BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; ‘SCENE ON THE HUDSON’ & ‘THE RACES OF MEN’ - A Rhode Island Sketchbook

Oblong sketchbook bound in black roan (26x17cm) with ‘C H Springer’ in gilt lettering to the upper cover; rubbing to extremities. All edges gilt; marbled endpapers. An unfinished pencil sketch precedes a sequence of 32 drawings, mostly in pen and ink wash, many with hand-drawn frames and clearly taken from a variety of sources, a few drawn from life. The finished ink drawings include Stratford-upon-Avon Church and Westminster Abbey in England, followed by ‘Scene on the Delaware’ set in an arched frame, Mount Vernon, ‘A Sugar Plantation’, ‘Scene on the Hudson’, three scenes from the Holy Land and ‘Glen Mountain House’, Lake Mohonk, Fingal’s Cave, a silhouette of Robinson Crusoe with Man Friday’s footprint and an escaping dog; ‘Dr Franklin’s Experiments with Electricity’ and ‘The Races of Men’ - five interlocking roundels showing white Americans, black Africans, a Chinese scene, American Indians and a scene on a boat, possibly showing enslaved Africans - perhaps originally relating to Robert Knox’s book of racial theory from 1850. There are three finely worked pen and ink images of lakeside scenes with farmers and cattle - possibly English or from New England and an unfinished image of ‘The Skirmish’ - seemingly an American Civil War depiction.

The artist Charles Henry Springer is listed in the 1913 American Art Annual Who’s Who as living at 12 Slocum Street, Providence, Rhode Island, born in 1857, a pupil of Hugo Bruel in Providence; F W Freer in Chicago and a student of architecture in Boston, a member of the Providence Academy and Rhode Island School of Design.