Original Sketches

American. Half Morocco. Diagonal stripe textured cloth on boards. . Very Good. Sketches and watercolors, many portraits of a dwarfish man, skillfully rendered. N.d., mid-19th century. (A original poem in the back is dated 1869. We assume the poem was done by the artist.) Folio, 34 by 29 cm. 81 pages with original artwork, the majority of which can pass as finished. About 51 of these are primarily pen-and-ink or pencil drawings, 30 are filled out with watercolors or wash. Human studies, portraits and genre scenes dominate, with several faces showing up repeatedly, and one can conjecture comfortably that several of the models were of the same family. The faces are generally rendered realistically, with some having the caricaturistic, even grotesque quality of Tim Bobbin's travesties of the eighteenth century. The faces can be imposing, occasionally distinguished, but they are not handsome or prepossessing in the least. One of the relatively few female portraits resembles an earthier, slightly repugnant Mona Lisa. Most of the human subjects are wearing then contemporary clothing, but there are a few in which they have on clothing from an earlier century. The dwarfish figure, who we suspect might be the artist himself, is portrayed in the garb of a religious hermit, as just one example. There is one portrait that we think resembles Robert E. Lee, but it isn't clear that that was intended. The artist did not confine himself to human subjects, however, and his animal studies are actually among the most striking in the album. We particularly like a watercolor of a dead pony with vultures gathered around, one study of a bald eagle and a rattle snake staring at each other, and finally, a sketch of frolicking frogs.