The Hanlons in their Laughable Parisian Absurdity Le Voyage En Suisse publisher by Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company and probably created by Joseph E. Baker
date: label: Date made
content: n.d.
label: date made
content: ca 1881
name: label: printer
content: Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company
notes: label: Description
content: This colored print depicts an outdoor scene of an overturned coach, with a horse galloping away while four passengers lie on the ground or stand nearby. One of the passenger’s legs is pinned under the coach and he is crying out. Two policemen and a woman in a knee length skirt are coming to the rescue on the left while three men, one with a leather satchel (maybe a medical bag?) are conversing on the right. The snow-covered Alps can be seen in the background, and a two-story stone house with a balcony appears on the left. Beneath the picture are the words, “The greatest success in New York this season. / Having been played there one hundred and twenty-five nights.” A datebill or label indicating the theater and dates of the performance is pasted across the bottom margin.
label: Description
content: The Park Theater was built in 1798 on Park Row in Manhattan and was New York City’s premiere performance space in the early 19th Century. It attracted a diverse audience with each class sitting in its preferred section. Working class men sat in the pit; members of the upper class and women in the boxes, and the less affluent, including immigrants, people of color, and prostitutes sat in the balcony.
label: Description
content: The Hanlon brothers—Thomas (1833-1868), George (1840-1926), William (1842-1923), Alfred (1844-1886), Edward (1846-1931) and adopted sibling Frederick (1848-1886)— were acrobats and theatrical producers. <i> Le Voyage en Suisse </i> was one of their most successful stage shows. They were born in Manchester, England, where their father worked as a theatrical manager and the oldest brother Thomas began his theatrical career at age four. His siblings soon began performing gymnastic stunts as well, and they eventually united into an act called the Hanlon-Lees in honor of their gymnastics teacher John Lees. The brothers toured the world in the decades the followed, becoming especially well known for a daring stunt that involved swinging from three trapezes placed across the ceiling of the auditorium. They have been credited with introducing the trapeze and the velocipede to American audiences. They also invented the aerial safety net after Thomas Hanlon suffered a devastating fall that led to his suicide.
label: Description
content: In 1870, the Hanlons began new careers as producers in Paris, devising lavish productions that combined comedy, pantomime, dance, and illusion. <i> Le Voyage en Suisse</i>, which made its debut in 1879, was their first full-length pantomime. The story of a young man whose fiancé is taken off to Switzerland by an older man, it was a mix of slapstick comedy, juggling, and bold feats of physical daring; in one scene a performer fell through two stories and landed on a banquet table. The production also featured extravagant special effects like a collapsing stagecoach and an exploding train. The Hanlon brothers eventually settled in the United States, where in 1914 one of their last pantomime extravaganzas, <i> Fantasma</i>, was made into a film for inventor Thomas Edison's motion picture company. Their children carried on the family tradition with vaudeville acts that contained portions of the original family pantomimes. The Hanlons have been credited with exerting a major influence on American musical comedy, vaudeville, circus acts, and film, including the works of the Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges.
label: Description
content: The name of the artist and printing company is obscured beneath the theater bill pasted on the bottom of the print, advertising the location and date of performance. Forbes Manufacturing is known to have published this theater poster and two others advertising this production. The Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company was founded by William H. Forbes (ca 1836-1915), who immigrated to the United States from Liverpool, England in 1848. Forbes became an apprentice in the lithography business while still a boy and established William H. Forbes and Company in Boston in 1861. The firm expanded to become Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company in 1875 with hundreds of employees and offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, and London. During World War II, the company became a major printer of allied military currency but went out of business later in the 20th century.
label: Description
content: The artist is probably Joseph E. Baker as this work is consistent with his style. Joseph Edwin Baker (1837-1914) was a lithographer, cartoonist and pencil portraitist who became especially well known for an 1860 portrait of Abraham Lincoln. He began his printing career as an apprentice at J. H. Bufford & Co. in 1857, and eventually became John Bufford’s principal draftsman and illustrator of sheet music. During the Civil War, Baker produced political cartoons and lithographs for Bufford. He also did playbills and advertisements for the Forbes Company. Baker later worked for Armstrong & Company, remaining active until 1888.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Horses
label: Subject
content: Costume
label: Subject
content: Architecture, Domestic Buildings
label: Subject
content: Theater
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Advertising
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content: Art
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content: Peters Prints
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.3051
label: catalog number
content: 60.3051
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: chromolithograph
label: Object Type
content: Chromolithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 26 in x 21 in; 66.04 cm x 53.34 cm