Doe and Hope

Description

The `Nursery Dial` stained pine table with glass top, lithographed and published by Louis Prang & Co. Boston with copyright of C.Hoppin in 1876, printed with the alphabet and numbers, figures and animals including elephants, lions, trains, boats and other important educational symbols and motifs from the period, on an ebony ground raised on oak ring turned legs is a rare survival from the late nineteenth century.

The condition is fair to good. The top has some scratches and loss to its edges, not surprising given the vintage and its ephemeral nature and it has dirt commensurate with age (the top was probably not covered with glass in the first instance). The whole is of four pieces, the base is of two parts which slot into each other via dowels and then the circular top sits on the legs via four additional dowels, with the glass then sitting on to that. The top is printed with the details ‘Published by L.Prang & Co Boston’ and ‘Copyright 1876 by C.Hoppin’.

Louis Prang, America's greatest publisher of chromolithographs, (March 12, 1824 – September 14, 1909) was a printer, lithographer and publisher. Originally born in Breslau, Prussia, Prang arrived in America in 1850 and went into the lithographic printing business in Boston in 1856. His company produced high quality reproductions of major art work and greeting cards using the complex technique of chromolithography. He is sometimes known as the "father of the American Christmas card". By the late 19th century Prang's name was synonymous with art materials and art education. Louis Prang died in 1909 at the age of 85 and his name is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty along with other immigrants who made great contributions to the United States.

Examples of Prang’s work on furniture like this are few and far between, and as such we cannot find another having been sold. A real find.