William Nicholson Lithographs

Romantic Characters by William Nicholson

We've just taken delivery for the Chiswick shop of this uncommon, and beautiful series of chromo lithographs.  Chromolithography is a form of colour printing where each of the colours are printed separately.  

This series were only published once, in 1900, and are all figures are from the world of romantic literature.  Some are more obscure than others.  I didn't know Madge Wildfire, but maybe that's just me, not having read Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian. The image sizes are all approximately 27 cm. x 24 cm., so they are an impressive size, and larger than most of the William Nicholson prints available.    They are £150 each in a hand finished card mount.

There is actually a tenuous Chiswick link.  In 1894 William Nicholson moved to Bedford Park with his wife Mabel Nicholson (nee Pryde) and their young son, the artist Ben Nicholson, to be near to her family.  

James Pryde was an artist, and lived in Hammersmith.  He was William Nicholson's brother in law, and partner in the J. & W. Beggarstaff project which ran from 1894 to 1899, and saw them emerge as groundbreaking designers of posters.

Mr Weller – The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Rochester – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Chicot – Chicot the Jester by Alexander Dumas

Baron Munchausen - The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by HIMSELF and Rudolph Erich Raspe

Madge Wildfire – The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott

Also;

Miss Fotheringay and Captain Costigan – Pendennis by W. Thackeray

Krishna Mulvaney – Soldier’s Three by Rudyard Kipling

Gargantua – Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel by Rabelais

Mr Vanslyperken – Snarleyyow, or the Dog Fiend by Captain Marryatt

Commodore Trunnion – The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett

Miss Havisham – Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 

Don Quixote de la Mancha – Don Quixote by Cervantes

Sophia Western – Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Porthos – The Three Musketeers (etc.) by Alexandre Dumas

We also have a framed Long John Silver from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson at £250