The Original Vanity Fair Print Company

The Vanity Fair Print Company specializes exclusively in Antique Caricature Prints from the English Vanity Fair Magazine. We are probably one of the largest company in the world to provide these wonderful and widely collected prints which were originally offered as a supplement to each weekly edition of the magazine from 1869 to 1914.

We are based in the USA, but also operate from Worthing in the UK to better serve our customers there and in Europe.

We began selling Antique Prints in Norwich Norfolk, on the East Coast of the UK, on September 15th 1985

Introduction:

For over 45 years, from 1868 to 1914, Vanity Fair displayed its political, social and literary wares weekly for the nineteenth-century Pilgrim. Inviting its readers to recognize the vanities of human existence, the publication, through its original format, prose and coloured caricatures, became the envy and model of other Society magazines. The most successful Society magazine in the history of English journalism was the result of the guiding genius of its founder and editor, Thomas Gibson Bowles (1842-1922), set against a background of historical circumstances ranging from the more mundane -- technological breakthroughs in printing and lithography -- to the sublime, the British Empire at its height.

Written by and for the Victorian and Edwardian establishment, Vanity Fair was the magazine for those "in the know." Members of the Smart Set delighted in finding themselves caricatured in prose and picture. For them, Vanity Fair summarized each week the importanty events of their world. It reviewed the newest opening in the West End and the latest novel in the club's library; it aroused their curiosity and envy; it angered and amused them.

The news and Society columns, the book and play reviews, the serialized novels and word games and the colour lithograph caricatures give us a glimpse into the lives and reputations of men and women who achieved either lasting or fleeting fame and fortune during the heyday of the British Empire. The caricatures, which have become the magazine's chief legacy, fascinate the scholar, the lay person and the collector for their historical and biographical value and their satirical and artistic quality. Although Vanity Fair is best remembered for these chromolithographic caricatures, the magazine was, at its zenith, recognized and respected in its totality -- for its features, prose, advertising and format.

In addition to these enduring illustrations, Vanity Fair regularly included features such as 'Double Acrostics,' 'Doublets,' and 'Hard Cases,' all word games, as well as book and theatre reviews, financial advice columns, serialized fiction, travel reports, fictionalized exchanges of letters and special reports on the Season. Articles on such topics as political, economic and social news were standard, though as the magazine evolved, political reports were de-emphasized in favor of Society news and gossip. Though often frivolous in its topics, consistency of quality in its literary reviews, and sound advice on investments in the financial columns, show that Vanity Fair was informative as well as amusing.

The Caricatures:

Vanity Fair's reputation and legacy have not rested exclusively on its political views, weekly columns, special articles and its prose style. Its popularity in the nineteenth century and its influence on British journalism are in no small part to be attributed to the caricatures. Like all other features in Vanity Fair, they were conceived by Bowles who, in early 1869, brought to his struggling magazine an unprecedented design and style of colour illustrations.

On 16 January 1869, Bowles announced that since the literary offering of Vanity Fair had received so much favour, it was now proposed 'to add to them some Pictorial Ware of an entirely novel character'. Two weeks later, on 30 January 1869, the now famous caricature of Disraeli appeared, the first of over 2360 caricatures published in Vanity Fair over 45 years. It was drawn by Carlo Pelligrini, using the nom de crayon 'Singe', which he shortly thereafter angilicized to 'Ape'. Gladstone came next, followed by numerous dignitaries, including foreign Royalty, Earls, Lords, Bishops, politicians and a few women of social position or notoriety. This list was later extended to include such diverse characters as judges, journalists, criminals, sportsmen, artists, actors and Americans.

(excerpts from In 'Vanity Fair'
by Roy T. Matthews and Peter Mellini)