Our Jolly Cook

Lithograph, 1863, by Winslow Homer. Printed title: Our Jolly Cook. A black man wearing a hat with a tassel dances as a soldier plays the flute, watched by seated and standing soldiers in a camp setting. Printed series title: Campaign Sketches. Printed credit: Lith. & Pub. by L. Prang & Co., Boston, Mass. Printed signature lower left: Homer Del. Inscribed signature in pencil lower right: Winslow Homer. One of six prints (2000.165.6.1, .2, .3, .4, .5, & .6) plus cover that comprise a Civil War set. That Homer signed them suggests that the prints are proofs. Cover (2000.165.6.7) has drawn title: Campaign Sketches; and text: Del. And Drawn on Stone by Winslow Homer; Part I, containing 6 Plates; Published by L. Prang & Company, 159 Washington St. Boston. Mellon Collection description at transfer in 2000: Wrapper. Color frontispiece, matted color plates (6), signed by Winslow Homer. 14 1/8 inches x 11 3/16 inches without mat; and 19 1/16 inches x 16 1/4 with mat. In red cloth box-case, ht. 20 1/4 inches (black leather label: WINSLOW HOMER/CAMPAIGN SKETCHES/ORIGINAL WRAPPER/ BOSTON: l. PRANG). Unique set with cover and prints signed by Homer, probably proof edition. The magazine Harpers Weekly sent illustrator Winslow Homer (1836-1910) to Virginia to cover the Civil War. With the Army of the Potomac, first outside of Washington and then during the Peninsula campaign directed against Richmond, Homer made sketches primarily of camp life. From these he derived wood engravings that appeared in Harpers, oil paintings, and the seven lithographs that form the mildly humorous series entitled Campaign Sketches. Campaign Sketches consisted of six prints and a cover, and stands as a landmark in Homers career as a printmaker because he conceived and executed it entirely on his own. The sets did not sell well, however, making the surviving prints rare.