Henry Holiday and the maker or Bonnets and Hoods

Watch those fingers: The photo has been “photoshopped” (by Henry Holiday or Joseph Swain?) already many years before I worked on it using GIMP. Holiday’s tinkering with the little finger and the thumb of his left hand might be a “Victorian craze“.

The image shows Henry Holiday and segments of one of Henry Holiday’s illustrations (cut by Joseph Swain) to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. The segments show the Bonnetmaker and a bonnet.

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw57000/Henry-Holiday?LinkID=mp59053

Henry Holiday (photo rendered in mirror view)

by Unknown photographer
albumen print, 1870s
5 3/4 in. x 3 5/8 in. (145 mm x 93 mm)
Given by Royal Institute of British Architects: London: UK, 1940
Photographs Collection
NPG x18530The Bonnetmaker drawing could be a little self portrait, a cameo of Henry Holiday in The Hunting of the Snark. The photo is a portrait perhaps taken by Joseph Swain or a self portrait. Henry Holiday was in his mid thirties when he illustrated Carroll’s Snark tragicomedy, and the National Portrait Gallery dated a portrait photo of Henry Holiday (NPG x18530) with “1870s”, where the face shown in that photo does not look too different from the face in the assembly shown above.

 
Such little self portraits in drawings have a long tradition.

In German there is the term “Assistenzfigur”. That is a person positoned in the background or beside the main person or main object depicted in a painting. You may think of such a person as the static version of a “film extra” in a movie. She or he serves a a kind of helper or assistant. Sometimes one of these extras is the artist who made the painting. In German we call such an image in the image an “Assistenzselbstbildnis” or “Assistenzselbstbild” or “Selbstbildnis in Assistenz”. Perhaps the first known self-portraits in assistance where a kind of signature of the artist.

The “self-portrait in assistance” first became available since the 14th century to master builders and sculpturer, shortly after that in Italy also to fresco painters, and since the 15th and 16th century also to painters of large altar- and panel paintings; see Raupp, S. 8

Source (in German): Footnote on p. 162 in Suzanne Valadon – Identitätskonstruktion… (2001) by Valeska Doll referring to Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnissen und Künstlerdarstellungen in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (1984) by Hans-Joachim Raupp.

In that matter there also are references to Raupp in Melanie Munduch: Die Selbstbildnisse Luca Giordanos (2012)

 


#Assistenzselbstbildnis: ex Twitter

For diskussion of the finger “photoshopping”: ex Twitter

Original post: 2017-09-28. Update: 2023-10-13

Henry Holiday

 

 
2018-05-24, update: 2021-03-15

“Edward VI and the Pope” on Twitter

EDWARD VI 1537-1553 was the long-awaited heir of King Henry VIII, the object of his father’s life long policy, to secure the Tudor dynasty.

His religious education was in the hands of Thomas Cranmer.

One result was Edward’s complete & thorough conversion to Protestant Reform. pic.twitter.com/z3NAidGbpq

— SPIRITUAL LIVES (@ken_kalis) December 21, 2019

2019-12-21

 

Thomas Cranmer, compiler of the first Book of Common Prayer, was burned at the stake #OnThisDay 1556 https://t.co/TnjHqhQEf0

— In Our Time (@BBCInOurTime) March 21, 2019

01
 

The Revd. C.L. Dodgson under his pen name "Lewis Carroll" wrote "The Hunting of the Snark". It also is about Thomas Cranmer. The illustrator Henry Holiday gave us quite clear hints: https://t.co/nSx3ValV65

cc: @monarchomach

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

02
 

About references from "The Hunting of the Snark" to Thomas Cranmer:
※ Angus MacIntyre (1994),
※ Goetz Kluge (2015 https://t.co/zMvRzqMjvO, 2018 https://t.co/BFTGACMfFA, @Bonnetmaker)
※ Mary Hammond (2017, @Hg4words)
※ Karen Gardiner (2018, @KarenGardiner19) pic.twitter.com/eAaCXDhmt0

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 17, 2019

03 (comment to 02)
 

"Edward VI and the Pope: An Allegory of the Reformation." (NPG London)

In this 16th century anti-papal propaganda painting Henry VIII is on the left side. Thomas Cranmer is 2nd from left in the upper row on the right side.

More: https://t.co/h24cchf4YTpic.twitter.com/Dsn8MEdj9u

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

04
 

In one of his illustrations (https://t.co/4vu78zj7Jr) to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark", Henry Holiday alluded to the painting "Edward VI and the Pope".

More: https://t.co/hcIThF1al1 pic.twitter.com/INhRxoDly9

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

05
 

I think that also in another illustration (https://t.co/8RYeUCHtTn) to "The Hunting of the Snark" with a depiction of the Baker's 42 boxes (Cranmer's 42 Articles?), Holiday alluded to the depiction of iconoclasm in "Edward and the Pope".

More: https://t.co/eTIRJW9Moa pic.twitter.com/hTJnmslkvC

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

06
 

Margaret Aston wrote a wonderful book on the painting too. The King and the bedpost

— Justin Champion (@monarchomach) March 23, 2019

07
 

I read that book. It's a marvel. I tried to contact Margaret Aston, but I was too late. https://t.co/3FJuRjYPlZ pic.twitter.com/pMiuRgXMPv

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

08
 

https://t.co/FKhe3YPN6t

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

09
 

And the Bedpost ended up in "The Hunting of the Snark" as well. I think that Henry Holiday alluded not only to the "Edward VI and the Pope" painting but also to the painting to which "Edward VI and the Pope" alluded.
There perhaps is an chain of allusions. https://t.co/f7SReLHeXJ pic.twitter.com/fz0esGdShS

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

10
 

Correction: … the print to which "Edward VI and the Pope" alluded …

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 24, 2019

11
 

https://t.co/f7SReLHeXJ pic.twitter.com/nS2SlS86Dc

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) March 23, 2019

12 (2019-03-23)

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