The theme of this week is art! I was able to work some more with the broadside collection and got to help with a new collection! The art collection I was working on was a set of test prints from a work called The Criers of London. The main focus of each print was a variety of different people calling out about wares they were selling or, in some cases, decrying a law that Parliament was debating. One of my favorite images from the collection is a drawing of (what appears to be) St. Paul Square in the center of London.
The writing at the top is from the original printer, presumably sketching out additions that they would like to make to the final design of the image. I thought this work was extremely interesting as it showed just how much time, effort, and thought when into making prints for books like The Criers of London. Each image had at least 3 copies of drafts, including a hand drawn sketch of what the final plate would look like. After the printing plate was made, an impression was taken at least twice (from what I could tell the printer was testing how the image would look heavily inked and more lightly inked). Another interesting thing that struck me was the different types of people who were represented in the images. There were a handful of plate copies that depicted women as criers, appearing to be selling wares such as fruit or other foodstuffs (often in the same fashion as described in the song ‘Molly Malone’). While it might seem obvious that there were women working and selling items during the early 1800s, it was one of the first times I can recall seeing depictions of working women in a non-descriminatory light.
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