DALZIELS' 'BIBLE
GALLERY,' 1880
ABRAM AND
THE ANGEL
As copies are both scarce and costly, it may be well to call attention to a volume entitled Art Pictures from the Old Testament (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1897), wherein the whole sixty-nine reappear supplemented by twenty-seven others, which would seem to have prepared for the Bible Gallery, but not previously issued: thirteen of these added designs are by Simeon Solomon, two by H. H. Armstead, R.A., three by E. Armitage, R.A., three by F. R. Pickersgill, R.A., three by T. Dalziel, and one each by F. S. Waltges (sic), G. J. Pinwell, and E. G. Dalziel.
As impressions of the famous blocks are obtainable at a low cost, it would be foolish to waste space upon detailed descriptions. Of course the popular reprint ought not to be compared with the fine proofs of the great édition-de-luxe, which cost about twenty times as much. But for many purposes it is adequate, and gives an idea of the superb qualities of the Leighton designs, and the vigour and strongly dramatic force of the Poynters. It is interesting to compare Sir Edward Burne-Jones's original design for The Boiling Pot, reproduced in Pen-Drawing and Pen-Draughtsmen by Joseph Pennell (Macmillan, 1894), with the engraving, which is from an entirely different version of the subject. Other drawings on wood obviously intended for this work, but never used, can be seen at South Kensington Museum.
A few belated volumes still remain to be noticed—they are picked almost at random, and doubtless the list might be supplemented almost indefinitely: The Trial of Sir Jasper, by S. C. Hall (Virtue, undated), with illustrations by Gilbert, Cruikshank, Tenniel, Birket Foster, Noel Paton, and others, including W. Eden Thomson and G. H. Boughton. The latter, a drawing quite in the mood of the sixties, seems to be the earliest illustration by its author. Another design by H. R. Robertson, of a dead body covered by a cloth in a large empty room, is too good to pass without comment. Beauties of English Landscape, drawn by Birket Foster, is a reprint, in collected form, of the works of this justly popular artist; it is interesting, but not comparable to the earlier volume with a similar title. In Nature Pictures, thirty original illustrations by J. H. Dell, engraved by R. Paterson (Warne), the preface, dated October 1878, refers to 'years of patient painstaking labour on the part of artist and engraver'; so that it is really a posthumous child of the sixties, and one not unworthy to a place among the best.
Songs of Many Seasons, by Jemmett Brown (Pewtress and Co., 1876), contains two little-known designs by Walter Crane, two by G. Du Maurier and one by C. M. (C. W. Morgan). Pegasus Re-saddled (H. S. King, 1877), with ten illustrations by G. Du Maurier is, as its title implies, a companion volume to the earlier Puck on Pegasus, by H. Cholmondeley Pennell. The Children's Garland (Macmillan, 1873), contains fourteen capital things by John Lawson—no relative of 'Cecil' or 'F. W. Lawson.'
The Lord's Prayer, illustrated by F. R. Pickersgill, R.A., and Henry Alford, D.D. (Longmans, 1870), has a curiously old-fashioned air. One fancies, and the preface supports the theory, that its nine designs should be considered not as an aftermath to the sixties, but as a presage of the time, near the date of The Music-master. Their vigorous attempt to employ modern costume in dignified compositions deserves more than patronising approval. Any art-student to-day would discover a hundred faults, but their one virtue might prove beyond his grasp. Although engraved on wood by Dalziel, printed as they are upon a deep yellow tint, the pictures at first sight suggest lithographs, rather than wood-engravings. Rural England, by L. Seguin (Strahan, 1885) has many delightful designs by Millais and Pinwell, but all, apparently, reprints of blocks used in Good Words and elsewhere.
Possibly the whole series of Mr. Walter Crane's toy-books, which began to be issued in the mid-sixties, should be noticed here; but they deserve a separate and complete iconography. In fact, any attempt to go beyond the arbitrary date is a mistake, and this chapter were best cut short, with full consciousness of its being a mere fragment which may find place in some future volume, upon 'the seventies,' that I hope may find its historian before long.
EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A.
