Washington Irving's Illustrations for the Legend of Rip Van Winkle, Designed and Etched by F.O.C. Darley
Darley's lithographs illustrate Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," which tells of villagers of Dutch descent living in upstate New York at the end of the British colonial period. The feckless primary character infuriates his wife by avoiding work. He prefers to play with local children, or to socialize with a "perpetual club of sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village" outside a local inn. When he takes an autumn ramble into the Catskills, Rip encounters men dressed in old-fashioned garb, playing at nine-pins, who resemble Henry Hudson's band of early seventeenth-century explorers. After tasting their liquor, Rip falls asleep and wakes after twenty years have passed, returns to his village and finds himself in post-Revolutionary America.
The set of prints was issued as a supplement to subscribers of the American Art-Union in 1848. The main large engraving they received that year was "The Signing of the Death Warrant of Lady Jane Grey," by Charles Burt after Daniel Huntington.
Plate 1. Rip Van Winkle's idleness enrages his wife.
Plate 2. Rip Van Winkle plays with his children instead of working.
Plate 3. Rip Van Winkle frequents "a perpetual club of sages, philosophers,and other idle personages of the village" outside his local inn.
Plate 4. Rip Van Winkle meets "a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins" in a deep ravine of the Catskills.
Plate 5. After sleeping for twenty years, Rip Van Winkle returns home to find his house in ruins.
Plate 6. Rip Van Winkle talks to veterans of the American Revolution outside Johnathan Doolittle's Union Inn.
The set of prints was issued as a supplement to subscribers of the American Art-Union in 1848. The main large engraving they received that year was "The Signing of the Death Warrant of Lady Jane Grey," by Charles Burt after Daniel Huntington.
Plate 1. Rip Van Winkle's idleness enrages his wife.
Plate 2. Rip Van Winkle plays with his children instead of working.
Plate 3. Rip Van Winkle frequents "a perpetual club of sages, philosophers,and other idle personages of the village" outside his local inn.
Plate 4. Rip Van Winkle meets "a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins" in a deep ravine of the Catskills.
Plate 5. After sleeping for twenty years, Rip Van Winkle returns home to find his house in ruins.
Plate 6. Rip Van Winkle talks to veterans of the American Revolution outside Johnathan Doolittle's Union Inn.
Artwork Details
- Title: Washington Irving's Illustrations for the Legend of Rip Van Winkle, Designed and Etched by F.O.C. Darley
- Artist: Felix Octavius Carr Darley (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1822–1888 Claymont, Delaware)
- Printer: Text printed by Leavitt, Trow & Co. (New York, NY)
- Printer: Illustrations printed by Sarony & Major (New York, NY)
- Publisher: American Art-Union, New York (1838–51) , by subscription
- Author: Related author Washington Irving (American, New York 1783–1859 Sunnyside, New York)
- Date: 1848
- Medium: Lithographs (called etching on stone)
- Dimensions: book: 13 x 16in. (33 x 40.6 cm)
Sheet: 12 3/8 × 14 15/16 in. (31.5 × 38 cm) - Classifications: Books, Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Frederic F. Durand, 1933
- Object Number: 33.39.123
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Felix Octavius Carr Darley
Felix Octavius Carr Darley
ca. 1859
Felix Octavius Carr Darley
Felix Octavius Carr Darley
1845
Multiple artists/makers
1849–50
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