File:SB-03-151-source-1.png

Summary

Description

Over the Counter, Spectacles on Nose, Old Richard Stooped. Illustration signed Abbey for J. T. Trowbridge's The Book of Gold: A Christmas Story. An elderly bookseller wearing spectacles reads an open book at the counter, watched by a cloaked visitor, with another figure in the shadowed background. Books, a ladder, scissors and a hanging lamp form the surrounding shop interior.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. LIV (54), no. CCCXIX (319), December 1876, printed p.65. The bound volume covers December 1876 to May 1877 and is catalogued as 1877; the actual issue opening explicitly gives December1876 and no.319. The engraver is not securely identified here.

Figures, gestures, open book, scissors, ladder, books, lamp and engraving signature match. The scrapbook trims away the printed caption. Compared directly with H. P. Blavatsky's Scrapbooks, volume3, page151, item1. This witness does not establish the first-ever appearance or identify the physical copy used for the scrapbook.

Source

Colour scan provided by Brigham Young University–Idaho, David O. McKay Library, through Internet Archive, identifier harpersnew054various, ARK ark:/13960/t3kw80f8k.

• Digitized volume and catalogue record.
• Complete colour page, printed p.65.
• Actual December1876 issue opening, no.319.

Thank you to Brigham Young University–Idaho, David O. McKay Library, and Internet Archive for preserving this volume and making its colour scan freely available.

File and processing

PNG, 2430 × 3070 pixels, RGB. Retained complete source JPEG: 2903 × 4870 pixels, 1450718 bytes, SHA-256 cd01883a27d60617d5418283cd692ecc7952df697ad61001d15471a198680835.

Crop from(210, 730)–(2700, 3860), then trim to(30, 30)–(2460, 3100); right and bottom bounds are exclusive. Alignment corrected by 0.514873 degrees clockwise, with one bicubic resampling. The full engraving, original caption and visible signature or credit are retained. No added canvas is included. Natural paper colour, marks and show-through are preserved. No enlargement, colour or tonal adjustment, sharpening, retouching or reconstruction was applied. PNG compression is lossless; the source itself is JPEG. The complete page remains linked above.

Rights

Public-domain historical illustration published in the United States in1876, reproduced by a faithful library scan. The issue opening carries the1876 copyright notice. No Creative Commons licence or Public Domain Mark is attributed to this repository object.