Some of the mixed media projects I created this summer required quite a bit of old book papers for collage purposes. So much so I ran out of the book pages. Truth be told it wasn't the projects themselves that used up the paper it was the number of projects I was creating..... lol
Well, in looking around the house I found an old Harper's Young People Illustrations Book from 1889 that was in poor condition and with some of the pages already missing.
I don't know where this book came from and who it belonged to. Most of the old books I have belonged to my great Aunt Flossie but I didn't think this was one of hers. The time-frame was right but the book wasn't signed with her name - which she always did on the inside of the front cover.
I can remember as a young girl asking her why she signed all her books and she said; "so that anyone who borrows them will know who the books belong to." Makes sense to me. So, for my whole life every book I've ever bought I've signed the inside of the front cover, too. Kind of a sweet tribute to my great Aunt.
I was pretty sure this book didn't belong to my great Aunt but had no idea where it came from or who gave it to me. After all this time suffice to say I'll probably never know.
From what I could tell there were 52 weekly magazine volume's contained within that were dated from November 1888 until November of 1889. Each of the weekly volume's sold for one penny.
So, I decided to do a little research on the Harper's Young People Illustrations Book published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington in 1889. Here's what I found out:
According to the Wikipedia.com page on Harper's Young People; "Harper's Young People was an American children's magazine between 1879 and 1899. The first issue appeared in the fall of 1879. It was published by Harper & Brothers. It was Harper's fourth magazine to be established, after Harper's Magazine (1850), Harper's Weekly (1857), and Harper's Bazaar (1867). Harper's Young People was the first of the four magazines to cease publication."
"Harper's Young People began in November 1879 as a weekly illustrated 16-page magazine that contained fiction and non-fiction works..... The magazine ceased publication in 1899."
In looking at the book in poor shape and missing some of the pages I thought it still might be perfect for collage purposes so I started to tear some of the pages out. I didn't tear too many out because right away I found myself looking at some of the beautiful black and white illustrations that were contained within the book.
They were enchanting: illustrations of Victorian children, Victorian girls with dolls, Victorian families, Victorian children at school, Victorian children reading books, holiday and seasonal illustrations and more. I couldn't help but admire the artistic capabilities of the artists who had drawn them back in 1888 to 1889.
So, while tearing out the pages I started to set some that I really liked aside. Needless to say I wound up with a large pile I wanted to keep. That still left me with a large pile to collage with so I was happy.
I loved the illustrations so much I decided to take some pictures of the black and white illustrations I had set aside so I could see them blown up on the computer. I wanted to see the fine details in the drawings and have found taking pictures and uploading them to the computer is a great way to see them blown up.
Another advantage of doing this is I can share some of them with you and show you some of the blown-up areas in the illustrations that enchanted me. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did.
It was a little uncanny that the first illustration I set aside was a picture of something that is near and dear to my heart. It was a picture of a Christmas play dinner that a little girl was having with her dolls.
She had her head bowed and looks like she was saying a blessing before eating the play dinner.
One of the dolls was sitting on a drum. I don't know what the other doll was sitting on. What I loved about the two dolls was their hair style. Totally adorable.
What added to the enchantment of this picture was there was a little dog that looked like my beloved "Bud" watching all of this.
If you look closely at the blown-up picture of the little dog you'll notice a little dolls bed, chair, and bureau of sorts in the top left hand corner.
A Victorian little girl with her dolls and a small dog couldn't have been more perfect for me. I was enchanted with it and decided I might just frame this particular illustration.
The black and white illustration was drawn by C.S. Reinhart (Charles Stanley Reinhart) and was entitled "The Dolls Christmas Dinner." It appeared in the December 29, 1888 weekly of the Harper's Young People Illustrated book on page 105.
Given how much I love history I decided to see if I could find out a little more about Charles Stanley Reinhart. So, I went to the Library of Congress, did a search and found these.
I loved his illustrations and wanted to learn more so I went to Wikipedia.com and found this.
I hope you enjoyed "The Dolls Christmas Dinner" illustration as much as I did. If I decide to frame the original I'll be sure to post a picture of it.
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