Pantomime Sketches

Pantomime As It Was, Is And Will Be -

original ink & watercolour sketches by

the pseudonymous Alfred Crowquill

-The Prince becomes Pantaloon

-The Father turns into the Clown and a fool which he was before

-The Lover becomes Harlequin, his head is turned by the change

-The young does this sort of thing as Columbine, which does not astonish her father

-Now the Fun begins "How we are"!!!

-The peasant Lover appears

-The lady's Father keeps his eye on him

-The lady appears who sees him without looking at him

-They rob and deceive the innocent!

-The Clown is taken into custody by a live Lobster

- He astonishes Pantaloon by his elegance as a female

"Harlequinade is a comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". 

It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation of the Commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. 

The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy father Pantaloon, who tries to separate the lovers in league with the mischievous Clown; and the servant, Pierrot, often involving a chase scene with a policeman."

-The Ugly gentleman "shuts up"and goes into the cellar

-The Prince attempts to hide himself

-But all in vain, the Good Fairy waves her wand and he flies all to pieces

-The Overture! Beautiful!!

-The Curtain rises, legs are discovered

-The Fairies that own the legs!

-The Clown attempts to catch Harlequin but fails of course

-The clown shows his contempt for constituted authorities and gains much applause!

-This kind of storm is recollected by the youngest inhabitants

-The Clown asks a female his way to next week and steals her shawl

-He is alarmed by teh Harlequin's Bat

-He plays tricks with a red hot poker, which is positively necessary in Pantomime

-He turns Pantaloon into a wheelbarrow for his luggage

-Harlequin attempts to escape down a pump. Clown pumps him out again

-He attempts to carry Harlequin who is too slippery

-Clown catches Harlequin and Columbine tripping

-Receives the magic bat

-Harlequin loses all power

-Clouds roll on, flexible demons appear. The good Fairy interferes. The lovers are made happy in the (?)realms of Eternal Sunshine!

The pseudonym *Alfred Crowquill* was used by a versatile pair of 19th century satirical illustrator-author brothers from London. Charles Robert Forrester^ (b. 1803) and his younger brother, Alfred Henry^ (b. 1804), contributed humorous sketches and verses to publications such as Punch and the Illustrated London News. Each of the brothers also worked independently outside of their loose partnership.

The panto sketches above are by Alfred Forrester and are his last contribution under the Crowquill pseudonym. They were published at the end of 1843 in the Illustrated London News and his older brother then became the sole user of their nom de plume.

Oddly enough, I noted in a read-around that prior to 1843, only a select few theatres were allowed to have performances featuring spoken dialogue! It took an act of parliament in 1843 to remove the licensing requirement and open up speaking roles for all theatres. So the many theatres staging totally mimed pantomime were then able to greatly expand the repertoire of the genre by attracting a new breed of writers

'Pantomime As It Was, Is And Will Be' album by *Alfred Crowquill* features about a dozen illustrated pages and is online at Houghton Library, Harvard University. [the album was sketched in 1842/1843] The images above were slightly cropped and some spots and pencil markings were removed. A few more illustrations in the set can be seen at the source site. {via}

The John Johnson Collection's Ephemera Resources Blog provides a small but very useful list of background links on pantomime, all from the V&A Museum. Most notably:

• Early Pantomime
• The origin of popular pantomime stories
• Victorian pantomimes
• All via the Pantomime homepage, where more articles, reading lists and background are available.

"Alfred Crowquill" aka The Forrester Brothers from The Victorian Web

Previously related on BibliOdyssey (at least)======> Severini Pochoir<=>The Purge of Discontinuity<=>The Masks<=>Lucky Dip<=>Dumpster Diving<=>Punch & Judy

Atlas d'Histoire Naturelle

L'Orang-Outang

Le Raton Laveur

Le Renne

Le Narval ou Licorne de Mer

Le Pangolin

Le Nilgaut

L'Hyène

L'Hippopotame

Le Tapir de l'Inde

Le Chiroptère ou Vampire de Java

Le Mouflon

Le Cachalot

Le Bœuf Musqué & La Baleine Commune

Le Kanguroo Géant et le Kanguroo-Lièvre

Le Tigre-Loup & le Woombat

L'Ornithorhynque

Le Paresseux

'Atlas d'Histoire Naturelle : Scènes de la Vie des Animaux' {A. Ract & Co. Editors} undated but say, 1875, is online via la Bibliothèque des Sciences et de l'Industrie (BSI) in Paris.

[The portal: La Médiathèque à Paris au cœur de la Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie]

The sixty chromolithographs of animals are grouped together in the book according to their geographical location and continent  (unlike the random display above). The illustrations are fairly accurate and naturalistic for the most part, if we overlook the  absurd faces on the monkeys. That's a feature more usually associated with natural history books from a century earlier, but it's unlikely that these coloured lithographs were produced before about 1850.

Chromolithographs were often made -as here- to look like they were hand-coloured engravings, presumably to boost their renown and value. I had thought it might be as a result of the hand-painting being more labour intensive and therefore more costly to produce, but the early lithographic printing in colour required a new stone for each colour making it an exhaustive and difficult process.

"Even though chromolithographs served many uses within society at the time, many were opposed to the idea of them because of their lack of authenticity. The new forms of art were sometimes tagged as "bad art" because of their deceptive qualities. Some also felt that it could not serve as a form of art at all since it was too mechanical, and that the true spirit of a painter could never be captured in a printed version of a work. Over time, chromos were made so cheaply that they could no longer be confused with original paintings. Since production costs were low, the fabrication of chromolithographs became more a business than the creation of art." [W]

Neil from Idbury Prints informs me that the 'striped' appearance in many of the pictures is due to the quality of the digital photography. The illustrations were printed on laid paper which has an embedded striated pattern caused during the paper's unique production technique that is being recorded during digitisation. It would hardly be noticeable with the naked eye.

Der Fechtkampf

Sword fighting manual from the 16th century

This fencing manuscript, made from paper*, was produced in the early 1500s in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. There is next to no online commentary and the work consists of about 140 pages, featuring ink and watercolour/ink-wash illustrations.

Combatant swordsmen, in armour, make up only about twenty pages, with the balance of generally unsophisticated sketches showing duelling individuals in ordinary clothes. Perhaps they were soldiers in training, or for-hire, without the necessary funds to buy armour. It must have been an enormously expensive protective garment.

There is no accompanying text, beyond occasional notes scribbled across some pages. Presumably it was intended as a training manual, perhaps even copied from (an) earlier source(s). The scenes are fairly narrow in terms of the weapons portrayed, with long swords, daggers and bucklers^ making up the vast majority, if not the entire illustrated repertoire.

*I think

The 16th century manuscript, listed simply as: 'Fechtbuch: Libr. pict. A 83' is hosted by the State Library of Berlin.

Fechtbuch = fight book
Der Fechtkampf = the sword fight

Previously: combat

Military Uniform Caricatures

The illustrations of military uniform caricatures below were found among the magnificent Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors site from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

All the images in this post have been extensively background cleaned and, although you can click through on each picture below to access much larger versions, Brown U's website hosts very high resolution, large format files.

Indian 'Cavalree' Skinners Horse

Date: 1910
Artist: Snaffles
Notes: gouache on grey board; from a pair of semi-caricatures

French Carabinier, I Empire

Date: 1910
Artist: Leopoldo Cenni
Notes: pen/ink drawing measuring about 26 x 20 inches

Royal Artillery

Date: 1910
Artist: E., G.
Notes: gouache sketch, soldier decked out in tropical kit

2nd Queen's Own Rajput Light Infantry

Date: 1910
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes:  The 2nd Rajput^ was originally established as a Bengal Native Battalion in 1798 and brought under royal authority with the declaration of Queen Victoria as Empress of India in 1876. {from a series of four watercolour sketches}

12th (The Prince of Wales's) Royal Lancers. Full dress

Date: 1880 (that's probably the date of the uniform. The artist wasn't active until 1888 and this sketch was most likely produced in the first decade of the 20th century)
Artist: A Roberson
Notes: Formed from a regiment of dragoons^ and bearing the badge of the three ostrich feathers, the 12th Royal Lancers^ were independently operational as a British cavalry regiment from 1715 until 1960.

The Cameronians

Date: 1908
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes: Watercolour and gouache; the unusual texture is from significant paint cracking and flake loss. [The Cameronians^ was a Scottish rifle regiment(1881) in the British Army, with its descendant units disbanded over about the last forty years]

67th South Hampshire Regiment

Date: 1864 (uniform date) 1910 (sketch date)
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes: subjects^ - "soldiers in art" "caricatures and cartoons" "history 19th century" "uniforms"

A Red Lancer

Date: 1912
Artist: Charles Johnston Payne (d. 1967)
Notes: from Payne's watercolour sketch series, 'Impressions of the Army' :::::  [W]- "Although the lance had its greatest impact in the charge, lancers were vulnerable against other cavalry, as the lance proved a clumsy and ineffective weapon (compared to the sabre) at close quarters. By the late 19th century, many cavalry regiments were composed of troopers with lances (as well as sabres or other secondary weapons) in the front rank and men with sabres in the second, the lances for the initial shock and sabres for the mêlée."

Minden Day -  Lancashire Fusiliers

Date: 1908
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes: 3rd (of 5) in an unnamed watercolour series of military personnel caricatures. [W]-"Minden Day is a regimental anniversary celebrated on August 1 by certain units of the British Army. It commemorates the participation of the forerunners of the regiments in the Battle of Minden on that date in 1759. The celebration of the day involves the wearing of "Minden Roses" on the regimental head dress, and, in the case of the infantry regiments, the decoration of the regimental colours with garlands of roses." {MoD}

Oesterreich-Ungarische Armee

11o. Dragoner-Reg. (Dienst-uniform)

Date: 1900-1912
Artist: J Ronni
Notes: This cloaked cavalryman sketch is from a group of 120 original caricature illustrations on postcards of Austro-Hungarian military uniforms, which is part of a larger collection of 805 postcards of various national armies.

Oesterreich-Ungarische Armee - Landwehr Infantry

Date: 1900-1912
Artist: J Ronni
Notes: Austro-Hungarian infantryman. {From the same caricature series and larger postcard set as above} [reminds me somewhat of  Švejk]

Oesterreich-Ungarische Armee Militar-Arzt

Date: 1900-1912
Artist: J Ronni
Notes: {again from the postcard series as above} [incidentally, the slipcase housing the unbound series bears a gold title: "J Ronny, Austrian Uniforms (1900-1912), original watercolour caricatures"]

Oesterreich-Ungarische Armee Ungarische-Leib-Garde

Date: 1900-1912
Artist: J Ronni
Notes: An Hungarian Life Guard {again from the postcard series as above} The Austro-Hungarian Land Forces 1848-1918 site aims to "document the organisational history of the land forces of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy from just prior to the outbreak of the Great War until the collapse of the monarchy in 1918."

Oesterreich-Ungarische Armee 5o. Husaren-Regt.

Date: 1900-1912
Artist: J Ronni
Notes: Husaren or (more commonly in English) Hussar^ "refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century." {this sketch is, again, from the large postcard series as noted above}

The Oxford Hussars Levée^ dress

Date: 1908
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes: Yeomanry regimental soldier -- One of a collection of 5 watercolors by G.H. Brennan of British soldiers.

The Ross-Shire Buffs

Date: 1912
Artist: K.,A.
Notes: "Original gouache caricature on gray board, signed and dated by A.K.; standing uniform figure in profile facing left, wearing kilt." The Ross-Shire Buffs^ or "78th Regiment of Foot, was a Highland Infantry Regiment of the Line raised in late 18th Century Scotland for service against the French during the Napoleonic Wars."

The Sand Bags

England's safe from any mob
while men like me are on the job

Date: 1913
Artist: James Walsh
Notes: Front view of Grenadier Guards officer. Originally^ (1656) a regiment of bodyguards for the exiled Charles II, the Grenadiers earned their famous title in 1815 at Waterloo by defeating the Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard.

The Sharpshooters Naughty Boy!

Date: 1913
Artist: James Walsh
Notes: Gouache caricature on gray board - a front view of an officer of the 3rd County of London Yeomanry^ (aka Sharpshooters). The first line regiment (1/3rd) was formed in the creation of the Territorial Force^ in 1908 and was based in St John's Wood.

Westmoreland & Cumberland I.Y. Levée Dress

Date: 1908
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes: Another of the collection of 5 watercolour caricatures by Brennan of British soldier figures. The Westmorland & Cumberland Yeomanry regiment was formed after the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 created a volunteer army in Britain. {Levée Dress refers (I *think*) to the presentation style of uniform (that used to be) worn, according to strict protocols, when carrying out duties as an Equerry to royalty or when attending high status / formal events such as (royal?) court investitures or weddings}

The 18th Tiwana Lancers

Date: 1909
Artist: GH Brennan
Notes: (From a set of four caricatures, signed by the artist) Raised originally in (what is now) Pakistan in the 1850s as a combined Moslem-Sikh outfit, the 18th Tiwana Lancers was brought under the auspices of the Prince of Wales when he visited the region in 1908 but was renamed simply '18th Lancers' with the partition of the sub-continent and Pakistan's becoming a republic in 1947.



All the images above are found among the Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University.

The selection above is a mere sampling of the images returned for a narrow site search on 'caricature' during the years '1900-1915', as I recall. By September 2011 more than 20,000 items had been digitised from the Military Collection and posted online.

Previously: Military Caricatures -<>- Waiter, there's a Hair in my Satire -<>- Aztec Mexico -<>- Surinam Slave Trade (all derived from the fabulous Brown University holdings). And, generally speaking: combat and costumes.

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