Global Histories in Print and Illustration – Aratrika Choudhury (QMUL) & Ningfen Wang (QMUL)

Wednesday 19th April, 2023

3:30-5:00pm, SCR, level 4, Arts 2, QMUL Campus, Mile End

This research seminar will present the work of two doctoral researchers at QMUL, Ningfen Wang (History) and Aratrika Choudhury (Comparative Literature). From different Schools at QMUL, both researchers are engaged with histories of print culture and graphic arts in the context of larger global histories.

Ningfen Wang (School of History), Representations of Black Africans in 17th-century Etching: The Context, Techniques, and Afterlife of Wenceslaus Hollar’s Prints

In 1645, Wenceslaus Hollar produced four etchings showing bust studies of black Africans in seventeenth century European clothing. Today these prints are one of the better known visual sources of the history of race and racialisation. Scholars such as Kim F. Hall, Imtiaz H. Habib and Simon P. Newman used these prints as illustrations to their scholarly writing, however, without critically examining the context and the production of the prints themselves. This paper will address the social and cultural environments in which the artist Wenceslaus Hollar worked and lived, and his technical approach to the challenge of visualising the black African body in intaglio printing. Although they were produced in Antwerp, the conceptualisation of these prints were inseparable from Hollar’s experiences during his first English period (1637-1644) under the patronage of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel. Two of these prints in particular were influential in subsequently shaping the representations of black African youth in early modern England as it is evidenced through the numerous contemporary copies after them. Therefore this paper will also explore ways to contextualise a printed image through themes such as the transmission of visual images across artistic mediums,  the mobility of the artist and the ability of a printed image to reach diverse audiences.

Aratrika Choudhury (School of Languages, Linguistics, and Film), Empire and the Illustrated Book: Indian Tales in the Golden Age of British Book Illustration

The imperial practice of story collection was increasingly supplemented by illustrative processes, towards the end of the nineteenth century. New editions and deluxe editions brought curious reinterpretations of the idea of ‘authenticity’. Illustrations resurrected forgotten texts, reimagined existing ones, and increased their collectability, like the 1912 edition of Lal Behari Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal containing thirty-two colour plates by Warwick Goble. Authenticity as a philosophical concept has come to embody a multiplicity of context-specific meanings over time. I draw attention to the slippery fluidity of its definition and proceed to critically explore its functionality in the landscape of image-text interactions in illustrated books containing Indian narratives, published in Britain.

This seminar will take place at 3:30-5:00pm on Wednesday 19 April 2023 as a hybrid event. Talks will be presented in the SCR of Arts 2 on QMUL campus at Mile End. It will also be possible to attend the seminar via Teams. Click here to join the seminar on the day.