rock, water and animal in the tree...you only fear what you don't understand)"

True Measure of Success, a Charitable Legacy

Her stories are as popular today among 25 million Aussies as they were with 4 million Australians during 1914-1918. May Gibbs is a lesson to us all, but in the post suffragette reality we live, a reminder to all genders to follow your dreams, or even better let them find you!

© Sandra Ker, Adelaide, South Australia,  www.historyrevisited.com.au

Many of the world’s inventions were often a remixing of known concepts to solve new problems. Many were fueled by the Age of Enlightenment (circa AD1650-1820). Preparing the way was Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. He had a dream to make education accessible to all, but how was he to achieve that? He blended his awareness of tried and tested "knowns", adding mechanical power inspired by the wine press, and revolutionizes affordable knowledge acquisition, by inventing a printing press.

 Illustrating printed text was the next challenge: a variety of techniques evolved over the centuries, from wood block stamps, to engraved metal plates to limestone blocks. The drivers for new techniques were human population growth, new materials, and finally demand by an affluent Merchant (Middle) Class creating price efficiencies.  Printing houses, employed an army of engravers, lithographers and artists who were called upon to improve recorded detail for scientific classification purposes, botany being an important driver of such skills. Different cultures, with access to their own skill-sets & available materials came up with a variety of techniques to achieve desired outcomes.

Benjamin Franklin & Amateur Naturalist, Joseph Breintnall

If China invented paper in AD105, did they also invent folding money? They did, but abandoned this initiative after a major financial crisis, stopping production in AD1455. It takes a new crisis in the West, for much later generations, to adapt such a concept to need. Yet again, what started out as a blog on the Nature-Printing technique, has lead me down a rabbit hole of discovery.

For years I believed the first successful use of Nature Printing was a mid-1800s story. Instead I have scored another “Well, who would have guessed…?” conversation starter dating back to a well-known historical figure over a century earlier. (I am ever-so please as a result, even if the hapless listener is bamboozled by my conversation topic).

The star-spangled hero of this blog is that brilliant polymath, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Franklin was just starting his legendary journey of ingenuity. In 1723 this young man had arrived in Philadelphia from Massachusetts with a dream to become a printer, but no fortune did he own. Never one to be idle, he fell in with successful merchant and amateur naturalist Joseph Breintnall. Together they busied themselves inking up New World leaves & pressing them onto paper to send to British naturalists & botanists keen to classify and catalogue New World  discoveries. It turns out Breintnall was less a botanist and more in awe of the sheer beauty of his new environment. Franklin, took this knowledge and applied it to a more fiscally motivated project.

Benjamin Franklin's Unexpected Journey of Innovation

Franklin, looking for printing opportunities, became interested in the promising subject of paper money. In essence, what began as hand written promissory notes evolved into dedicated printed "banknotes". In 1690 the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, William Phips (overseer of the Salem Witch Trials), first trialed a paper money experiment to assist funding in the war against France. It must have been a success as the Bank of England adopted the idea in 1694, citing the same reason. Essentially, it was a hand-written IOU issued with a precise amount as a deposit or a loan, to be redeemed after the war. This later evolved into an issuance of fixed denomination printed notes with the various American counties inventing their own currency. Britain was not amused by such a development (enter "frown" emoji), as it assumed a form of independence.

Franklin was a avid admirer of the new paper currency, not least because he was a hopeful printer looking for a paying gig. Indeed, he started printing money for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware in 1737. However, just like 21st century trolls and scammers learning to exploit new technologies, their predecessors began corrupting the stability of this new form of 18th Century colonial currency. Needless to say, counterfeiters in Britain were one of the many reasons for New World penal settlements across oceans, starting with the American colonies. It seems a natural symbiotic relationship: criminals plus emerging paper currency equals ye olde scammers.

Franklin's Strategies to End the Banknote Counterfeit Conundrum.

Franklin put his innovative genius to the task of thwarting their activities. First, he deliberately misspelled "Pennsylvania" as "Penfilvania" on the official notes assuming a forger would correctly spell it on the corrupted money.The next layer in his cunning plan manifested from his former exposure to the Breintnall's nature-printing project. Exploiting the uniqueness of every one of Mother Nature's leaves, he would add a further layer of integrity to the new paper currency. He adapted the inking up and printing straight from the leaf, aka Nature Printing, to making a plaster impression enabling him to create a lead cast leaf mold to print on the rear of the notes. He further added the insurance of a defining copper engraved lines of the leaf veins. This is known as the first anti-counterfeiting attempt and it owes the topic of this blog to Franklin's 1737-1779 success. 

P.S. Another, none-to-subtle message Franklin printed on the 1760s Delaware government shilling note was the slogan "To Counterfeit is DEATH".

Franklin's Nature Printing "Unknown" or just victim of Recycling?

In spite of being a major success in the American counties, it was reported that Franklin’s Nature-Printing technique was "a secret and unknown". In 1914, "three extremely rare 1700s type-metal blocks on deposit with the Library of Congress in Philadelphia (had) been identified as the instruments used to print colonial currency in Delaware". A few generations later, Angela Raymond reports, "His ingenious creation was not discovered until the 1960s when a historian stumbled across the information and shed light to the public".  If Franklin listed his technology in a STRICTLY NEED TO KNOWN file it would limit access by any wrong-doers, of course. However, there is also the case that our ancestors were resource-poor, hence excellent recyclers. This tendency was not out of choice, but for pure necessity. Logically, once the soft zinc and copper plates Franklin used had worn down, they were no longer fit for purpose. Why keep them? This precious resource would be melted down, recycled, to recast other leaf molds. This efficient economical reuse model ensured little evidence survived of Benjamin Franklin's ingenious counterfeit solution would have survived its contemporary life. I argue, less "unknown", and more on the "practical recycling" side of the ledger. I am just saying...

© Sandra J I Ker, Antiquarian Print Gallery/History Revisited, Adelaide, South Australia, 2021

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Arthur Thomas

This is photographic evidence of the only First Class Cricket Match in SA played away from the haloed grounds of the Adelaide Oval. I stumbled upon this vision at Christmas 2013 in the Unley Council Chambers. A local resident had worked tirelessly to knit the separate glass panoramic plate images together digitally, housed at the magnificent Unley Museum. Assuming it was a local football game, local team Sturt vs "Opponent X", I was surprised by the word “Cricket” in the title. 

A bit of search engine action and page-turning later it was indeed a little know local fact that in 1903 the enigmatic Lord Hawkes was on tour with an amateur cricket team, the Marylebone Cricket Club. They were scheduled to arrive in Adelaide in late March but found the usual venue, the Adelaide Oval, was inconveniently booked. Who dared to displace the "Kings of Cricket"? The South Australian League of Wheelmen for an International Cycling Race Spectacular, that's who!  England Cricket had no choice but to cancel the game by telegraph from New Zealand. It may have been a fact of history, that the 1903 cricket tour bypassed Adelaide entirely...but for Mr. Arthur Thomas of the Sturt Cricket Club stepping up and offering Unley’s local oval as a worthy alternative. The Wheelmen feared the competing Unley Cricket Test would distract cycle attendances.  Fortunately, the newspapers reported that fans of each sport are unlikely to desert their favorite sport. The journalists were correct as both were resounding successes. Indeed, the celebrated Major Taylor was a major draw-card to the Adelaide Oval event.

Arthur C. Thomas is known as the "Father of the Sturt Football Club", which he established on March 23, 1890. However, all sports have an off-season. Enter his cunning plan: on August 9 1890 he also established the Sturt Cricket Club."Thomas knew that the forming of this club would give the young men of Unley the chance to play cricket in their district". Australian Rules Football was devised to offer local cricketers, "rather than allow this state of torpor to creep over them, and stifle their new supple limbs fit in the off-season [instead&91; allow young men who loved the sport to once again play in their own district." When news came that the impressive Lord Hawkes may not visit Adelaide, Mr. Thomas saw a sterling opportunity to promote their district oval as a worthy alternative. He telegraphed the English team in New Zealand who gladly accepted. The team traveled on THE OVERLAND train from Melbourne, and booked into the South Australian Hotel, conveniently situated opposite the Railway Station on North Terrace, sadly demolished in 1971. So it has been written into the tomes of South Australian history, and captured with the technology of the period, that Unley hosted a First-Rate Cricket match due to the proactive vision of Arthur Thomas. It is also proof that “if you build it they will come”.

The cherry on the cake was the local Sturt bowler, Henry Hay, who bowls the hat trick enabling victory to the SA cricketers, upgraded from British Colonials since The 1901 Federation (The reconstructed panoramic is also on display at Sturt Social establishment, BarZar,) 

What would Henry Hay think about bowling a Pink Ball that was introduced to Test Cricket in 2015? It is interesting that Stephen Fry on his excellent show QI reminded us that the baby gender colors were reversed in the pre-twentieth century: Pink was the juvenile version of manly Red, and girls were serene pale blue as that is the color of The Virgin Mary cloak.  Henry Hay would have no reservations in 1903 as the color symbolism was very different. Today Pink is more of a symbol of support for Breast Cancer Research.

ADVERTISER 1 April 1903 an article appears:

LORD HAWKES TEAM VS SOUTH AUSTRALIA

SENSATIONAL CLIMAX

(Henry) HAY BOWLS BRILLIANTLY

THE HAT TRICK

SOUTH AUSTRALIA WINS BY 97

Phillip Hughes 27/11/2014: Australia, and the world of Cricket, lost a brilliant Batsman, son and team-mate.

The French Queen: Marie Antoinette

Watershed events in the late 1700s included the word “Revolution”, both American & French. School texts focus on the major political, military & social turmoil they caused. Certainly, both Revolutions succeeded. The American colonies cast off Britain's George III, with major financial assistance from French Monarch, Louis XVI. The consequence for the French was financial distress contributing to French Peasant storming the Bastille Prison in 1789. Enter Marie Antoinette, definitely in peril. Her perception of Art and Beauty became a strong ally when at 14 she was sent to Versailles. A suffocating "etiquette" had been designed, but failed, to curtail the indulgences of a bored nobility wandering the rich palace of Versailles. Ascending the throne she promptly laid claim to the Petit Trianon, a palace in the grounds of Versailles, for her exclusive use. Built by Louis XV, it was in the center of a botanical garden of 4000 species, including a university. The gardens were the envy of European elite. She was to create her own reality, including creating her own social ettiquette, within its gardens.

The Belgian Artist: Pierre-Joseph Redouté

Meanwhile, a young botanical artist, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, was enjoying his “Paris Years” from 1788. Nearing the end of the French Age of Enlightenment (“Siècle des Lumières” 1715-1789), Paris was bathed in the wonders of Science & Culture. Before photography it was the role of an artist to record this Golden Age as returning voyages of exploration revealed exotic discoveries beyond their wildest dreams. New botanical specimens appealed to the French pursuit of beauty, knowledge and power .A new brand of artist was required to accurately record these discoveries. Redouté was such a person, winning him the title, “Draughtsman to the Cabinet of Marie Antoinette”. His exquisite artistry, inventiveness & craftsmanship made him the darling of Parisian Society.

The New World Cactus: Selenicereus grandiflorus

Native to Central America, a cactus, commonly referred to as “Queen of the Night”, “Night –Blooming Cereus”, Large-flowered Cactus, Sweet-scented Cactus or Vanilla Cactus. With such endearing names it was obviously well received. It was first propagated in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace In 1700. Carl Linnaeus, the Father of Taxonomy, classified this rare flowering cactus as Selenicereus grandiflorus, in 1753. He commented it had the largest flower of the cactus species.

Fast forward to 1789 with the French Royal Family awaiting its fate in “The Temple”. It seems they were distracted by Marie Antoinette’s two Selenicereus grandiforus, each presenting buds. If ever we wonder about the value of anything, here we have a queen that could have smuggled anything into her confinement, but she chose two prickly cacti. They are rare for they flower but once a year just before dawn and die. Louis LXI smuggled in the talented Redouté to paint this rare event, in great secrecy, no doubt bribing their peasant guards. To have a master artist on call at such a time is what made him a precious treasure. How else would such a-brief-moment in time be recorded?The deed done Redouté was then spirited away.

Auspiciously, within two weeks the French Republic was declared on 10th August 1792. Marie Antoinette was to meet with Madam Guillotine on 16^th October 1793. Pierre-Joseph Redouté, in an era where political connections that assured advancement in one decade may guarantee beheading in the next, seamlessly went on to gain the favor of Empress Josephine. As the Queen wished him to paint the blooms of her Petit Trianon Palace, the Empress was eager to record the botanical treasures of Chateau Malmaisson. (This was to include the Australian Flora collected by the Nicolas Baudin Voyage 1800-1804, that had  met with Matthew Flinders in our “Encounter Bay”.) Redouté’s talents went on to secure him financial freedom, helping him to further his reputation.

…an Unexpected legacy - Plantarum succulentarum historia

Redouté had been botanically trained by amateur French botanist & publisher Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle. Known as L’Héritier, he had collected in excess of 8000 botanical species housed in his herbarium. Among them were succulents & cactus that proved difficult to preserve as they often flowered for brief periods, as experienced by Redouté with the Queen’s Selenicereus. A suggestion by L’Héritier of a comprehensive succulent catalogue appealed greatly to the talented Belgian artist. Redouté had been experimenting on an improved method of printing using colored inks, “a la poupée”. The resulting colors were rich & deep with a luminescence not possible using water-colour pigments. In 1800 L’Héritier was murdered. It fell to the next foremost botanist of his age, Augustin de Condolle, to collaborate with the awesomely talented Redouté on this project,the publication,  Plantarum succulentarum historia. Praised as the most complete record of succulents & cactus, issued in 28 parts between 1789—1805, to be continued with botanist J.B. Antoine Gillemin in 1829-1837. The folio contains 144 botanical illustrations.

Further curious South Australian footnote- Sir George Grey

Sir George Grey was a Governor of South Australia from 1841 to 1845. In 1861-68 he took up that role in New Zealand. Why is this being mentioned? Turns out a rare bound volume of Plantarum succlentarum historia was donated by Sir George Grey to the Auckland Free Public Library containing 144 succulent studies. If Grey’s colonial service had ended with us this most generous donation may well have been to the Public Library of South Australia. Of the many planned events on the Cactus & Succulent Society of South Australia (CSSSA) calendar, a member outing to North Terrace to view this glorious publication could have been one such excursion. This would have been a brilliant addition to the Succulenticon SA in 2022. A CSSSA member excursion to New Zealand may be on the itinerary for next year (nudge, nudge)?

© Sandra J.I. Ker, Antiquarian Print Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia 2019

For all of Adelaide's aspiring to be "A slice of London in the Antipodes", the colony attracted a large Lutheran population by virtue of Adelaide's religious liberty and status as a Paradise of Dissent.

This new British settlement coincided with Frederick William III's determination to united the Protestant churches of Prussia in the 1830s & 1840s. The Old Lutherans refused to this change in church edicts so searched for new homes abroad.

George Fife Angas, the London financier had founded the South Australia Company to promote and invest in this brave prototype colonial model. As a Baptist he believed in worship free of intermediaries ie Bishops and Popes. Fife was keen to render assistance to their plea, in the service of Religious freedom. On the philanthropic-moral hand their was the right to religious freedom, but on the other their was the investment returns for he and his partners.

The legacy of that history were the Village of Klemsic (now the inner suburb of Klemzig) on the River Torrens, Bethany, Lobethal & Lyndoch in the Barossa Ranges with many more to follow.

Adelaide CBD, South Australia Circa 1880s

Corner King William St and Rundle St. by Louis Henn & Co. 1882-84

In the meantime publisher Louis Henn & Co set up a Lithographic printing studio in Currie Street, Adelaide. Henn had arrived in 1878 & set about recording the progress of Colonel William Light's planned city nearly 50 years after Governor Hindmarsh's Proclamation at Holdfast Shores in 1836.

The prominent corner of Rundle Mall & King William Road had been a desirable retail site from the get-go. In 1849 a Messrs. Brewer & Robertson ‘beg most respectfully to inform the inhabitants of Adelaide’ that they had opened their store, with linens and drapery from ‘all the principal manufacturing towns in the United Kingdom’. Their new store was called The Bee Hive. Henn's lithographers capture the same store 33 years later, still trading and thriving.

Enter the 1913 arrival of Carl Stratmann was born in Kerberg, Germany. He was a trained confectioner who had worked in Berlin, Copenhagen and London before migrating his talent to Melbourne in 1891 were he worked for MacRobertson's. Later, Stratmann set up a confectionery business in Sydney in 1905, arriving in Adelaide in September 1913. He set up business in a long thin shop, next door to the The Bee Hive Drapers, at 34 King William Street.

Carl “was artistic with his confectionery business and is an artist who is fairly unknown but had worked in Europe before coming to Australia.” Upon speaking to grand-daughter, she mentions that “he was an individual character”. I interpret that as a man of steely determination...

Riddle of the Carl Stratmann Etching

In 2003 the wonderful Elizabeth Tolley, married to Reg Tolley of Tolley Wines fame, came into the gallery with an etching showing all the hallmarks of neglect. It had been purchased in an Adelaide Hills secondhand shop in its original acidic frame presentation. That is not all bad news as that originality gave further histoical insight, but it was in desperate need of TLC. "You'll like this challenge Sandy!", she says joyfully. After the yellowing of the aggressive Lignin acid (a legacy of its wood-pulp presentation) had been removed, it revealed a very fine dry point etching, signed by a Carl Stratmann. It was in  thinest-of-thin half round black frames, a typical choice for an early twentieth century etching. Circa 1900 frame-shops did not have the advantage of the global supply chain of the 21st Century.

Taped onto the acid affected brittle dust cover on the rear was a brief hand written assessment of Stratmann by Rachel Biven dated 1990. I knew that name. She had owned Sydenham Gallery in Norwood circa 1970. I was thrilled to see this note dated 1990, 20 years later. Rachel had written an excellent book, Some Remembered, Some Forgotten, a record of female colonial artists published in 1972.

Entitled “Old Settler’s Home at Kersbrook” Rachel Biven writes, “Carl Stratmann was the first confectioner in Adelaide”, but had closed the business in 1915. I was discombobulated! Was not Alfred E. Haigh, the German settler who established the legendary "Haigh's Chocolates", the bearer of that honor? This historical thread needed a tug! (Subsequent 2016 research by Barbara Santich is most worth following)

Rachel notes, "(Stratmann) was artistic with his confectionery business and an artist who is fairly unknown but had worked in Europe before coming to Australia". So he was experienced in etching, proven by the quality of what emerged from the cleansing bath after restoration.  I placed the restored etching online in May 2015. Within the week Stratmann's Sydney grand-daughter made contact. I am only know realizing the significance of the date just over a century to the day, that Stratmann's business suffered due to the failed Gallipoli campaign. She was thrilled to see an example of Carl's artistry while he lived in Adelaide. Her family were not aware of any etchings he did during his time in South Australia.

Torren's Island German Internment Camp Protest

Torrens Island Interment Camp/Kaiser Cafe…German-Aussie humour?

It seems that the money "Alf" Haigh paid for the business in 1915, for not only the leasehold, he also bought Carl's recipes, library,equipment & the rights to use his trade motto, "Confiserie Surfine”. Stratmann placed this payment in a Swiss bank account. Why? With Anti-German feeling so high during The Great War (1914-1918), Adelaide followed the national trend in boycotting German place names - eg Hahndorf became Ambleside, Blumberg became Birdswood, popular traditional German food was renamed-"Fritz" became "Australian sausage". Many German men, the main source of family income, were taken to the Torren's Island Camp.Torrens Island, in the Port River estuary, became an internment camp where they were treated like prisoners of war. It was a mosquito infested ex-quarantine location. What did Stratmann do to protest this action? He hung a German Flag in his central CBD window. However, it was coincidentally 1915, the year of Gallipoli, the first time sovereign Australian soldiers were to die in battle. The traumatic statistics of ANZAC deaths made his moral protest pointless. The internment, and eventual brutal mistreatment, of ex-pat Germans, was a sad, yet predictable backlash by the locals in support of our troops. Of all Australian intern camps, it seems Torrens Island earned the reputation of being the worst. When the Kaiser Willhelm's Government heard of this, they let the South Australian politicians know that if it did not close the camp, South Australian troops would receive the same brutal treatment.

Stratmann feared the Haigh payment may be confiscated by the Government in retaliation of his humane protest. He did not draw on this money, such was his future success, even during the 1930 Great Depression. However, it seems a paranoia born of that era caused him not to mention the existence of the Swiss account for fear of retrospective punishment. It was not until 70 years later in the 1980s that an investigation into WWII German forgotten Swiss bank accounts gave his descendants the good news of their Patriarchs posthumous windfall.

The Legacy of Friends

The successful paper restoration uncovered the local framer’s label of Dimond & Son, who had written the customer's details on the rear of the paper, a quaint habit of past framers. This discovery has given us a peephole through a crack in time circa 1915, itself a record of a earlier Colonial Scene. I was even more besotted with it. Nevertheless, the idea of it being owned by his descendants who fondly remembered him, seemed only right and just.

Influence of Gallipoli

Gallipoli commenced on 25 April 1915 This was the first major battle where Australia and New Zealand forged a national conscience with massive loss of life. Stratmann may have been reasonably protesting against inhumane behaviour, but “soon tired of the taunts and harassment and sold his business ”.

Alfred Ernest Haigh’s Chocolate Empire

What was one German immigrant's protest was another's opportunity in the "Big Smoke".

 Alfred Ernest Haigh,(1877-1933) had ventured up from Mount Gambier to test the capital city market for his selection of confectionery. 

He purchased Carl Stratmann’s business which he re-named Haigh’s Chocolate Depot. Apparently Haigh was a self-taught but improved upon purchasing Statmann's impressive library of manuals and confectioners catalogues. In 1917 Haigh started producing chocolate covered fruit.

 In the same year he moved the family to a cottage on Greenhill Rd, Parkside, and built a factory behind. Today’s chocolate is made at a Mile End factory, brought up to the Parkside HQ to be hand finished for eager public consumption. 

It was in 1922 Haigh moved from No 34, once occupied by Carl Stratmann, to the highly coveted corner location known as Beehive corner. This decision was considered a brave at the time, but his descendants have never doubted its benefit.

Business Growth = Entrepreneurial Reach Out

He received one reply from Swiss chocolate maker, Lindt & Sprüngli, with whom John trained . Returning via the United States, he sought out production processes, shop layouts and contemporary marketing ideas from packaging to promotional concepts.

Adelaide Historic Icons Unite

To this day the Art Deco Capri Theatre on Goodwood Road maintains loyal ties with Haigh’s Chocolates. The rest is history, as they say.  Haigh’s brand is a much loved South Australian Icon. Stratmann's legacy was almost lost but for the information that traveled through a century, attached by humble sticky tape, written by Rachel Biven in April 1990. 

I salute you Rachel.

 © Sandra J Ker, Antiquarian Print Gallery (1989-2018), Pasadena

FOOTNOTE: Rachel Biven was known to me as the author of a precious book, “Some Forgotten, Some Remembered : Women Artist’s of South Australia” (1976). Women artists were often nothing more than footnote to history, given their main values considered as wives and mothers. Also, I fondly remember a wonderful botanical artist, Pam Brindsley, whose meticulous botanical art I framed for two decades. On mentioning Rachel Biven, her face lit up with obvious fondness. Pam had migrated from Britain in the 1960s and Sydenham Gallery, founded by Rachel, was where her work had been exhibited many times.

Yes, Adelaide is a small Australian City, but it has attracted many talented souls since 1836.

The Age of Enlightenment gave rise to great explorers, both for new lands to expand Empires, to find new trading opportunities to finance empire-expansion, and extend the knowledge of science and the natural world. New discoveries needed artists to record them. Wealthy men of science became benefactors encouraging artists to scientifically render the botany and zoology rather than decorative stylized beauty. It was the need to establish lucrative trade routes that caused the first recorded circumnavigation of the world. It also brought back some most beautiful bird skins that revealed something never before known...

Legend of "Perpetual Flight" Begins

In 1519 Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan (1480 -1521) was commissioned to find an eastern trade route to the exotic wealth of the East Indies. This was the first recorded circumnavigation of the world. Now, being the first can be great, however not only did he die in his effort but in 1522 only 18 of the original 237 men returned. They did managed to bring back five exotic shimmering skins full of colourful feathers obtained in Malaka. They were meant as an example of potential trade goods in feathers, but ended up "stuffed" as a tribute to King Charles V of Spain. A perplexed "animal stuffer"(taxidermist) could find no evidence of LEGS on the skins (that knife must have been very sharp Indeed!). It is logical that for the purposes of long voyages in a  tropical climate, the legs and viscera were removed in an effort to  prevent the stench of rotting flesh & preserve such beauty. So it came to pass these colorful exotic birds, yet to be classified, became "birds of Perpetual Flight...mythical creatures that lived on the sun's nectar", in the absence of any scientific explanation for such a state of being.

Holland's Demand for Curiosity Cabinet Fodder

Of course, the feathers would find their way to a lucrative fashion market, but, equally, there was a high demand for such ornithological conundrums in any number of fashionable European Curiosity Cabinets. As early as 1596, the Dutch explorer, Jan Huygens van Linschoten already had an enthusiastic entry in his log book about the Bird of Paradise as demand was high. The Dutch East India Company no doubt exploited this cabinet display demand killing tens of thousands for their curiosity value alone, to the detriment of all Birds of Paradise...and all this before the feathers were prized adornment of ladies bonnets & military attire in the 1800s. Moral is, it does not pay to be so beautiful or majestic as once you are discovered your end is nigh!

Carl Linnaeus Sets Things Straight

It wasn’t until the famous Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778)  examined the preserved birds  that he ended the idea of perpetual flight. His "biological binomial nomenclature system" put that idea to bed once and for all. He was also the originator of the name "Bird of Paradise".

Explorer François Levaillant (1753-1824)

A man of many skills, Levaillant was a naturalist, zoological collector, noted ornithologist and author. He was stoutly opposed to Linnaeus’ Latin classification protocol. He favored the use of of descriptive French names. It is for this reason that his spectacular exotic bird publication “Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis ...” , published Paris 1801-1806, have names like “Le Nébuleux étalant ses parures”, or “The Nébuleux Spreading its trimmings” and “Le Superbe étalant ses parures”, or “The Superb spreading its trimmings” (both illustrated below). On his return from his numerous voyages, he sent over 2,000 bird skins to Jacob Temminck, who financed his expeditions. Temminck's son, Coenraad Jacob Temminck, studied them. They were later sent to the Lieden Museum collection and others were bought by the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in the 1820s. It is these mounted specimens that the renown artist Jacques Barraband paints in preparation for Levaillant's publication.

Artist Jacques Barraband (1767?-1809)

Zoological and botanical illustrator renowned for his life-like renderings of tropical birds. Jacques Barraband was commissioned personally by Napoleon Bonaparte to contribute his masterful art to this fabulous "grand folio sized book of exotic birds - to which absolutely nothing compares.” His paintings were based on mounted, taxidermed, specimens collected by Levaillant. (Note that our specimens from this series have their legs!) His illustrations were, and still are, considered the most accurate ones made during the early 1800s. His most famous works are those illustrating François Levaillant’s scientific ornithological studies, the "Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux de paradis et des Rolliers".These were among his last. It seems the engraver, Langlois, (also engraver to botanist Pierre-Joseph Reoubte), in turn, translated Barraband's exquisite exotic watercolours into hand colored copper engraving. The resplendent bird to the left (I call him Louie) I believe, is a Black Sicklebill. The tail feathers, in life, were straight, and the beak is curved. After leaving the humid equatorial forest home we can assume the feathers, no longer benefiting from its proud owner's preening, with that curved beak that has lost its curve. Having been skinned to prevent rotting in the warm moist air, these gorgeous feathers would have tightened in the cold drier air of Europe. This is evidenced by the elegant random curl we see in Barraband's portrait, bearing no resemblance to its live comparison. Oh, the ignominy of curiosity!

©Sandra J. Ker

Valentine = Christian Martyr?

Saint Valentine’s Day is said to be named after one or more of the Christian Martyrs of Ancient Rome. The name “Valentine”, derived from valens (worthy, strong, powerful). Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.” As Gelasius implied, nothing was known, even then, about the lives of any of these martyrs.

Saint Valentine-Nuremberg Chronicle 1493

Claudius Gothicus, Emperor Claudius II

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle(1493). The text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. He Failed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer. Where the connection with sentimental love may have been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail and suffered the fate of many martyrs.

Christianity Remodels Pagan Festivals

English 18th century antiquarians, Alban Butler and Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine’s identity, suggested that Valentine’s Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia. In Pre-Roman times a very ancient pastoral festival was held between 13-15 February to keep away evil spirits, cleanse the city, revitalize and increase fertility. It is thought to have evolved from the Ancient Greek festival, Arcadia Lykaia, and worship of Pan, oft associated with sexuality.

The Pre-Roman Festival of Lupercalia.

New Legend of Saint Valentine

Many of the current legends that characterize Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.

Portrait of Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve in the Regiment of Princes (1412).

Enter the Messenger, Cupid

Cupid preparing his arrows of love...or pain?/“Psyche & Amor” (Psyche receiving Cupid’s First Kiss)

Enter Anonymous Valentine Cards

Leigh Eric Schmidt, “Graham’s American Monthly”, Esther Howland

The reinvention of Saint Valentine’s Day in the 1840s has been

traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. As a writer in Graham’s American Monthly observed in 1849, “Saint Valentine’s Day… is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday.” In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828–1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. She was an artist and canny businesswoman.

Two Monumental tides have changed & challenged Planet Earth since the mid-1600s: The Age of Enlightenment gave a voice to Philosophers and Scientists who became the fertilizer for the Industrial Revolution . Inventors armed with the newfound scientific discoveries invented labour saving devices. Factories manufactured volume therefore creating “economy of scale” savings. Western Society was no longer dominated by the Noble and Serf classes: a new class had moved into the neighbourhood. This was the energetic Merchant, or Middle class. "New Wealth”, instead of perceiving a child of Seven an adult, sending them down the mine as a matter of necessity, they had time to indulge their children. The idea of “Childhood” as we know it, was a by-product. These new factories made affordable toys. Education, once the domain only of the nobility, was filtering down through the publication of affordable books of knowledge. This was the mission statement of Johann Gutenberg, the inventor of the Printing Press circa 1452.

Adults = “obsolete children”?

Most children are adults eventually. Learning how to hunt and gather is essential knowledge to nurture the following generation. Even so, each adult love to hear a child’s laughter, delight in their imaginative view of reality. Maybe we adults need to accept, like Dr. Suess has predicted, "...adults are obsolete children". That memory of childhood, the lessons we learned that made us wiser, that make us ideal story tellers, that made us adults. It is those “obsolete children” that are the dedicated Children’s authors that require the imaginations of illustrators to embellish them. Adults become the investors in fine art, antique prints and first edition books, some in Self-Managed Superannuation Funds and shy not, it's their fund! All generations owe much to the privilege of having a post Age of Enlightenment fuelled Industrial Revolution “childhood".

Benefits of Travel & Culture : Thomas Cook

More adults had the capacity to travel, to enjoy the exotic delights, once only the domain of the noble class “Grand Tours”. Thomas Cook organized county excursions to London Great Exhibition in 1851 where “you could see the world for a penny” without leaving British shores. The British Empire was extending into exotic regions of the world, being exposed to new cultures of colour, culinary experiences and cultures. India had been dubbed the Jewel in the (British) Crown and with Commodore Perry's opening feudal Japan with his four steam warships in 1853 the impact Japanese Art would have on Western art and design was to be far-reaching. Indeed, many Illustrators bear witness to this influence.

Colour Printing Techniques = Artistic Commercial Opportunity

Enter a knew generation of artist/illustrator who identified a market of merchant-class adults who wished not only to educate their children but to entertain them with whimsical stories. Black and white illustrations, hitherto hand coloured, were now being influence by pastel tones or vibrant colour.

George Baxter (see left, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle) invented the first commercially viable “printing in colour” technique from metal plates in the 1850s., Chromoxylography was colour-ink printing from wood blocks, and chromolithography was colour printing using greasy crayon and Limestone blocks. Prior to these techniques colour had been hand applied to black and white images, with watercolour & gouache organic pigments. New colour printing techniques made the most of “economy of scale” thanks to middle class affluence increasing affordability, as well as, attractive to the Victorian Era Consumer.

In the 1860s London had become the printing hub mecca for European Illustrators attracted to its printing houses for such variety, versatility, affordability. Chromoxylography was taken on by printer Edmund Evans who catered to growing ranks of Golden Age illustrators. The technique was made famous for the crudely coloured “Penny Dreadfuls” comics and illustrations etc. Evans reacted against that trend deciding to use the same process to produce higher quality children's and toy books. Evans believed this technique was beautiful and inexpensive if the print run was large enough to maintain the costs. In doing so, Evans collaborated with Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott all remembered for their beautiful gift books engraved and printed by Evans.

Printing Evolution: Gravures & Fairy Tales

The next wave of influential Illustrators were propelled by another revolutionary printing process, Gravuring. Adapted from the fabric industry to more efficiently replicate pattern on fabric, it used light sensitive Gelatine, copper plates, chemicals and gauze. In essence it utilized the artists original artwork without the need for adaptation by an engraver or lithographer, essentially a third person, interpreting the artist’s work. Where the fabric industry used dyes, the printing industry used coloured inks. When the ink was trapped in a honey-comber gauze applied to the gauze, the cell walls prevented the colours "bleeding, behaving like watercolour pigments mixing in water. the finished product mimicked watercolour on the page. It was, therefore, a perfect medium for an illustrator to replicate in-demand illustrations, therefore income.

Arthur Rackham (1869-1939) 

Dubbed the “Beloved Enchanter” by critics his name evokes images of gnomes, fairies, dragons, knights and princesses, all a direct inspiration for Walt Disney decades later. Menacing forests and gnarled woods full of sinister personalities counter fairies who "believe nothing is more playful than a leaf" (Peter Pan). This balance of good and evil reminds us that lessons conveyed by stories and illustrations may not be so effective if they are all soft and fluffy. All the best stories have good countered by bad, with hopefully good "saving the day". The life of an artist/illustrator is a point in fact! Rackham had left his Job as a clerk to pursue his dream of illustrating. He quickly established himself as the goto leading decorative illustrator and for many years no Christmas would have been complete without a Rackham illustrated gift book. Indeed, he contributed to many Red Cross Fund raisers during the war, as many illustrators did “to do their bit”. In 1906 a critic said of his Peter pan in Kensington Gardens, “Mr Rackham seems to have dropped out of some cloud in Mr Barrie’s fairyland...to make pictures in tune with his whimsical genius.”

Edmund Dulac (1882-1953)

Dulac, a Frenchman in London, was the heir apparent  to Rackham. Dulac’s expressive use of colour, yet not expressed by British illustrators, betrayed his passion for Persian art and Indian Miniatures, evoking all the mystery and exoticism of the East. A Critic described his colour plates as “each of three iridescent miniatures which seemed to be made of opal dust on mother of pearl...they are colour feasts for the eye” Another influence may be, that from an early age he spent his holidays copying Japanese wood block prints, a huge influence on Western art in general. He was inspired by the illustrations of Walter Crane and the Great William Morris and soon became an ardent Anglophile. Indeed London, as for many illustrators, was a dream destination. His point of difference was his mastery of the “fantastic and exotic”. His illustrations for Stories of the Arabian Knights remained his most popular work. Dulac followed in 1909 with his translation os the Persian Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that shows Dulac at his most imaginative as he embraced the essence of Eastern fantasy both in form and colour.

Kay Nielsen (1886-1955)

Nielsen a celebrated Danish Artist with a family heavily involved in Danish Theatre. He was inspired to illustrate traditional Norse sagas. He was a brilliant colourist and highly decorative betraying an affinity for the Oriental. Many of his works are strongly reminiscent in quality to middle eastern and Persian designs. All these influences made his depictions less sombre than Rackham. Nielsen was inspired by the old Norse Folklore read to him by his mother as a child. Nielsen’s illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen display his unique style and talent for combining the eerie and fantastic with stunning decorative impact. After an exhibition in New York, Nielsen spent time in Copenhagen designing scenery for the Royal Danish Theatre before returning to illustration in 1924. Hodder & Stoughton printed his illustrations for Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. He established his place in the arena of fantasy illustration with artwork for fairy tales. In 1939 he applied his talent to the new medium of storytelling and was employed by the Walt Disney Company from 1937-41. He contributed to many films, most notably sequences in Fantasia. If alive today he would soar to new heights with the Computer-Generated Imaging (CGI) and 3D technology. Others are are harnessing that medium to the same ends, to Enchant the viewer, not only in the Cinema, but on their 3D living room entertainment centres, even using their smart phones.

Don't be "Obsolete Children"- Remain "Enchant-able".

These are just a few of the illustrators that any generation may have grown up with, either as the child or the parent or grandparent who retold these stories with such glorious illustrations. The progress of technology does not weary these interpretations by the contemporary artist, but ensures they are as much relevant today as they were when created. Each era has Illustrators able to interpret the stories with a modern twist, but the lessons are enduring. These characters can be adapted to modern media with a guarantee to delight and enchant a whole new generation of future "obsolete children". 

 I would like to think that Dr. Suess is reminding us not to let the Child inside us Never Grow Up!  We can look at these images at any age or media and remain "Enchant-able".

For Example: Brian, an enthusiastic Quiz Night frequenter, once asked, "If Koalas hung out in groups, what would we call them?" After some consideration of these solitary yet endearing critters, he suggested "A Cuddle of Koalas"? Brian has remained true to his inner child right there!

© Sandra Ker Antiquarian Print Gallery 1989-2015 South Australia

Present Glossy Fashion mags

Women's Fashion Magazines of today incorporate articles on recipe, seasonal home decoration, star gossip and the fashion trends. Every other page is dedicated to fashion brands & accessory advertising. Often referred to as "glossy magazines" they are aimed at their ideal customer, the lady herself, in these days of "off-the-rack" mass-produced factory fashion. The 1770s British, French and American periodicals catered to women with titles like, “Ladies Magazine, or Entertaining companion...”, laden with articles on homemaking, decorating, art, literature and tips for self-improvement. Bespoke Fashion was not as accessible to the general public. Taylors and seamstresses offered their services to their discerning wealthy clientele. The majority, working-class, were talented in "Do-It-Yourself" fashion, handed down from parent to child, then child after child.  It was not until the late 1700's magazines included garment illustration, often referred to as "fashion plates", of up-to-date fashions in response to a demand from the growing ranks of the merchant middle-class.

18th Century: Focus on Intellect more than Visual

In 1770 the British publication “The Lady’s Magazine, or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely for their Amusement”, published black & white engraved fashion plates (left: first published in 1770). "La Belle Assemblée"  is now best known for its fashion plates of Regency era styles, but until the 1820s it also published original poetry and fiction, non-fiction articles on politics and science, book and theatre reviews, and serialized novels.  Indeed Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, was a notable contributor to a Regency Periodical "La Belle Assemblee". Readers were also encouraged to contribute.

Fashion Illustration...in Colour

In 1778 French print dealers Jaques Esnauts and Michael Rapilly created prototype hand coloured etching/engravings of current fashion for “La Galerie des Modes" Th extravagant point of difference was popular but costly. In 1859 Philadelphia's Godey's Magazine & Lady Book best known for a hand tinted plate per issue recording women's dress progress. Publisher Louis Godey "boasted that in 1859, it cost $105,200 to produce the Lady's Book, with the colouring of the fashion-plates costing $8,000." Now that was an investment in his product!

Soon there were over 100 European Fashion Periodicals  for the discerning fashionista to choose from. This was in response to the growing middle-class demographic, often becoming wealthier than the noble classes. These Ladies periodical were seeking points of difference. Early fashion illustrations were sources of the latest trends for dressmakers and tailors who custom crafted wardrobes for individual customers. The illustrations helped accelerate the trend to change styles seasonally. 

Fashion's Natural Environment

As they gained in popularity fashion illustrations evolved from simple representations of women in-stylish attire to elaborate group scenes with backdrops of luxurious interiors and fanciful landscapes. The scenes often referenced the leisure pursuits of the wealthy, such as reading, promenading in public parks and socializing at balls, the highlight of a Regency (Jane Austen) social calendar.

PS. It occurred to me that natural history illustration also evolved from being rendered on white backgrounds to include them in their natural habitat, during this era.

Although fashion represented the “ideal”, they still offer a window into the clothing, furnishings and social milieu of their period. (Right: demonstrates the French male greeting of the era) The illustrations are a valuable resource for historians, costumiers, artists and fashion designer. For this reason, antique fashion illustrations have become popular collectibles and interior decor.

Enter the Victorian Age & Whalebone Corsets

The French Empire fashion adopted in the British Regency Period 1800-1820, where corsets were not required, must have been a great relief. The Victorian Era put an end to that level of comfort.

In the 1980s the “push-up bra” was all the rage.  In a "Back to the Future" moment, medical folk were warning, among other things, the danger the required constriction to enhance the bust line may hinder healthful deep breaths. In the late 19th century age of the department stores, the Glove/Hat stool was designed for the average height for a lady of 4.5-5 foot to rest, not sit on, while sampling the items on offer as they wore full to so whalebone corsets and prone to faint for that exact reason. These ladies were not inherently weak, just hindered by a lack of oxygenated blood supply to their brain!

"Votes for Women" was not a Vote for being Unfeminine!

The irony is that career women would venture into the gallery and yearn for the days of lace, ribbons and corsetry often displayed in the Gallery Fashion Folio. It was judged an enhancement of perceived femininity. The visual is one thing but the side effects are a whole other discussion that the suffragettes wrestled with over 100 years ago: They indeed hankered for the right to vote, but not to dress like men. Wearing beautiful clothes did not retard that wish. Indeed the suffragette flag was purple, green and white, and so Women's Right protesters wore their colours with pride as beautiful jewellery of amethyst, emerald and pearls. It was given as gifts from loving fathers, brothers, husbands who respected their wish to vote. 

©Sandra J I Ker 

When I sat down to research this beautiful, idyllic, delicately hand coloured aquatint of "Pont Aberglasslyn", featuring dramatic Welsh hills, peaceful estuary and some recreational fishermen...how did I end up with "Halloween"?

It seems Pont Aberglasslyn has an intriguing connection to the Devil according to Welsh folk lore. Situated in the parish of Nantmor, landowners had benefited significantly from the land reclamation made possible by the construction of a sea wall. Known as "The Cob", it was built by William Maddocks at Porthmadog in 1810. The Cob, across the Traeth Mawr estuary, is illustrated here. The Glasslyn estuary was tidal as far as Pont Aberglasslyn. The fisherman's path, through the pass, was used as a route to the coast. It gradually fell out of use, and through erosion by the river, became impassable. Contextually, there may be significance in the fact that a 6th century Monastery was but a mile away from this location.

Welsh Folklore, the Devil and the Magician

Now, according to local folk lore it was the Devil who built the bridge, seen in the middle distance, on condition that he would receive the soul of the first living creature that crossed the river Glasslyn "by use of it". Upon finishing the structure he went to the local Inn where he found the local Magician, Robin Ddu.  It was Robin Ddu the Devil told the bridge was completed. Robin Ddu, on his way to inspect the bridge, had managed to lure a local dog with a loaf of freshly baked bread, so the story goes. Once the bridge was in view he politely asked the Devil whether it was indeed sturdy enough to withstand the weight of a loaf. The Devil was shocked, nay insulted! He demanded the Magician throw his loaf onto the bridge upon which the dog chased it across the bridge. The happy human consequence was the Devil was robbed of a human soul, unhappily for the hapless dog though. The Magician returned to the Inn and finished his drink with satisfaction, probably in front of a cosy fire.

Robin Ddu ap Siencyn Bledrydd of Anglesey

Robin Ddu , also known and Black Robin the Magician, was a real character of history but as Robin Ddu ap Siencyn Bledrydd of Anglesey around 1450. He was a poet but sometimes known as a prophetic poet. Approximately 90 original manuscripts have been preserved at Bangor University. Ddu was a supporter of the Tudors in the War of the Roses, writing an elegy on the death of Owain Tudor (c.1400– 1461).

He did pretend to be a sorcerer or wizard at times and appears as a character in many a Welsh tale on the strength of that. So does this qualify as Halloween material? Would Black Robin the Magician, or the Wizard, be worthy of a costume in the 21st century Halloween Party?

©Sandra Ker www.historyrevisited.com.au

Prior to the invention of the printing Press by Johannes Gutenberg circa 1452 the “civilized world” was one of handwritten manuscripts for those wealthy enough to afford such luxuries, hence such knowledge. For the majority there was verbal education as few were literate. Now, there is some debate over when the Age of Enlightenment, otherwise known as Age of Reason, began. Some use the emergence of “modern science” in the 1620s, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, including human anatomy, and chemistry transformed views of society and nature. This married with the golden age of Philosophy. The Philosophes, the French term for the philosophers of the period, widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons and coffee houses, and through printed books and pamphlets, made possible care of the Printing Press of course.

The American Initiative : Franklin and Jefferson

Politically, access to knowledge came an era of individual liberty and religious tolerance which in turn lay fertile ground for the 18th & 19th century threat to the idea of Monarchy aka Revolutions. Such American luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson visited Europe, actively contributed to the philosophical and political debates, to knit these concepts into the US Declaration of Independence and US constitution.

Frenchman Denis Diderot prints Science & Philosophy to "change the way people think"

The catalyst publication of this enlightened epoch was Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers Published in Paris 1751-1772, edited by Denis Diderot.his end game was “to change the way people think” collaborating with 150 Scientists and philosophers in the 35 volumes eventually published.

In the Scottish Enlightenment, Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as universities,  reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums and masonic lodges.. The Scottish network was "predominantly liberal Calvinist, Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment". In France, Voltaire said "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." It was Scotsman, Adam Smith, who wrote the Capitalist Bible "Wealth of Nations" in 1776.

Encyclopedia Britannica & the Scottish Printer, Engraver & Bookseller

Enter Edinburgh Bookseller Colin Macfarquhar (1745?-1793), engraver Andrew Bell (1726-1809), who formed a "Society of Gentlemen" to publish the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” edited by printer William Smellie (1840-95). Bell was primarily the plate engraver becoming the sole proprietor on Macfarquhar's death. He is also greatly admired for translating French writer Comte de Buffon's Natural History in 1781. Bell 4 1/2 ft tall with a huge nose. He is was reported be quite a character: people often commented on his huge proboscis so it was his habit  at parties to slip away and reappear wearing a much larger papier-mache creation, reminiscent of the Nose Speech in "Roxannne". Likewise, William Smellie was a fascinating character. While an apprentice printer, he was able to attend a local grammar school, in founded the Newtonian Society that encouraged mutual improvement, in 1780 help found the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland , and in 1781 “became the keeper and superintendent of the Edinburgh Museum of Natural History". Both are shining examples of Scottish Enlightenment from such humble beginnings

Famous Caricaturist John Kay and Scottish Enlightened Society

Andrew Bell and Willliam Smellie were two such Edinburgh celebrities and oddities immortalized by famous Scottish caricaturist John Kay. Kay’s portraits and caricatures chronicle the vibrant epoch of Scottish enlightened characters.  The result was First Edition of Britannica, appearing in weekly instalments over a three-year period; the initial three-volume set was completed in 1771, and the printing soon sold out. The rest, as is said, is history that documents our lives and enlightenment to this day of “The Internet of Everything”

All these men seem to have been the embodiment of Scottish Enlightenment. But there is always a Joker to add the spoonful of sugar.

It is this quest of Encyclopaedic "complete system of learning" that George Selby Howard enters with “The New Royal Cyclopaedia, and Encyclopaedia; Or, Complete Modern and Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences".

©Sandra J Ker

In London 1788 Alexander Hogg published 3 Volumes- The New Royal Cyclopedia,and Encyclopedia, or Complete, Modern and Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences...Modern Improvements & Latest Discoveries..." The copper plate engravings, printed in 1788, reveal a fraction of the knowledge born from the Age of Enlightenment (c.1650-) & Industrial Revolution (c.1750-). This technological awareness belies the brutality on the eve of European Colonization of their newest colony, Australia, to those transported and the original inhabitants.

Age of Enlightenment (c.1650-c1820)

"Era in Western philosophy, intellectual, scientific and cultural life, where reason was advocated as the primary source legitimacy and authority."

This was a time when "Reason" was preferred as the "primary source and basis of legitimacy and authority". This movement helped create the intellectual framework for the American and French revolutions among others. The philosophical developments of that age, and their impact in moral and social reform, aspired towards governmental consolidation, primacy of the nation-state and eventually greater rights for the common people.

Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)

The Industrial Revolution reshapes humanity and the Planet.

From the late 1700s to the early 1800s this maturing of human consciousness was co-existing with the birth of the Industrial Revolution when major changes were happening in rural and urban Britain. There were many advancements in knowledge of the natural world along with the inventions that fuelled this mechanical revolution. The Scottish Highland Clearances, the forced rural exodus to revolutionize land use and profitability, tore huge holes in local societies. This was replicated across Britain, with displaced rural labourers driven to urban centres where crime was a growth industry.

Bound For Botany Bay

Artful dodger from OLIVER TWIST, illustrator Frank Reynolds, 1911

From this heady political, social and technological canvas the First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, set sail with a cargo of convicts and marines bound for Botany Bay. The planning of Britain's colonization of NSW was a response to overcrowded prisons, a product of the agrarian revolution in Britain (rural land closures etc.) The American Revolution put an end to that transportation option, the only way to relieve the over-crowding in prisons was to establish a Penal Colony in the lands of NSW discovered by Captain James Cook in 1770.

 Southern Continent

Southern Continent, published by the Dutch in 1644 after the return of Abel Tasman.

He gave a cartographic identity to East Coast of New Holland: the Dutch had already began the challenge recording the aggregate Dutch “Southern Continent” explorations in a 1644 map published after the return of explorer Abel Tasman. The 11 ships embarked on the 15,000-mile voyage on 13 May 1787 to establish the first European colony in New Holland (later Australia). It marked the beginnings of transportation to Australia. Between 1788 and 1850 the English sent over 162,000 convicts in 806 ships.

Not a Celebration for All

The Cadigal band of the Eora Tribe inhabited the Cove that provided them with fish, drinking water and shelter. 

The date of arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson (26 January) is today celebrated as Australia Day but notably a day of mourning for the indigenous inhabitants who were classified as “uncivilized” as they “did not cultivate the land.”

Conclusion

A sample from the title page of the weighty content.

These three volumes illustrate with copper engravings the technology that provide the inhabitants of the new millennium a window of evidence to Europe’s progress in scientific and mechanical advancements in 1788. It is a stick to measure the not only the pace, but to reflect on how it has changed us, and possibly what is missing to find an answer. Canadian theoretical physicist & cosmologist, Lawrence Krauss, toured with his lecture series , "The Physics of Star Trek". The dreams of so many "Trekkies", to travel through time in wormholes or be teleported, it seems is almost possible but for an allusive element, ie the appropriate power source not yet invented. Likewise, "Back to the Future" imaginings 30 years ago hover-boards, flying cars and self tying shoelaces. It seems inventors et.al. have been endeavouring as Captain John Luke Picard decreed, "Make it so". Knowledge is ever-evolving so watch this space/time continuum...

©Sandra Ker, www.historyrevisited.com.au

Recently a client introduced me to the work by a British art critic and television producer, Waldemar Januszczak. Jane sent me “The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution”. Methinks, “This will be great to listen to while I work on other activities…” WRONG! I happened to be uploading Science and Technology orientated prints dating from 1788 being constantly astounded by the depth of understanding. The knowledge of electricity and its storage and conduction amazed me, and in the year of the first Fleet arrival in Australia! Waldemar was introducing me to other early 19th century scientific revelations and inventions required by the Impressionists to achieve their successful “revolt” against the entrenched Parisian Salon Establishment Regime. He starts out by remarking how mainstream Impressionism has become, from poster-art to stubbie holders, fashion and chocolate box decoration. We all grew up with impressionist images counting down the months before Saint Nicholas visited the house. 

Right Place. Right time.

France had a new Emperor, Napoleon III. Old Paris was being reinvented, replaced by new concepts of urban planning by Baron Haussmann between 1853-1870. Medieval Paris was swept away replaced by the eras new technology, consolidated the Railway system, established wide avenues etc. this sense of change was exciting and concerning in equal measure. young poor art revolutionaries need the Age of Enlightenment and the inventors of the Industrial Revolution to succeed after their first Paris exhibition in 1874. The new tools of their trade, like the "flat brush" and modern inventions like the portable paint tube, and knowledge of perspective and vision.

This new breed of restless artist was against the requirement of the entrenched " highly finished polished art" demanded by the Academicians of the powerful Salon in the mid-1800s. With all this control where was the innovation that younger generations yearn for?

Modern Transport Advantages

Impressionist were about spontaneity, requiring easily accessed materials, portable equipment, new materials, new inspirations, cheaper transportation methods. Here is where the new steam engine technology assisted them in their quest : on land they had trains and trams enabling quick access to hitherto difficult to reach locations, the steam-driven metal ships made ocean travel quicker and access to new cultures and art. In 1853 a US naval fleet under the command of Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858) forced Japan to enter into negotiations with the US about an opening of the country for trade with the United States. Great for US to be sure. Meanwhile the Western Art World was in wonderment of its alien society. Britain's Gilbert and Sullivan wrote the Japanese inspired The Mikado, still a favourite with Opera groups and the public at large. For the restless Parisian artists looking for inspiration and solutions, Japanese woodblock art was a tsunami of opportunity. The future Impressionists were impressed by the  Japanese use of 'pure colour' and recording the incidental "everyday floating world" (Ukiyo-e).

Monet and Japan

 A major Australian Claude Monet Exhibition n 2001, Monet and Japan, reinforced the vital importance of this exposure in his lifelong quest to “paint light”, to achieve vibrant translucency. A memory of a exhibition visitor gasped “his work doesn’t look Japanese!” remains with me. Monet was not wishing to ape the Japanese style of art but to utilize how they used colour. Monet coated his walls with many famous Japanese Woodblocks as inspiration. Monet adapted what he saw to spontaneously portray sunshine, shadow...what “colour” is a shadow anyway!

Freedom of Tubes of Paints

European artists needed to venture out of the studio and be exposed to the changing impact of light out in nature. That would require lighter, portable easels, paint tubes, new brushes, knowledge of human vision. The tools enabling such portability had been invented to assist these art revolutionaries: the metal paint tube for one! Invented in 1841 by American oil painter John Goffe Rand as a way of transporting paints to use outside was patented by his employer patented by William Windsor to be closely followed by the screw-top cap. The tubes were in fact syringes which were used to squeeze out paint and preserved the paint for a longer time, allowing artists increased flexibility. Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir is quoted as saying that, "Without paint in tubes there would have been…nothing of what the journalists were later to call Impressionists." Claude Monet headed outside to paint ‘en plein air’ to ‘capture the snapshot’, thus celebrating the everyday and changing the art world forever. The portability of paint tubes was integral to such practices. Winsor and Newton established their art supply business in 1832.With their shared interest in painting it turns out their skills complemented each other: Newton being the better painter and Winsor providing the scientific knowledge that would prove so important.

History of Scientific observation and Artistic interpretation

 “The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat” explores Fillipo Brunelleschi ’s invention of Perspective c.1420 and how it was explored by Leonardo Da Vinci and Albrecht Durer to a discussion on “Colour Theory” from the Aristotelian tradition of Primary Colours (4th century BC) to Isaac Newton’s “Prismatic Theory" in 1740 about light consisting of colours and how it impacted on J.W.M. Turner (maybe the earliest "Impressionist), Seurat and others. Then there is the Chemistry of Colour: how colour informs us of the chemical composition of “things”, a type of Psychological Spectroscopy (http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/history-of-colour)

Monet's Lily-ponds: His Most Revolutionary Work

Now for a Medical scientific observation of a leading British ophthalmologist in "The World Through Blunted Sight" Dr. Patrick Trevor-Roper examines the consequences of eye health through history and how it influence artist's perception and thus their art offerings. The book combines his professional knowledge of ophthalmology with his extensive familiarity with art and literature to fascinatingly examine the work of painters, sculptors, poets and prose writers. Looking at the effects of myopia, cataracts, colour blindness, squints and total blindness he speculates on what the impact would have been on artists had assess to modern technology to correct these issues. Indeed, Waldemar completes his Impressionism journey with the effect of age-related cataracts on Monet’s last project aged 86. At the of World War I, he set out to realize a dream to paint a set of giant waterlilies to surround the viewers. This effect of his cataracts altered the colours he perceived: the yellowing of his vision altered his perception of blue to grey for example. Eventually the quality of vision was very blurred in spite of eye operations and use of correcting glasses. He relied on reading labels to identify the colours used. However, far from hindering his art it is considered to have helped his Lily-ponds canvases to be the epitome of the Impressionism. His obsession with water was perfectly serviced by this affliction as he relied on his imagination and instinct. He was the last of the Impressionists dying in 1926. This was his last revolutionary offering.

© Sandra J Ker, South Australia

The big problem of the 21st century has been that we live in an age of "peak resources". This relates to the future energy, food and water needs of an ever-growing world population. The word "sustainability" is often used as advertising hooks. There must have been past eras that experienced similar issues leading to solutions that we take for granted now. Enter Botanist Sir Joseph Banks...

Captain James Cook's voyage 1768-1771 discovers Australia

Captain James Cook discovery of New Holland/Australia's East Coast, and botanist Sir Joseph Banks, demand for Royal Navy Supremacy, the economic and Social issues in the late 1700s. If history is a litany of cause and effect, aka problems demanding solutions, then the mid-1700s was a dynamic cauldron fuelling the future which is our present.

Royal Navy Man of War: 80 tonnes of hemp to fit out 

A Royal Navy First Rate Man of War took 80 tonnes of hemp to build and maintain. It took 120 acres to grow such a quantity. There was the Sail cloth, the hemp ropes & rigging, waterproofing through he process of "caulking": hammering in,"oakum" was essential for water proofing, sealing, between the timber planks.

Sir Joseph Banks: The Question of Hemp

An historian and hemp advocate, Prof. John Jiggens' tome, "Sir Joseph Banks and the Question of Hemp",by historian John Jiggins, notes that the wealthy noble botanist was a grower of Indian Hemp (Cannabis indica). Indeed, Banks supplied the poet, Coleridge, with Marijuana, that we know colloquially as “dope”, a banned substance. One of Banks' main interests was the importance of growing hemp as a strategic raw material for the British Navy within the Empire. Indian hemp seemed to solve this issue. He assumed it was a substitute resource for American Cannabis stavia essential for the maritime industry. 

Sydney Cove, 1788

Hemp is now banned or restricted authorized use. Why? The historical importance of hemp was undeniably the most important vegetable on the planet. United States Presidents all grew Hemp. Hemp was central to Sea power, commerce and Naval warfare.  Britain relied on this American Colonial source 0f Cannabis Sativa, but in 1776 George III reign "lost" this resource.

President Washington admits it is true!

Hemp is now banned or restricted authorized use...why? The historical importance of hemp in the tall-ship era made it the most important vegetable on the planet. US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams all grew hemp. This was the stuff their faces were printed on as legal currency. Hemp was central to exploration, commerce and warfare as petroleum is today. The British American Colonies were a major source of hemp, until the American Revolution of 1776.

Consequences of Empire Control

In 1773 tax collectors for the Empire "overlords" were reportedly tarred and feathered, a hint of the almighty upheaval that was to come. Professor Jiggins argues the hidden reason for an Australian settlement was a strategic theme in British government thinking as a replacement hemp colony post the American Revolution in 1776. The British had also lost a convict purging opportunity. Jiggens has found surviving documents that may suggest the implementation of a cunning plan to solve two problems with one throw of the dice: send a ready populations of convicts that island continent, then known as New Holland, as convenient labour to grow & supply this essential crop, aka Operation Indian Hemp Experiment.

Cannabis indica has a higher ratio of CBD:THC.

Banks assumed that Indian Hemp looked the same as that grown elsewhere, hence would have the same qualities to sustain the vital maritime industry for their island nation. Well, that turned out to be a mistake. The Indians did warn Joseph Banks that Cannabis indica  was used "differently" on the sub-continent, and not to make cloth & rope. It turned out to be Banks' folly to turn 'dope' into rope! The Indian hemp did not have the identical properties of the American imports.The Indians use was more beneficial as "medical cannabis", as "Cannabis indica had a higher ratio of CBD:THC compared to Cannabis sativa.

Harvested hemp can be used for rope, clothing, medicine, building materials, even building biodegradable cars of the future...

Jiggens suggests, why would the British choose such an expensive option as New Holland for dumping convicts halfway around the world. It is too simple and convenient an explanation for a new colony.  He proposes the idea of Port Jackson being intended as a Hemp Colony NOT a simply a Convict Colony.

Jiggens also argues the modern international concerns to blanket ban all hemp varieties demands a rethink. Jiggens strongly suggests that the banning of all varieties of hemp was historically a backdoor attack by the powerful plastic and petroleum industries, set on demonizing a viable alternative to their emerging industries. Definitely, "food for thought"...

©Sandra Ker Antiquarian Print Gallery 2013

I believed the term and technique known as “Silhouette” was a French invention. I was mistaken!

During the Regency Period (1800-1820), portraiture was on of the mainstays of British art. Having a portrait made confirmed one's worth and a status and, consequently recorded one's likeness for posterity. But for 300 years, the expense required for a full colour likeness had restricted that indulgence to the wealthy and kept the ordinary person from acquiring a portable likeness of their loved ones.

The principle of the silhouette was employed on Ancient Greek vases, either in black or red on a black background. (The Georgian, Regency, Empire & Biedermeier Eras were all inspired by Classical Art as reflected in the antique frames of contemporary silhouettes)  It was in 1700 that the form of silhouette by which we are familiar, a lack shadow on white background, was established in Britain. their introduction was as “shade portraits” or ‘shadows’ as a cost-effective alternative to colour portraits. Consequently, achieved great popularity among the more populous classes. However, the black profile made popular by the masses, gradually developed an aristocratic fashionable desirability. Wealthy patrons commissioned silhouettes to be painted and encrusted with precious stones in jewellery. Royalty commissioned porcelain dinner services with silhouettes. All the while common folk filled albums with silhouette likenesses of family and friends.

Etienne de Silhouette the Perceived Cheapskate

It was the French that introduced the term “à la Silhouette”: the surprising origin of this term was a derogatory reference to Louis XV's former French Minister of Finance, Etienne de Silhouette, who was considered a cheapskate. Despite de Silhouette's short tenure as Treasury Chief, he becomes the subject of hostility. His penny-pinching manner led the term à la Silhouette to be applied to things perceived as cheap or austere. His decision to decorate his home with the English Profile Shades, so it was “Silhouette” was attributed to the British creation.

The aesthetic acceptability was reinforced by  intellectual prestige when Swiss Scholar Johann Kaspar Lavater published a study o physiognomy in four volumes 1775-78 from facial features- the art of reading a person's character. It was illustrated throughout with silhouettes. This was a potent force in spreading the popularity of this style of portraiture. Also the simplicity of the Profiles Shades reflected the neo-classical taste of the era ie the Greek Vase Painting.

Age of the Scissor-Cuts

Although many talented amateurs made silhouettes, professional specialists soon dominated the art. Their methods varied from freehand, to others using mechanical aids in this the age of Industrial Revolution. Lavatier, Swiss physiognomist, designed a "Silhouette Chair". It featured a translucent screen and the sitter's profile was on to the screen so the artist could trace it from behind. Another technique of shadow profile cut from black paper. The great French master cutter, Auguste Amant Constant Fidèle Edouart (1789–1861), worked in England, Scotland and the United States in the 19th century. He specialized and popularized the scissor-cut technique. Edouart felt that the term “shade” was derogatory to his art and began using the term "Silhouettist" to describe himself. The term became popular and carried forward to today.

Antique silhouettes may be found in 4 general forms:

1)  Painted on paper, card, vellum, ivory, silk, or porcelain 

2)  Painted in reverse on glass, a technique called Verre Églomisé.

3)  Hollow cut, usually with the aid of a machine but, very rarely by hand. In this process the figure is cut away from the paper thereby leaving a negative image. The backed with a contrasting colour of paper or fabric. 

4)  Cut freehand with scissors or knives and then pasted to a contrasting (usually light-coloured) background. This form of silhouette was often represented at fairs and showgrounds as “Scissor-cutter Silhouettists”. This came to a gradual end as the age of photography took its place.

Evolution of the "Shadow"

In the beginning profiles were all black, taking their form from the solid black shadow of the unadorned individual. Towards the end of the 18th century, artists began to distinguish their works with the barest of bronzing. As the 19th century progressed, the audience demanded more elaborate decoration and the artists obliged with embellishment that became more prominent, depicting jewellery, lace collars, and elaborate hairstyles. In America especially, a group of mostly unidentified artists cut wonderfully naive hollow cut profiles atop painted or lithographed stock bodies.

Silhouettes and Lithography

On both sides of the ocean, artists of the 19th century sometimes applied their cut or painted silhouettes on lithograph or water-colour backgrounds which bring even more attention to the regal simplicity of the shade portrait itself. Here is an superb example by Auguste Edouart recording the wondrous entertaining technology of the day, entitled "The Magic Lantern": the background scene of the projection is lithographed, the silhouettes are added paper-cut silhouettes.  

© Sander Ker Antiquarian Print Gallery 2015