Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-1888), The News Boy, no date. Pencil, pen and ink with sepia wash. Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 1593.
The charming sketch seen above came to Sinclair Hamilton, and eventually to Princeton University, in an album of the artist’s early work, which has since been unbound and housed separately. In trying to match it with a published book, we thought we had succeeded with the 1843 In Town & About, or, Pencillings & Pennings by Joseph C. Neal (Graphic Arts GAX Oversize Hamilton 1594q). This set of sketches includes one on news boys in particular.
Unfortunately, we were wrong. It is a different project (see below). Any suggestions about the scene above would be greatly appreciated.
Tracking Darley’s work is daunting. In just 1843, the twenty-one-year-old artist completed a surprising number of drawings, including illustrations for Yankee among the Mermaids; Streaks of Squatter of Life; Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs: Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers; Big Bear of Arkansas; In Town & About, or, Pencillings & Pennings; Major Jones’s Courtship; Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel; New Orleans Sketch Book; Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana “Swamp Doctor”; Pictorial History of the United States of America; and Scenes in Indian Life.
