Engrossers created decorative lettering used on resolutions, certificates, testimonials, memorials, and manifestos. The example above is by Patrick W. Costello (1866-1935). Costello’s engrossing work was often executed in limited tones of Payne’s gray or umber.
Engrossers such as Costello, Dennis, and Sickels often used decorative block letters that influenced cartoonists and poster designers of the 1960s.
Originals were as large as 22 x 28 inches, often illustrated with flags, portraits, flowers, or other pictorial devices. They reflect a culture that placed a premium on congratulatory or memorializing messages, usually presented publicly to formally recognize an individual achievement.
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More about the lettering of this era at the IAMPETH website
Books:
An Elegant Hand: The Golden Age of American Penmanship and Calligraphy
The Zanerian Manual of Alphabets and Engrossing
(Thanks, William!)Previously on GurneyJourney: Offhand Flourishing
10 comments:
Fantastic.
From about 1880 on, businesses utilized these various lettering styles on business letterhead, and often incorporated a similar design on their billheads. The 'flowering' came about at the turn of the century. I have hundreds of examples of fancy letterheads that will make your eyes pop out.
James, have you run across any mention of a correction technique for errors that occured during the execution of such penmanship? These people were very skilled, but human, nonetheless...
Beautiful art form, thanks for sharing.
I have a few old trinkets from my family's past, and I've run across a few photos with enormous versions of this from over 100 years ago. This was such a wonderful art, I wish it still existed en masse.
Thanks so much for sharing, James!
There are several places on the web where they "teach" this art. I didn't keep any URLs but I had a fine time hunting them down one slow Saturday afternoon.
The 'art' is still alive. Do a Google for letterheads. http://www.theletterheads.com/index.html
very cool, I did some typography work for a grad class in G.Design, and had a project that I did some engrossing for. A great book to check out for people into this is "The Zanerian Manual of Alphabets and Engrossing." You can still find some used copies around and it has about 20 amazing pages of engraving by E.A. Lupfer
Thanks, William, I added a link for that Zanerian book. I've seen it, and it's great.
This evening, my husband was reading some information about his great, great uncle and viewing some of his artwork online. We weren’t sure what the term ‘engrossing’ entailed so I googled it and found this vlog post. Lo and behold, P.W. Costello was the first example we spotted in your article. He was born in Scranton but the family moved back to Ireland so his father could find work (coal mining). When P.W. was 11 years old, they moved back to Pennsylvania where he had to leave school and work picking flint as a breaker boy. Fortunately, he was able to receive an art apprenticeship at a later time. We have a number of his pen and ink pieces in our immediate family and have seen many of his works thanks to photographs from our extended family. Thank you for including an example here. We enjoyed reading your blog.
Rebecca Corbett
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