Author: Baillie, J.
Title: Family Register
Description: New York, Baillie, James, 1846. First Edition. Broadside, 9 3/4 x 13 1/2; hand-colored lithograph with four scenes across the top, with figures separated by Gothic arches and yellow foliate decoration down the sides, partially filled in manuscript; a few small spots, mostly to margins; several faint erasure marks; overall in very good condition. Historical evidence suggests that people in early America often did not know their exact date of birth. As they often needed age qualifications to pay taxes, marry, serve in the military, etc. one of the most common ways of recording birth dates was to write them in the family Bible. In the early 19th century, famous lithographers and engravers, including Peter Maverick, Nathaniel Currier, and James Baillie, would take it up a notch publishing ornate family registers, with spaces for names, place and date of birth, marriage, and death. The current one, recording the family history of Nathaniel Burnham and Hannah Marshall, included hand-colored images of parents and two children, a mother with a small child and a baby in a cradle, a bride and groom and a minister, and woman and child in mourning attire in front of a monument. Very good .

Keywords: Lithograph, Americana


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