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Breaking up of the "Agamemnon", No.1
Sir Francis Seymour Haden (English, 1818–1910)
1870
Medium/Technique
Etching with drypoint on copper
Dimensions
Platemark: 19.5 × 41.2 cm (7 11/16 × 16 1/4 in.)
Sheet: 31 × 50.7 cm (12 3/16 × 19 15/16 in.)
Sheet: 31 × 50.7 cm (12 3/16 × 19 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Mrs. Henry Lee Higginson
Accession Number35.1190
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope, Prints and Drawings
ClassificationsPrints
Catalogue Raisonné
Schneiderman (1983) 133, IX; Harrington (1910) 145, First
DescriptionThe plate, cancelled with diagonal drypoint lines, is in the British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London, England.
The "Agamemnon", the keel of which was laid in 1849, launched in 1952, was one of the last wooden hulled warships built in England. This 91-gun ship served as the flagship in many naval battles and, in 1857, was a participant in the laying of the Atlantic telegraph cable. She is shown here moored in the Naval Arsenal at Deptford for demolition. At her left, before the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, is the "Dreadnought", an ancient man-of-war that served at the battle of Trafalgar; anchored in the Thames since 1831, she served as a hospital ship for invalid mariners.
P. G. Hamerton, editor of "The Portfolio", asked Haden, early in 1870, to etch a plate for the newly founded art magazine. Haden's letter to Hamerton, dated July 3, 1870, shows that Haden made a particular effort, as though to bolster his self-confidence, to draw immediately on the plate.
“Yesterday, in the belief that I had lost the power of working on copper in the open air, and with a load on my conscience as to a request of yours that I would finish an etching for the 'Portfolio,' I went out and made, or rather tried to make, a freehanded drawing (on the plate sous entendu) of the hull of the Agamemnon…I had thought of making the sun set behind the old hull and the distant cupolas of Greenwich, and of using the sinking luminary as typical of the departing glories of both, and I will try to do this yet if, when you have taken off the impressions you require, and you will let me have the plate back again – reserving the second state for the new book which I hope one day, but not yet, to publish.
Be so kind as to let me know whether you feel inclined to accept a crude performance of this sort…"
I (Schneiderman) have found no proofs that fit Haden's description of a "free-handed drawing...of the hull...[without] the sun set[ting] behind the old hulk and the distant cupolas of Greenwich." The plate, too large for publication in "The Portfolio", was apparently not even printed by Hamerton - if, in fact, that plate was sent to him. Haden, resolved to finish the plate, made drawings "whilst the ribs of the old warrior held together." Several of these, now in the VA, show that Haden relied on drawings for the accurate depiction of the hull. Furthermore, the inscription "Have this photo'd down" on one of the drawings may indicate that Haden used photographs, either directly of the ship or indirectly through his drawings. Before 1870 Haden had etched only one other plate as large as this, "The Grand Chartreuse, after Turner"; there he relied on a photograph.
There is question about the edition size. Hamerton stated that “when published at Colnaghi’s, at the considerable price of five guineas a copy, it reached an extraordinary sale,” and that it was “the most successful [print] ever published in the world. It brought in a regular income of more than one hundred pounds a week for a considerable time, an even after that slackened the sale was still very profitable.” Joseph Pennell accepts Frederick Keppel’s absurd statement – if the statement was made – that Haden sold ten thousand copies of the print. Of course, it is impossible to determine the number of impressions printed, but an edition of 500 may be a generous guess. Goulding’s letter to Haden (May 8, 1904) discussed the printing of the plate.
“I have spent nearly all day in going over what memoranda I have of the old days, but can find scarcely anything relating to so far back as the printing of the 'Agamemnon' – unfortunately all has been lost or destroyed. The one item I can be sure about is that the first tirage was done in February, 1871. The tirage of the “first state” would have occupied about a week. You then added the dockyard sheds, and the tirage of the unlimited ‘second state’ followed on. I had three weeks consecutive printing with you in the old house, 62 Sloane Street, at the “Star” press you had then. I do not think that anyone but myself printed the plate. Delâtre was in London about that time, and you might have asked him to print some proofs, but I am almost sure you did not, though I think it possible he may have printed some few odd other things for you. Practically I should say your connection with him ceased during the eighteen-sixties.
Don’t you remember how the proofs were spread all over the floor to dry, so that the ink would not be flattened down, to preserve the emboss of the etched lines?...
If my memory serves me right very few, if any, of the first published state, that is before the introduction of the dockyard sheds, were printed on Whatman paper. They were mostly on “Old French” paper, which you had when the Etching Club dissolved, and on the old “Blaw” paper. You say the proof sent you is on Whatman paper dated 1871. Of course this is just possible, but I think so early in the year as February very little would be in the market, and I hardly think you would have used such new paper as that. Have you any record of how many proofs you delivered to Messrs. Colnaghi? Also have you the prospectus they issued about the publication of it? In it I think it is said that fifty only (or one hundred) proofs of the first state were to be issued, and I do not think that very many more were printed. Of course there were more, as some were weeded out.”
Keppel (1901) catalogues an original drawing by W. Van de Velde of a similar subject formerly in the collection of Seymour Haden.
“The plate is still in fine order.”
Schneiderman (1983) pp. 271 – 275.
The "Agamemnon", the keel of which was laid in 1849, launched in 1952, was one of the last wooden hulled warships built in England. This 91-gun ship served as the flagship in many naval battles and, in 1857, was a participant in the laying of the Atlantic telegraph cable. She is shown here moored in the Naval Arsenal at Deptford for demolition. At her left, before the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, is the "Dreadnought", an ancient man-of-war that served at the battle of Trafalgar; anchored in the Thames since 1831, she served as a hospital ship for invalid mariners.
P. G. Hamerton, editor of "The Portfolio", asked Haden, early in 1870, to etch a plate for the newly founded art magazine. Haden's letter to Hamerton, dated July 3, 1870, shows that Haden made a particular effort, as though to bolster his self-confidence, to draw immediately on the plate.
“Yesterday, in the belief that I had lost the power of working on copper in the open air, and with a load on my conscience as to a request of yours that I would finish an etching for the 'Portfolio,' I went out and made, or rather tried to make, a freehanded drawing (on the plate sous entendu) of the hull of the Agamemnon…I had thought of making the sun set behind the old hull and the distant cupolas of Greenwich, and of using the sinking luminary as typical of the departing glories of both, and I will try to do this yet if, when you have taken off the impressions you require, and you will let me have the plate back again – reserving the second state for the new book which I hope one day, but not yet, to publish.
Be so kind as to let me know whether you feel inclined to accept a crude performance of this sort…"
I (Schneiderman) have found no proofs that fit Haden's description of a "free-handed drawing...of the hull...[without] the sun set[ting] behind the old hulk and the distant cupolas of Greenwich." The plate, too large for publication in "The Portfolio", was apparently not even printed by Hamerton - if, in fact, that plate was sent to him. Haden, resolved to finish the plate, made drawings "whilst the ribs of the old warrior held together." Several of these, now in the VA, show that Haden relied on drawings for the accurate depiction of the hull. Furthermore, the inscription "Have this photo'd down" on one of the drawings may indicate that Haden used photographs, either directly of the ship or indirectly through his drawings. Before 1870 Haden had etched only one other plate as large as this, "The Grand Chartreuse, after Turner"; there he relied on a photograph.
There is question about the edition size. Hamerton stated that “when published at Colnaghi’s, at the considerable price of five guineas a copy, it reached an extraordinary sale,” and that it was “the most successful [print] ever published in the world. It brought in a regular income of more than one hundred pounds a week for a considerable time, an even after that slackened the sale was still very profitable.” Joseph Pennell accepts Frederick Keppel’s absurd statement – if the statement was made – that Haden sold ten thousand copies of the print. Of course, it is impossible to determine the number of impressions printed, but an edition of 500 may be a generous guess. Goulding’s letter to Haden (May 8, 1904) discussed the printing of the plate.
“I have spent nearly all day in going over what memoranda I have of the old days, but can find scarcely anything relating to so far back as the printing of the 'Agamemnon' – unfortunately all has been lost or destroyed. The one item I can be sure about is that the first tirage was done in February, 1871. The tirage of the “first state” would have occupied about a week. You then added the dockyard sheds, and the tirage of the unlimited ‘second state’ followed on. I had three weeks consecutive printing with you in the old house, 62 Sloane Street, at the “Star” press you had then. I do not think that anyone but myself printed the plate. Delâtre was in London about that time, and you might have asked him to print some proofs, but I am almost sure you did not, though I think it possible he may have printed some few odd other things for you. Practically I should say your connection with him ceased during the eighteen-sixties.
Don’t you remember how the proofs were spread all over the floor to dry, so that the ink would not be flattened down, to preserve the emboss of the etched lines?...
If my memory serves me right very few, if any, of the first published state, that is before the introduction of the dockyard sheds, were printed on Whatman paper. They were mostly on “Old French” paper, which you had when the Etching Club dissolved, and on the old “Blaw” paper. You say the proof sent you is on Whatman paper dated 1871. Of course this is just possible, but I think so early in the year as February very little would be in the market, and I hardly think you would have used such new paper as that. Have you any record of how many proofs you delivered to Messrs. Colnaghi? Also have you the prospectus they issued about the publication of it? In it I think it is said that fifty only (or one hundred) proofs of the first state were to be issued, and I do not think that very many more were printed. Of course there were more, as some were weeded out.”
Keppel (1901) catalogues an original drawing by W. Van de Velde of a similar subject formerly in the collection of Seymour Haden.
“The plate is still in fine order.”
Schneiderman (1983) pp. 271 – 275.
Signed
In plate: l.l. Seymour Haden 1870; on sheet: in graphite, l.r. Seymour Haden
InscriptionsIn plate: l.l. Seymour Haden 1870
ProvenancePDP Register entry: Date acquired, 7/11/1935