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Inventing History : forgery: a great British tradition (British History)
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Mick Harper
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One for the conspiracy nuts featuring the founder of the Tory Party

Oxford, Robert Harley Earl of 1661-1724 [WorldCat Identities]
The secret history of the White-Staff : being an account of affairs under the conduct of some late ministers, and of what might probably have happened if Her Majesty had not died by Daniel Defoe ( ); The art of restoring.

http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n78087623/ - Rank 53 - this is relevant | irrelevant

Worldcat by the way is your essential first port of call for finding out when books were actually published as opposed to when they say they were published. Also Daniel Defoe is turning out to be a very much more interesting character than we thought when we were trying to read Robinson Crusoe.
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Hatty
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The Laroon painter-engravers are another father-son, Elder-Younger, or Double Dutch pairing.

Marcellus Laroon, or Lauron

LAROON or LAURON, MARCELLUS, the elder (1653–1702), painter and engraver, born at the Hague in 1653, was son of Marcellus Lauron, a painter of French extraction, who settled in Holland, where he worked for many years as a painter, though of small merit, and brought up his sons to the same profession. The son Marcellus migrated in early life to England, where he was usually styled Laroon, and lived for many years in Yorkshire. He informed Vertue that he saw Rembrandt at Hull in 1661. Laroon became well known for small portraits and conversation-pieces; in the latter he showed great proficiency.

A word on George Vertue who was an antiquarian, portrait painter and the official engraver of the Society of Antiquaries, with such a keen interest in the history of British art that he kept and passed on forty volumes of notebooks which constitute 'an invaluable source for the period'. Around five hundred portraits are 'attributed to' Vertue. He got caught out on one occasion

The Dictionary of National Biography, 1900, makes special note of one reproduction by Vertue

In 1737 George Vertue, the engraver and antiquary, published a pretended copy of Agas's map of London [the "Woodcut" map], stating that it was executed in 1560, and that it gave a true representation of the metropolis as it existed at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Vertue crowned his pretended copy with the date 1560 in Roman numerals, made palpable alterations and omissions in order that he might retain the delusive date, and took other unwarrantable liberties with the object of disguising the fraud. The unhappy result of this tinkering of the original design was that numerous subsequent antiquaries were victims of the deception. Mr. Overall is of opinion that Vertue, having become possessed of the parts of a copy of the map made by some unknown Dutch engraver in the reign of William III, caused them to be "tinkered," probably for the purpose of deceiving his antiquarian friends. Of course the numerous copies of the spurious map issued by Vertue are of little or no value …
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Mick Harper
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By two astounding coincidences I did two things this morning. First I wrote this, re objects of 'Vertue'

Taking to horse-racing, he lost money heavily, and in 1778 sold his collections and the famous dog. In 1777–8 he was a prisoner in the King's Bench Prison

We've all been there. It is what you do after you have been reminded what the penalties of sin are that counts, and in Henry’s case it seems he was a reformed character

Soon after he settled in Essex and collected objects of vertu

It can hardly be laid at his door that vertu was not its own reward

He was later a prisoner for debt in Chelmsford gaol

And, two , I decided to excise Junius the Younger and Elder from the book on the grounds they slowed up the action too much.
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Hatty
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Laroon the Elder is only remembered now for his illustrations of London street traders though some of his drawings are in the British Museum

He also painted numerous small pictures of humorous or free subjects in the style of Egbert van Heemskerk, some of which were engraved in mezzotint by Beckett and John Smith. He also etched and engraved in mezzotint similar plates himself. Laroon is best known by the drawings he made of 'The Cryes of London,' which were engraved and published by Pierce Tempest.

He also drew the illustrations to a book on fencing, and the procession at the coronation of William III and Mary in 1689. He was frequently employed to paint draperies for Sir Godfrey Kneller, and was well known as a clever copyist. He painted portraits of Queen Mary (engraved in mezzotint by R. Williams), C. G. Cibber the sculptor, and others; his own portrait by himself showed the scars resulting from injuries received in a street quarrel. Some drawings by him are in the print room in the British Museum. He had a collection of pictures, which was sold by auction by his son on 24 Feb. 1725.

It is not clear-cut who made the printed engravings in 'The Cryes of London' though no-one seems overly worried

TEMPEST, PIERCE (1653–1717), printseller, born at Tong, Yorkshire, in July 1653, was the sixth son of Henry Tempest of Tong by his wife, Mary Bushall, and brother of Sir John Tempest, first baronet. It is said that he was a pupil and assistant of Wenceslaus Hollar [q. v.], and some of the prints which bear his name as the publisher have been assumed to be his own work; but there is no actual evidence that he ever practised engraving. Establishing himself in the Strand as a book and print seller about 1680, Tempest issued some sets of plates of birds and beasts etched by Francis Place and John Griffier from drawings by Francis Barlow; a few mezzotint portraits by Place and others, chiefly of royal personages; and a translation of C. Ripa's ‘Iconologia,’ 1709.

But he is best known by the celebrated ‘Cryes of the City of London,’ which he published in 1711, a series of seventy-four portraits, from drawings by Marcellus Laroon the elder [q. v.], of itinerant dealers and other remarkable characters who at that time frequented the streets of the metropolis; the plates were probably all engraved by John Savage (fl. 1690–1700) [q. v.], whose name appears upon one of them. Tempest died on 1 April 1717, and was buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, London. There is a mezzotint portrait of him by Place, after G. Heemskerk, with the motto ‘Cavete vobis principes,’ and the figure of a nonconformist minister in the ‘Cryes’ is said to represent him.

Interest in the 'cries' of London traders had apparently been published in the late sixteenth century as broadsides, part of London's 'oral culture' but 'The Cries of London' was popular as a children's book rather than social history

The earliest known London street hawkers’ shouts were published in the form of broadsides in the late sixteenth century, presumably for the amusement of men, as the few extant examples contain bawdy banter. The Cryes of the City of London Drawne after the Life, published by Pierce Tempest in 1687, may be the first version for children.

Marcellus Laroon’s illustrations for the edition (copperplates engraved by John Savage and his assistants) were subsequently copied by many other children’s book publishers. The Cryes must have been popular, for Tempest issued five editions, with the illustrations increasing from an initial forty to seventy-four in his final 1709 edition. Henry Overton purchased the plates from Tempest, republished them under his imprint circa 1711, and eventually passed them on to Robert Sayer. Myriad children’s editions of The London Cries (and Cries of London) were published up to about 1825.
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Mick Harper
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Speaking of Dutch elders and juniors
C. G. Cibber the sculptor

is the Danish father of the famous Colley Cibber, the greatest actor of his age, poet laureate etc
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Hatty
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Mick Harper wrote:
By two astounding coincidences I did two things this morning. First I wrote this, re objects of 'Vertue'

And, two , I decided to excise Junius the Younger and Elder from the book on the grounds they slowed up the action too much.

Junius the Younger (1591 – 1677) and Wencelaus Hollar (1607 – 1677) are linked not only by their death dates but by both being in the service of a famous art collector, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (died 1646). Also, quite unexpectedly a link appears to exist between Hollar and George Vertue

In 1745, George Vertue paid homage to their association in the vignette he published on page one of his Description of the Works of the Ingenious Delineator and Engraver Wenceslaus Hollar. It featured a bust of Arundel in front of a pyramid, symbolizing immortality, surrounded by illustrated books and the instruments of Hollar's trade

Hollar was very well known and prolific but died in poverty despite commissions from noble patrons. Why the interest from George Vertue in Hollar's engravings?

Hollar's works were first catalogued in 1745 by George Vertue, with a second edition in 1759. The prints were subsequently catalogued in 1853 by Gustav Parthey and in 1982 by Richard Pennington.
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Hatty
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Laroon the Younger (1679 - 1772) doesn't get a solo page entry in the Dictionary of National Biography but is paired with Laroon père (above). Somewhat confusingly, the French father of Marcellus Laroon the Elder was called Marcel Lauron.

Wiki says 'he frequented the world of actors and painters around Covent Garden in London that he painted' and that George Vertue, who 'knew him well', said he painted for pleasure rather than profit.

Laroon was a friend and imitator of William Hogarth (1697–1764) [q. v.], and a man of jovial and boisterous habits. At Strawberry Hill there was a drawing by him of the inside of Moll King's house. He appears himself in Boitard's engraving of 'The Covent Garden Morning Frolic.' Another portrait of Laroon occurs in the group of artists painted by Hogarth, now in the University Galleries at Oxford.

Marcellus Laroon II trained in the academy of Godfrey Kneller, the leading portrait painter of the time, during a break in his military career but seems to have been better at amateur dramatics than portraiture

none of Laroon’s scenes of fashionable life have figures which can be identified, which suggests that they were never intended to be portraits.

Probably generic scenes of London society at work and play, not intended to deceive

He was a deputy-chairman of a club presided over by Sir Robert Walpole, which met at the house of Samuel Scott [q. v.] the marine painter. He bought pictures for Walpole, including a 'Holy Family' by Vandyck, the authenticity of which was doubted. This so enraged Laroon that he issued a challenge to all the critics (see Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 23076, f. 27). Laroon's drawings of musical parties, conversations, &c., are very well done. There are drawings by him in the print room at the British Museum and in the University Galleries at Oxford; some have been engraved. He died at Oxford on 1 June 1772, in his ninety-fourth year, and was buried in St. Mary Magdalene's Church in that city.

One might wonder whether the painting 'by Vandyck' was Laroon's own work if he took after his papa, described by George Vertue

his greatest excellence was in imitating other masters

Laroon the Elder's work?
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Mick Harper
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We have another extraordinary example of a prime minister (Walpole is generally reckoned to be Britain's first) being mixed up in matters of forgery. Samuel Scott's sounds like a fore-runner of Holland House. The Whigs are a rum bunch. The greatest landowners during the day, the most progressive politicians by night and the most avant-garde pursuers of the arts at all times.
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Mick Harper
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Confederate printing during the American Civil War was so bad that forgers were often caught because their banknotes were too good.
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Hatty
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This fashion for portrait painting has thrown up a strange case. The Fugger's accountant, Matthäus Schwarz, had apparently ample time and means and commissioned 137 self-portraits over forty years, a unique achievement hailed as 'the first fashion book'

Matthäus was an accountant, not an artist, and he enlisted a succession of four local painters to produce the images (the first died of the plague in 1536). But they are, effectively, self-portraits, and selfies in the spiritual sense: Matthäus chose the costume, postures, details, and backgrounds he wanted included, and even commented on the artists’ work (“The face is well captured.”) In this fashion, he assembled 137 images of himself over 40 years—a selfie record unmatched until the advent of photography.

Provenance is uncertain. There are two copies, one in Hanover's Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek and the other in France's Bibliotheque nationale, made two centuries later, in 1740, but the original is in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum (founded 1754), only to be handled with kid gloves.

The illuminated Klaidungsbüchlein, or “book of clothes,” compiled by the Augsburg accountant Matthäus Schwarz between 1520 and 1560 is a proto-Kardashian book of selfies. Rendered in rich tempera colors accentuated with costly gilding, the series of hand-drawn portraits meticulously catalogues his extensive and flamboyant wardrobe. The book has been widely known among scholars in Germany since the eighteenth century, but the original manuscript—housed in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig—is so fragile that it’s rarely displayed.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/11/first-book-fashion-selfie-king/413047/

You might think doing the accounts for the Fuggers, the 'Medici of the North', would keep Schwarz fully occupied and he apparently took it seriously enough to write a book-keeping manual which saw the light of day four centuries later

He began to work for the wealthy Augsburg merchant Jakob Fugger in 1516, and wrote manuscript on accounting entitled Dreierlay Buchhaltung (three-fold bookkeeping) in 1518. The work remained unpublished but was rewritten by Schwartz in 1550 and eventually published in the early 20th century. Fugger, known as Fugger of the Lily or Fugger the Rich, was a member of the Fugger family of bankers and merchants, who accumulated great wealth as banker for the Habsburg dynasty before his death in 1525. Fugger bequeathed assets worth over 2 million guilders to his nephew, Anton Fugger, for whom Schwartz also worked.

Schwartz's father died in 1519. The same year, Schwartz started an autobiography, De Wellt lauff ("The way of the world"), which has not survived.

One wonders how he could afford all those costumes, not to mention the painters' fees. Perhaps he was more of a deal-maker, even consigliere, than an accountant? His Wiki entry says Schwarz was 'ennobled by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1541' without giving the reason or his title (Don?).
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Mick Harper
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Some terrific stuff attacking the bona fides of the Magna Carta here https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2020/07/20/magna-charta/comment-page-1/ Something, I must confess, I haven't had the nerve to venture near myself. There's also an encomium about Forgeries at the bottom though that is not why I am recommending it. It was what recommended it to me (via my Google monitoring service).

We must set up a Revolutionary Front with Malaga Bay et al. We may be able to get a grant from English Heritage.
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Ishmael


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I believe I was the first among us to suggest the Magna Carta as a forgery. My original proposal was that it was pro-American propaganda written in the context of the Revolutionary War (I suggested by Jefferson himself).

I don't know what I'll suggest now, seeing as I don't think anymore that even the Revolutionary War happened---at least, it didn't happen anywhere near the way we are told.
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Ishmael


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From the comments:
Most “English history” was created in the Tudor period.


I remember once being so naive.
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Mick Harper
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Yes, Ishmael, but there is a difference. You just state something and then produce a string of homonyms to back up your case. Hatty and I do something a little more orthodox. Wiley is somewhere in between.
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Hatty
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Ishmael wrote:
I believe I was the first among us to suggest the Magna Carta as a forgery. My original proposal was that it was pro-American propaganda written in the context of the Revolutionary War (I suggested by Jefferson himself).

What grounds do you have for believing MC was a forgery? It is well-known that Magna Carta became obsolete pretty quickly as is the way with treaties (if that's how it originated, i.e. between John and the barons). That doesn't mean it hadn't existed but it was only when seen as relevant that it was resuscitated to great fanfare.

It's not uncommon to find lawyers delving into archives and coming up with long-forgotten recondite laws.
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