{illustrators} – Page 170

Einar Nerman

left: No title or date; right: Joker from a playing card set (1924).

A recent post by Silent-Porn-Star draws my attention to Swedish illustrator and cartoonist Einar Nerman (1888–1983) whose work I don’t recall having come across before. There isn’t much available to see online unfortunately, a shame as SPS’s posting of a 1926 cigarette ad shows a distinct Beardsley influence. Nerman seems known chiefly today for his caricatures of Greta Garbo, one of which was used on a commemorative postage stamp in 2005.

Greta Garbo.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Oscar Wilde playing cards
• Surrealist cartomancy

More Arabian Nights

Louis Rhead (1916).

Continuing from the weekend’s book discovery, a browse at the Internet Archive reveals many scanned editions of the Arabian Nights. No surprise given the enduring popularity of the stories, and no surprise either that the texts are of variable quality, most of them diluted from the earthy and inventive originals to the status of the mildest fairy tales. The exotic settings make for some fine illustrations, however, a selection of which follow. Edmund Dulac’s edition of Sindbad the Sailor is a typically masterful adaptation by one of the great illustrators.

HJ Ford (1898).

Walter Paget (1907?).

The Brothers Dalziel (1865).

Edmund Dulac (1914).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Edward William Lane’s Arabian Nights Entertainments

Edward William Lane’s Arabian Nights Entertainments

This weekend’s book purchase looks like an expensive volume but was actually pretty reasonably-priced for a book that’s 126 years old. This is no. III of a three-volume set of the Thousand and One Nights translated by Edward William Lane, published by Chatto & Windus in 1883. I bought it mainly for the copious wood engraving illustrations by William Harvey although the book itself is a beautiful, if battered, work of art: gold edging on the boards, marbled endpapers (something we did at Savoy for Lucy Swan’s novel) and marbling on the paper edges (Lucy’s book had gold edging). Like many fine old books the heavy boards and thick paper stock means it’s very heavy and it’s these quality materials which have helped it survive this long.

I wasn’t going to put this through the flatbed scanner so a few photo snaps follow.

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John Bickham’s Fables and other short poems

Or Fables and other short poems : collected from the most celebrated English authors : the whole curiously engrav’d for the practice & amusement of young gentlemen & ladies in the art of writing to give its full title, a children’s primer from 1731 and another free title available at the Internet Archive. John Bickham was one of the famous family of engravers among whom George the Elder is particularly celebrated for his own stunning penmanship in The Universal Penman (1740), a book which is still in print. The moral fables here are mostly single-page verse pieces with titles such as The Lady and the Wasp or The Spaniel and the Camelion. One short piece, On Liberty, is especially pertinent following the weekend when the Convention on Modern Liberty declared its mission to resist the rise of the Total Surveillance State.

Oh Liberty! thou Goddess heav’nly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight;
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train.
Eas’d of her Load, Subjection grows more light,
And Poverty looks chearful in thy Sight.
Thou mak’st the gloomy face of Nature gay,
Giv’st Beauty to the Sun, and pleasure to the Day.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Letters and Lettering
• Studies in Pen Art
• Flourishes

Butterfly women

The Flapper by Frank X Leyendecker, Life magazine (1922).

When I posted this splendid cover last July I said that I ought to make a post of Butterfly Women, so here is one. Don’t expect this to be at all comprehensive, women with butterfly wings are as legion as mermaids, these are merely a couple of favourites.

Loïe Fuller by Koloman Moser (1901).

The ultimate butterfly woman must be Loïe Fuller (1862–1928) whose Serpentine Dance inspired a host of fin de siècle paintings and sculptures and was also filmed by the Lumière brothers in 1896. The Internet Archive has a tinted copy of the latter while Europa Film Treasures has an Italian short from 1907, Farfale (Butterflies) with a troupe of dancers (also hand-tinted) imitating the Fuller style.

Life magazine cover by Wladyslaw Benda (1923).

These two pictures were discovered via the wonderful Golden Age Comic Book Stories who always has the best scans of vintage art. The Life covers are from the humour periodical which expired in 1936, not the later photojournalism magazine. For more Life covers, look here.

Dragonfly by Alberto Vargas (1922).

Okay, so it’s called Dragonfly but those look more like butterfly wings to me. A delicate piece of Vargas cheesecake which echoes the flapper theme of the Leyendecker picture. This Flickr user has a whole set of butterfly girl cigarette cards but we don’t get to see them properly without paying. If anyone has seen them elsewhere, please leave a comment.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mermaids
• Wladyslaw Benda
• Vintage magazine art II
• Vintage magazine art