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BARTLETT, After William Henry (1809-1854)
An original steel engraved printing plate, titled 'Winter Scene on the Ottawa'
[London: circa 1842]. Printing plate (7 1/2 x 11 9/16 inches) with image area of 4 5/8 x 7 3/8 inches, with title beneath, on a single line, in reversed open letter capital letters, with engraver's name (A. L. Dick) under the left corner of the image and the artist's name (W. H. Bartlett) under right corner of the image.
A very rare survival: an original printing plate after Bartlett from a 19th-century illustrated work.
Bartlett's best known connections with Canada are his fine illustrations for Nathaniel Parker Willis's "Canadian Scenery" which was originally published in London in 1842. It included 116 plates after Bartlett but none of them match the present image. The most likely destination for this image was probably one of the many 'gift books' produced in the period from about 1825 to 1850. These included a mixture of poetry and literature, liberally interspersed with illustrations, and they did not necessarily stick to a single theme. A poem on the joys of childhood could be followed by an extract on India, and an illustration of Canada, etc.; the mix was limited only by the editor's tastes. This makes it difficult to pin down exactly which publication the present image appeared in.
The printing plate shows a typical 19th-century mid-winter scene on the frozen Ottawa River. The river is tree-lined, with the winter sun touching the horizon in the background. A bear crosses a stretch of the frozen river, apparently unaware of the two hunters who wait on the riverbank in the foreground, or of their companion returning across the ice with an armful of firewood.
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#9289 $2,750.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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