‘La Nature donne barbe et cheveux,
Et moi, je les coupe tous les deux.’[45]
‘A toutes les figures dédiant mes rasoirs,
Je nargue la censure des fidèles miroirs.’[46]
“Also a frequent inscription with a barber is, ‘Ici on rajeunit.’ A breeches-maker writes up, M——, Culottier de Mme. la Duchesse de Devonshire. A perruquier exhibits a sign, very well painted, of an old fop trying on a new wig, entitled, Au ci-devant jeune homme. A butcher displays a bouquet of faded flowers, with this inscription, Au tendre Souvenir. An eating-house exhibits a punning sign, with an ox dressed up with bonnet, lace veil, shawl, &c., which naturally implies, Bœuf à-la-mode. A pastry-cook has a very pretty little girl climbing up to reach some cakes in a cupboard, and this sign he calls, A la petite Gourmande. A stocking-maker has painted for him a lovely creature, trying on a new stocking, at the same time exhibiting more charms than the occasion requires to the young fellow who is on his knees at her feet, with the very significant motto, A la belle occasion.”[47]
Though it is forty years since these remarks were written, they still, mutatis mutandis, apply to the present day. Even the greatest and most fashionable shops on the Boulevards have their names or painted signs; the subjects are mostly taken from the principal topic of conversation at the time the establishment opened, whether politics, literature, the drama, or fine arts: thus we have à la Présidence; au Prophète; au Palais d’Industrie; aux Enfants d’Edouard, (the Princes in the Tower;) au Colosse de Rhodes; à la Tour de Malakoff; à la Tour de Nesles, (tragedy;) au Sonneur de St Paul, (tragedy;) à la Dame Blanche; à la Bataille de Solferino; au Trois Mousquetaires; au Lingot d’Or, (a great lottery swindle in 1852;) à la Reine Blanche, &c.[48] Some of these signs are remarkably well painted, in a vigorous, bold style, with great bravura of brush; for instance, les Noces de Vulcain, on the Quai aux Fleurs, is painted in a style which would do no discredit to the artist of les Romains de la Décadence. Roger Bontemps is still frequent on the French signboard, where he is represented as a jolly rubicund toper, crowned with vine-leaves and seated astride a tun, with a brimming tumbler in his hand; this is a favourite sign with publicans. At the tobacconist’s door we may see a sign representing an elderly Paul Pry-looking gentleman enjoying a pinch of snuff. The Bureaux des Remplacements Militaires particularly excel in a gaudy display of military subjects, where the various passages of a soldier’s life are represented with all the romance of the warriors of the comic opera. Here can be seen the gallant troopers now courting Jeanette or Fanchon; now charging Russians, Cabyles, or Austrians, according to the date of the picture. Elsewhere a lancer on a fantastic wild horse; a guide, walking with a pretty vivandière, or an old grenadier with the Legion of Honour upon his breast;—“all the glorious pomp and circumstance of war” portrayed to entice the French clodhopper to sell himself “to death or to glory.” More pacific pictures may be observed at the door of the midwife; there we see a sedate-looking matron in ecstasy over the interesting young stranger she has just ushered forth into the world, whilst paterfamilias stands with a triumphant look in the background. Then there is the Herculean coalheaver at the door of the auvergnat, who sells coals and firewood; and landscapes with cattle at the dairyshops. But amongst the best painted are those at the doors of the marchands de vins et de comestibles, where we see frequently bunches of fruit, game, flowers, glasses, hams, fowls, fish, all cleverly grouped together, and painted in a dashing style. There is one, for instance, in the Rue Bellechasse, and another in the Rue St Lazare, that are well worth inspection. These paintings are generally on the door-posts and window-frames; they are painted on thin white canvas, fixed with varnish at the back of a thick piece of plateglass, and so let into the woodwork.
And now a few words concerning the painters of signs. Their head-quarters were in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane, where, until lately, gilt grapes, sugar-loaves, lasts, teapots, &c., &c., were displayed ready for the market. Here Messrs Barlow, Craddock, and others, whose names are now as completely lost as their works, had their studios, and produced some very creditable signs, both carved and painted. A few, however, were the productions of no mean artists. The Spectator, January 8, 1743, No. 744, says:—
“The other day, going down Ludgate Street, several people were gaping at a very splendid sign of Queen Elizabeth, which by far exceeded all the[38] other signs in the street, the painter having shewn a masterly judgment and the carver and gilder much pomp and splendour. It looked rather like a capital picture in a gallery than a sign in the street.”
Unfortunately the name of the artist who painted this has not come down to us.
Those who produced the best signs, however, were not exactly the Harp Alley sign-painters, but the coach-painters, who often united these two branches of art. In the last century, both the coaches and sedans of the wealthy classes were walking picture galleries, the panels being painted with all sorts of subjects.[49] And when the men that painted these turned their hands to sign-painting, they were sure to produce something good. Such was Clarkson, to whom J. T. Smith ascribed the beautiful sign of Shakespeare that formerly hung in Little Russell Street, Drury Lane, for which he was paid £500.—John Baker, (ob. 1771,) who studied under the same master as Catton, and was made a member of the Royal Academy at its foundation.—Charles Catton (ob. 1798) painted several very good signs, particularly a Lion for his friend Wright, a famous coachmaker, at that time living in Long Acre. This picture, though it had weathered many a storm, was still to be seen in J. T. Smith’s time, at a coachmaker’s on the west side of Well Street, Oxford Street. A Turk’s head, painted by him, was long admired as the sign of a mercer in York Street, Covent Garden.—John Baptist Cipriani, (ob. 1785,) a Florentine carriage-painter, living in London, also a Royal Academician.—Samuel Wale, R.A. (ob. 1786) painted a celebrated Falstaff and various other signs; the principal one was a whole length of Shakespeare, about five feet high, which was executed for and displayed at the door of a public-house at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, Drury Lane. It was enclosed in a most sumptuous carved gilt frame, and was suspended by rich ironwork. But this splendid object of attraction did not hang long before it was taken down, in consequence of the Act of Parliament for removing the signs and other obstructions in the streets of London. Such was the change in the public appreciation consequent on the new regulations in signs, that this representation of our great dramatic poet was sold for a trifle to Mason the broker in Lower Grosvenor Street, where it stood at his door for several years, until it was totally destroyed by the weather and other accidents.[50]
The universal use of signboards furnished no little employment for the inferior rank of painters, and sometimes even to the superior professors. Among the most celebrated practitioners in this branch was a person of the name of Lamb, who possessed considerable ability. His pencil was bold and masterly, and well adapted to the subjects on which it was generally employed. There was also Gwynne, another coach-painter, who acquired some reputation as a marine painter, and produced a few good signs. Robert Dalton, keeper of the pictures of King George III., had been apprenticed to a sign and coach-painter; so were Ralph Kirby, drawing-master to George IV. when Prince of Wales, Thomas Wright of Liverpool, the marine painter, Smirke, R.A., and many artists who acquired considerable after-reputation.