At New Inn Lane, Epsom, Harlow painted a front and a back view of Queen Charlotte, to settle a bill he had run up; he imitated Sir Thomas Lawrence’s style, and signed it “T. L.,” Greek Street, Soho. When Lawrence heard this, he got in a terrible rage and said, if Harlow were not a scoundrel, he would kick him from one street’s end to the other; upon which Harlow very coolly remarked, that when Sir Thomas should make up his mind to it, he hoped he would choose a short street.
In his younger days Sir Charles Ross painted a sign of the Magpie at Sudbury, and the landlady of the house, with no small pride, gave the informant to understand that, more than thirty years after, the aristocratic portrait-painter came in a carriage to her house, and asked to be shewn the old sign once more.
Herring is said to have painted some signs. Amongst them are the Flying Dutchman, at Cottage Green, Camberwell, and a White Lion at Doncaster; underneath the last are the words,—“Painted by Herring.”
Millais painted a Saint George and Dragon, with grapes round it, for the Vidler’s Inn, Hayes, Kent; and we learn that a sign at Singleton, Lancashire, was painted by an R.A. and an R.S., each painting one side of it; on the front was represented a wearied pilgrim, at the back the same refreshed, but the sign was never hung up.
Great men of former ages, also, are known to have painted signs; in the museum at Basle, in Switzerland, there are two pictures of a school, painted by Holbein when fourteen years old, for a sign of the schoolmaster of the town. The Mule and Muleteer in the Sutherland collection, is said to have been painted by Correggio as a sign for an inn; a similar legend is told about the Young Bull of Paul Potter, in the museum of the Hague, in Holland, which is reported to have been painted for a butcher’s signboard. The Chaste Susannah (la chaste Susanne) was formerly a fine stone bas-relief in the Rue aux Fèves, Paris; it was attributed to Goujon, and bought as such by an amateur. A plaster cast of it now occupies its place. Watteau executed a sign for a milliner on the Pont Nôtre-Dame, which was thought sufficiently good to be engraved. Horace Vernet has the name of having produced some signs in his younger days; and there is still at the present time a sign of the White Horse, in one of the villages in the neighbourhood of Paris, which is pointed out as a work of Guéricault.
Besides these, there are, and have been at various times, excellent signboards in Paris, the artists of which are not known. Thus there was, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, a sign at the foot of the Pont Neuf, called le Petit Dunkerque, which was greatly admired; and in the reign of Louis XV. an armourer on the Pont Saint Michel had a sign, which was so fine a work of art that it was bought as a cabinet picture by a wealthy citizen. In the beginning of this century there was a much admired sign on the shutters of a glass and china shop in the Rue Royale St Honoré, which unfortunately was destroyed during some repairs that took place upon the building passing into other hands. In 1808, the sign of la Fille mal gardée, (a vaudeville,) at a mercer’s, attracted great attention. About this period the Rue Vivienne was very rich in good signboards; there were la Toison de Cachemire; les Trois Sultanes; le Couronnement de la Rosière, and la Joconde, all very good works of art. There was a gay Comte Ory on the Boulevard des Italiens, and la Blanche Marguerite, most comely to look upon, in the Rue Montmartre. All these are now gone, but many good specimens of French signboard painting may yet be met with.
Before closing this general survey of signboard history, we must direct attention to the number of streets named after signs, both in England and abroad. A walk down Fleet Street will give, in a small compass, as many illustrations as are to be met with in any other thoroughfare in town, for there nearly all the courts are named after signs that were either hung within them, or at their entrance. Not only streets, but families also have to thank signs for their names.
“Many names that seem unfitting for men, as of brutish beasts, etc., come from the very signes of the houses where they inhabited; for I have heard of them which sayd they spake of knowledge, that some in late time dwelling at the signe of the Dolphin, Bull, White Horse, Racket, Peacocke, etc., were commonly called Thomas at the Dolphin, Will at the Bull, George at the White Horse, Robin at the Racket, which names, as many other of like sort, with omitting at the, became afterwards hereditary to their children.”—Camden’s Remaines, p. 102.
As examples of such names we have, “Arrow, Axe, Barrell, Bullhead, Bell, Block, Board, Banner, Bowles, Baskett, Cann, Coulter, Chisell, Clogg, Crosskeys, Crosier, Funnell, Forge, Firebrand, Grapes, Griffin, Horns, Hammer, Hamper, Hodd, Harrow, Image, (the sign originally in honour of some saint perhaps,) Jugg, Kettle, Knife, Lance, Mallet, Maul, Mattock, Needle, Pail, Pott, Potts, Plowe, Plane, Pipes, Pottle, Patten, Posnet, (a purse or money-bag,) Pitcher, Rule, Rainbow, Sack, Saw, Shovel, Shears, Scales, Silverspoon, Swords, Tankard, Tabor, (a drum,) Trowel, Tubb and Wedge, and a good many others.”[53]
And now, having taken a passing glance at signboard history, from the earliest times down to the present day, we may not improperly conclude this chapter with an enumeration of the inn, tavern, and public-house signs which occur most frequently in London, in this present year of grace, 1864:—