Nelson & His World

Hi Everyone ,
I bought this item at auction recently and was just wondering about its rarity .
Has anyone seen anything similar ? or have any idea off its value ? Many thanks in advance.

David

Apologies I didn't expect the photo to be so big !!

Many thanks for posting this interesting curiosity. I can't put a value on it off hand but it might be worth approaching the auction house Dominic Winter that handles particularly books, maps and interesting ephemera like your poster. They would be able to give you an expert assessment of its value - and remember that auctioneer's estimates tend to be on the low side so it might fetch more. Let us know if they say anything of interest.


http://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/

David

As Anna has commented, an interesting item indeed. As to rarity, I'm no expert but I have quickly looked through a number of old marine/maritime sale auction catalogues I have from the major London auction houses and cannot find another poster like yours listed. I wouldn't have thought many would have survived, certainly not from the late 1700's given that most would have been displayed in local inns, hostelries and other public places and then thrown away after the sales. Did your sale room give you any provenance as to where this came from?

Good luck with your research.

Regards

Phil

Thanks Anna . I'll check out Winter's although i suppose an item like this
is hard to place a value on . One man's Silver being another man's Gold .

Phil I bought the poster at Lockdales in Ipswich , no provenance was offered
but its the real deal and the paper is of the period . I'll probably donate it to
one of the maritime museums when I've had my time with it , possibly Falmouth
given the locaL interest. Thanks for your comments guys .

In my amateur opinion the typography is from a later period (attempting to look "old" but not old enough) and the illustration of the ship has a 20th century air to it...

but I am an amateur after all.

My first thoughts were that the typography looked a little too modern too. However, below is a theatre poster from 1826. Admittedly this was printed 28 years later but I don't think graphical fashions changed as quickly back then. I have also seen Napoleonic recruitment posters using similar fonts from about 1810. I don't think it its too far a stretch for this to have been printed in 1798. I think if I was attempting to create a fake I would have chosen more overtly C18th typefaces.

The further comments on this interesting subject reminded me that the book by Robert Harvey on the life of Lord Thomas Cochrane has an illustration of a recruiting poster from 1804 for his ship the Pallas. This has the same style and graphics to the original 'prize' flyer/poster in question.

Interestingly when googling 'Pallas recruitment poster' a number of other examples also pop up, which lead on to the NMM shop website where this and reprints of others from the period are on offer.

Phil