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Portrait of the American artist John Banvard by Belgian portraitist Charles Baugniet. Banvard is seated wearing patriotic clothing and holding a rifle, sketchbook, and pencil. In the background is his best-known subject, the Mississippi River, with Native Americans paddling in canoes. A simple decorative border with arabesque spandrels in the top right and left surrounds the image.
John Banvard (1815-1891) was born in New York and showed talent for drawing and writing at a young age. As a teenager, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, which he used as a home base for traveling the Mississippi, which he used for the subject matter of his paintings. He made his name as a panorama painter -- a genre combining art and showmanship popular during the 19th century in the U.S., England and Western Europe. Panorama painters captured 360º views of landscapes and historical scenes in mural-sized canvases which were set up in temporary exhibitions, to which the entreprenurial artists charged admission, as well as selling souvenir reproductions. Banvard's best-known work was a mammoth painting of the Mississippi River, now lost, that was 12 feet high and 1,300 feet long when he began, and was enlarged from there. The painting proved a popular attraction -- more than 600,000 people came to see it in London, England and Banvard made a private presentation to Queen Victoria. While abroad, he also painted panoramas of the Holy Land and the Nile River Valley. Banvard also authored approximately 1,700 poems, many of which were published in the major periodicals of the period.
Charles Baugniet was a Belgian portrait painter and lithographer. He published albums of lithographed portraits of politicians, artists and musicians. In 1841 he was appointed Draftsman to the King by Leopold of Belgium. In 1843 he moved to London, and in 1860 he moved to Paris. Several of his portraits are in the collection of the British National Portrait Gallery.
Condition: Generally very good with the usual light overall toning, wear, handing, soft creases. Few short marginal tears, one extending partly into image neatly restored, the entire print backed on supporting Japanese paper..
References:
"Charles Baugniet." University of Liège, Belgium. 20 December 2002. http://www.ulg.ac.be/wittert/fr/flori/opera/baugniet/baugniet_notice.html (13 January 2003).
"John Banvard." Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. Ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1887-1889. Virtualogy.com. Edited Appleton's Encyclopedia. 2001. http://famousamericans.net/johnbanvard (13 January 2003).
"John Banvard." AskArt.com. http://www.askart.com/artist/B/john_banvard.asp?ID=1832 (13 January 2003).
Horak, Jan-Christopher. "Stephan Oettermann, The panorama: history of a mass medium." 16 April 1999. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/shorts/reviews/rev0499/jhbrapr.htm (13 January 2003). |
