Antoine Maurin after Frans Porbus Marie de Medicis ca. 1820-60 lithograph British Museum |
Anonymous print-maker after Alfred Corbould The Diver Samuel G Scott 1840-41 lithograph British Museum |
Most of the lithographs in this selection are forthrightly documentary and perhaps not primarily artistic in intention. In their day, the basic presentation of each image must have seemed value-neutral and inevitable, but with the passage of a couple of centuries each image speaks primarily of its time, and only after that fact has been registered can it be allowed to speak of its specific, time-bound subject.
John Christian Zeitter Signor Paulo 1820s lithograph British Museum |
Villain The actress Marie Dorval 1829 lithograph British Museum |
John Brandard Miss Fairbrother as Eglantine 1845 lithograph British Museum |
Eduard Clemens Fechner Emma Albertazzi as Rosina in The Barber of Seville 1836-45 lithograph British Museum |
Jean-Baptiste Regnault Young woman in profile ca. 1780-1829 lithograph British Museum |
Jean-Baptiste Regnault Young woman in profile ca. 1780-1829 lithograph British Museum |
Anonymous print-maker King George III ca. 1760-1820 lithograph British Museum |
Anonymous print-maker Monument called the Montagne du Lion, Waterloo 1842 lithograph British Museum |
Anonymous print-maker The York Pillar, London ca. 1834-50 lithograph British Museum |
Francis Oliver Finch after Alfred Baker Ruins of Kenilworth Castle 1822 lithograph British Museum |
Carle Vernet Rearing horse ca. 1816-36 lithograph British Museum |
Anonymous print-maker for Alfred Essex Temple of the East early 19th century lithograph British Museum |
I am grateful to the British Museum for making these images available.