Print: George Baxter Jr. Although quite often accredited to Baxter himself this is actually by his son. After working for Vincent Brooks, printing his father’s pictures and then arranging the sale of his father’s plates and blocks to Le Blond in 1868 he started out on his own account.
 
Initially he was printing using his father’s method but in a letter in 1874 stated that he had turned to the cheaper chromolithography. This set is mainly seen using that method but can also be found using his father’s process. This is one of those sheets. A comparison of the two processes is interesting, this patent process sheet being softer, more subtle and in my mind far superior than the chromolithographic versions.
 
This is a full uncut sheet of 24 small images meant to be cut singularly and used on the lids of small boxes containing sewing needles. The left hand sheet is more commonly seen, although as they printed from the same sheet, even as chromo’s there should be exactly the same number perhaps as the right hand sheet has some duplicates it was more regularly cut into singles as it wasn’t so appealing as a sheet of 12. Hard to find as a full uncut sheet and also versions printed using George Baxter’s patent process
 
Date: 1868 – 1873
 
Size (cm ht x w): 17 x 24.8 (complete sheet)
 
State: On complete sheet as taken from the presses including the registration holes used to align the colour blocks
 
Condition: Excellent colours, some light toning to sheet borders. At some time the sheet has been folded in half. It was folded down the central grey cutting guide line but after few hours in the press is now visually hardly noticeable. Only now noticeable from marks on the back