Extraordinary family scrapbook of original drawings, watercolors, lithographs, and Peale Museum silhouettes, all pasted in an 1802 volume of the Philadelphia newspaper Gazette of the United States containing approximately 100 complete issues.

Folio, 20 x 12½ inches, contemporary half calf, worn with boards detached. The first 24 leaves of this truly remarkable (and quite large) object are used as a circa 1820s scrapbook. This is followed by approximately 100 complete issues of the Gazette of the United States, plus some partial issues, with moderate wear. Philadelphia and environs, 1802-circa 1824. The compliler of this scrapbook was possibly a descendant of Lynford Lardner (1715-1774), a close associate of the Penn's who had an estate at Tacony near Philadelphia. Much of the original art is by women. As nearly as can be assumed, the artists featured include his daughter Hannah Lardner (1756-1839), and granddaughter Elizabeth Lardner (1791-1877), whose mother was from the Saltar family. The original art includes: a watercolor of a rose by Elizabeth Saltar Lardner of Tacony; an ink and wash landscape by Miss Hannah Lardner of Tacony; two ink and wash views by Frances "Fanny" Saltar (1790-1880?) titled "Cootstown from the East" (of Kutztown, PA) and "A View Down the Lehigh River from Bethlehem Bridge". There are two watercolors of flowers by Frances Saltar of Tacony, trimmed and laid in rather than mounted; an unsigned watercolor still life of shells; an unsigned pencil sketch of a ruined building; an unsigned pencil sketch of a residence; and a watercolor of flowers in an urn signed "S. Courlander." Also included are 20 silhouettes in a uniform format, 5 x 4 inches, all but three of them laid down on dark paper. Some bear faint embossed stamps reading "Museum," which helps identify them as products of Peale's Museum, run by the noted artist Charles Willson Peale. A formerly enslaved man named Moses Williams, who had been owned by the Peale family, secured his freedom in 1802 and then produced thousands of silhouettes for Peale's Museum at 8 cents each. His remarkable story has only recently received attention. These works are not signed, and Peale may have employed other silhouettists in addition to Williams, but many, or all, of these portraits were likely by Williams. Three are captioned in manuscript: Mary F. Smith, "Lardner," and "Country Cousin." Additional ephemera mounted in the scrapbook includes an 1824 engraved invitation to the Lafayette Ball; a set of French allegorical prints of the four seasons; 8 large hand-colored botanical engravings; and an engraved portrait of Lafayette by Longacre. Most of the volume was actually never used as a scrapbook. The Philadelphia newspaper, Gazette of the United States, 16 February to 30 June 1802, is bound as fairly close to a complete run of approximately 100 issues, but 5 issues are missing, and 7 are incomplete. The 8 March issue has two black-bordered pages to mourn the death of Federalism at the hands of Thomas Jefferson. More traditionally, the black-bordered 26 May issue mourns the death of Martha Washington.