The Le Blond Exhibition, 1999

The annual event for members of the New Baxter Society is one of the highlights of the year for Baxter collectors and for the past few years this has taken the form of a major one-day exhibition.  Below is organiser's account of the 1999 exhibition: -

Abraham Le Blond's "The International Exhibition, 1862"

"After the last two years’ highly successful exhibitions, the New Baxter Society Committee had to wrack their brains to come up with another, of similar standard. We decided to grasp the bull by the horns and have a stab at staging the largest exhibition of Abraham Le Blond’s work that had ever been held and to try to have on display every known copy of his original prints together with all the Le Blond/Baxters alongside the original Baxter prints – quite a task!

With the help of several of our members, we managed to locate all but one print (The Le Blond /Baxter "Descent from the Cross) and set about making identification labels for the 300 or so prints and pieces of ephemera that were to be shown. We also prepared some labels that would show the differences between the Le Blond /Baxters and the original Baxter prints.

So on Sunday, July 18^th all the contributors arrived at the Bush Hall hotel at Hatfield at 10.30am ready for the mammoth task of setting up the exhibitions and, wonder of wonders, the weather was glorious. The hotel had opened up an extension to the Riverside Pavilion where we were to be located so we had at our disposal a room that was about 150ft long and 20 ft wide. With me having the chance of acting as a Sergeant Major ordering his troops to carry out orders by numbers and Ann as my Corporal, we managed to get everything set out in time for some lunch at 1pm.

The exhibition started at 2pm with just under 50 members and their guests arriving, one of the largest gatherings we have had. Our Chairman welcomed everyone, pointing out some of the special treats that were in store for us and we were all, very soon, feasting our eyes on the grand array of prints.

Now to the exhibition itself. We had 150 Le Blond prints, plates and blocks plus several more that were uncatalogued. Some were hand coloured and others on unrecorded mounts, others with "Guaranteed Genuine" Stamps from the Second Baxter Society, all in near perfect condition including a complete set of pristine Ovals. In addition there were prints by Möckler, Vincent brooks and the Drood Society and a couple of examples of progressive prints taken from each of the blocks.

A steel key plate was used to print a monochrome picture and then the colours would be built up by printing from the colour blocks using the relief process. Some of the prints required only 8 different blocks but some involved as many as 20 different colours.

These two prints show the monochrome first pull and the final print of Abraham Le Blond's "The Gleaner".

We had 60 Le Blond/Baxters, many with Blue Labels, with the rarer versions also on display. Next to each Le Blond /Baxter, we showed the original Baxter print with a label pointing out the differences mostly based on Courtney Lewis’s original statements. However, it must be said that many of the apparent differences were not visible, leading some of our exhibitors to wonder whether they really had the genuine article!

The ephemera on display included Needle Boxes, a Jar, Plate and Pocket Books, also original Le Blond Documents and a set of Etheridge’s Postcards of the Ovals. There were a couple of advertising posters and even a modern laser print copy of one of the Ovals.

Tea was served on the terrace at 4pm. This was the usual Bush Hall grand spread with scones and home made cakes, followed by the traditional Bring and Buy Sale. This was also on the terrace but, of course, shielded from the sun! This is when, as members know, it is "Everyone for Themselves" - although I didn’t see any fisticuffs!

So it was altogether a superb day out for all of us lucky enough to be able to attend."