Prospectus with Royal Arms in Gold and Colours

Courtney Lewis in 1908 called this a prospectus but basically it was an advertisement for prints that were in preparation. What was special about these is that they were in colour and as such gained their own CL number, CL 130 being the only adverts that were known at the time in colour and originally just titled by CL as ‘Royal Arms’.

They are very rare and I only know of a handful of copies. They are all for just two of Baxter’s prints – CL 129 - Coronation of Queen Victoria and CL 131 - The Opening of Parliament.

There are basically two versions, the first only advertises The Opening of Parliament and the other advertises both prints. So why did Baxter choose to issue them for these prints?

Queen Victoria’s Coronation was on the June 28th, 1838. Baxter visited those in attendance after the event to sketch their likeness to ensure that his print would be as accurate as possible. As it is said there are about 200 recognisable faces this took Baxter some time!

Queen Victoria opened her first Parliament on November 20th, 1837, as depicted in the print. Both prints were not published till October 1st 1841, nearly 4 years after that event and 3 years 4 months after her Coronation.

Baxter obviously realised at an early stage how long these, his largest prints at the time, would take to prepare so issued these advertisements to gain some early interest. Looking at the dates of the events it seems logical to presume the advertisement for the Opening of Parliament was most probably issued between Nov 1837 and her Coronation in June 1838.

Other versions can be found, some just in black and white, and some with a changing list of subscribers.

A very good copy of this version has just become available on the Internet and is in the public domain so I can share it with you courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.