The E-Sylum:  Volume 3, Number 39, September 24, 2000, Article 11

FEATURED WEB SITE 

   This week's featured web page is in keeping with the theme 
   of bank note engraving in the 1850's.  A description of the 
   Francis W. Edmonds Papers in the William L. Clements 
   Library at  The University of Michigan, it describes the 
   fascinating life of Edmonds (1806-1863) who "divided 
   his life between the art and banking worlds and came to be 
   well-known and respected in both.... Edmonds did 
   professional engraving for bank note companies while 
   working as a banker....At the behest of publishers, he also 
   wrote for newspapers and periodicals on art and art 
   exhibitions, and at some point in  his life produced an 
   autobiography (unpublished) with many details of the early 
   New York art scene....  Amid all this activity, and with a 
   growing family, Edmonds continued producing 2 to 3 
   paintings a year.... 

   After a brief withdrawal from professional life, Edmonds 
   took up an old activity which had combined his business 
   and artistic talents, the engraving of bank notes.  With Alfred 
   Jones and James Smillie he formed the Bank Note Engraving 
   Company in 1857.  The next year the American Bank Note 
   Company began to absorb most of its competition, and the 
   three men sold out under favorable terms.  Edmonds became 
   director and secretary of the larger company and contributed 
   original drawings for engravings." 

   The bibliography lists two books with more information on 
   Edmonds: 

   Clark, Henry Nichols Blake. Francis W. Edmonds. American 
   Master in the Dutch Tradition (Washington,  D.C.: Smithsonian 
   Institution Press, 1988) 

   Mann, Maybelle. Francis William Edmonds. Mammon and Art 
   (N.Y.: Garland Publishing Co., 1977) 

   http://www.clements.umich.edu/Webguides/EF/Edmonds.html 

  Wayne Homren 
  Numismatic Bibliomania Society 

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  Wayne Homren, Editor

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