Description
PUBLICATION DETAILS: 9”w x 6”h on 16”h x 12 ¼”w sheet. Dry point etching on wove paper. Signed in thin ink at lower left under image: Delphine’s, New Orleans. Ink signature lower right under image: J. Pennell. Both ink signatures correct according to several museums. Also called “Cafe des Exiles”. This is a nineteenth century Joseph Pennell sketch of “Madame Delphine’s cottage” in the 1200 block of Royal Street. The Creole cottage at 1220 Royal is joined with a Spanish style gable-fronted linear cottage (1216 Royal). The tall chimneys are reminiscent of the first decade of American Louisiana.
THE COTTAGE: Was this Delphine’s home? In 1881, George Cable wrote: “Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as she was commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. That she owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceased companion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as to be, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject of gossip. “
PENNELL: Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) was born in Philadelphia and worked as a clerk while he took evening classes at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art. After a period at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts he left in 1880 to become a full-time illustrator. He began selling picturesque drawings of south Philadelphia to Scribner’s Monthly in 1881. . D Pennell was a prolific artist and writer. The Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress has copies of virtually all of Pennell’s published graphic works, approximately 1,885 prints. During his lifetime, Pennell produced more than 900 etchings and mezzotints and more than 600 lithographs on architectural and landscape subjects ranging from the Panama Canal and Yosemite National Park to the factories of England and the temples of Greece. He and his wife moved to London in 1884 where he lectured at the Slade School of Art. There they became friends with the American artist James McNeill Whistler. The couple returned to the United States in 1917, and Pennell taught for several years at the Art Students’ League in New York City.
MADAME DELPHINE: Marie Delphine Macarty or MacCarthy (March 19, 1787 – December 7, 1849), more commonly known as Madame Blanque or, after her third marriage, as Madame LaLaurie, was a New Orleans socialite and serial killer who tortured and murdered slaves in her household. In 1831, she bought property at 1140 Royal Street, which she managed in her own name with little involvement of her husband. In 1832, she had a two-story mansion built there, complete with attached slave quarters. She lived there with her third husband and two of her daughters. She maintained her position in New Orleans society until April 10, 1834, when rescuers responded to a fire at her Royal Street mansion. They discovered bound slaves in her attic who showed evidence of cruel, violent abuse over a long period. LaLaurie’s house was subsequently sacked by an outraged mob of New Orleans citizens. She escaped to France with her family. The mansion traditionally held to be LaLaurie’s is a landmark in the French Quarter, in part because of its history and for its architectural significance. However, her house was burned by the mob, and the “Laurie Mansion” at 1140 Royal Street was in fact rebuilt after her departure from New Orleans and is now referred to as the Laurie Haunted House (Wikipedia).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
George W. Cable, Madame Delphine, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. 1881.
CONDITION: Very good. Wide margins.
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