H.M.S. Pinafore by Victor Arnold
date: label: Date made
content: n.d.
name: label: maker
content: Arnold, Vic
notes: label: Description
content: This black and white print with green tint depicts various scenes from the operetta <i> H.M.S. Pinafore </i>. A large main illustration shows sailors and women on a ship deck. Above this scene is a small view of a storm-tossed ship, flanked by two other small scenes.
label: Description
content: <i> H. M. S. Pinafore </i> is a comic opera written by the British librettist W.S. (William Schwenk) Gilbert (1836-1911) and the British composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The two-act opera takes place on board the British ship H.M.S. Pinafore and tells the story of a romance between the ship captain's daughter and a lower-class sailor. The operetta made its American debut in Boston in 1878 and opened in New York two months later, setting off what <i> The Oxford Companion to American Theatre </i> calls a "Pinafore craze," with three New York theaters soon performing the operetta simultaneously. The operetta won over audiences with its story of young love triumphing over obstacles and with musical numbers that were both lyrical and witty, including "I'm Called Little Buttercup" and "We Sail the Ocean Blue." It would become one of the longest running musical theater productions of its time--a triumph <i> The Oxford Companion to American Theater </i> points to as the true beginnings of American musical theater.
label: Description
content: Operettas rose to popularity in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and continued to draw large audiences for the next five decades. While grand opera was often seen as an art form for the elite, operettas aimed for greater mass appeal. Their major practitioners, including Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) in Vienna, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) in Paris, and Gilbert and Sullivan in London, each had their own trademark style and subject matter, but their works generally were more lighthearted in tone, more farcical in plot and might also include dancing and spoken dialogue. Gilbert and Sullivan focused on the absurdities of modern society in tales that featured star-crossed love, mistaken identity, and class snobbery. With the celebrated New York debut of their operetta <i> H. M. S. Pinafore </i> in 1878 they helped generate some of the same enthusiasm for operetta in the United States that was already taking hold in Europe, anticipating the classic American musicals that would become so popular in the twentieth century.
label: Description
content: This lithograph was produced by artist Victor (Vic) Arnold (ca. 1844 - 1895). Born in France, he worked as an engraver and lithographer in Philadelphia during the 1860s and early 1870s at William Graf & Co. Arnold later worked for A.S. Seer’s Lithography Company of New York. He was eulogized in <i> The National Lithographer </i> as a great artist and designer whose death was a great loss to the poster trade.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: World
topic: label: Subject
content: Costume
label: Subject
content: Courtship, love
label: Subject
content: Uniforms, Military
label: Subject
content: Theater
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
label: See more items in
content: Clothing & Accessories
label: See more items in
content: Advertising
label: See more items in
content: Art
label: See more items in
content: Peters Prints
label: See more items in
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.60.3024
label: catalog number
content: 60.3024
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 18 3/4 in x 16 in; 47.625 cm x 40.64 cm