The Bottle. It Is Brought Out For The First Time: The Husband Induces His Wife "Just to Take a Drop." by Elijah Chapman Kellogg

This hand-colored print depictsthe first of the eight scenes based on George Cruikshank's The Bottle. The series shows the progressive degeneration of a family due to the evils of drinking. The print is an interior scene of a man, a woman, and three children. The man and woman are seated at a table where he's pouring a drink for her. They are surrounded by comfortable middle-class furnishings that include a fireplace with stove insert, pictures on the wall, and a tall case clock. A cat and a kitten play by the fire near the two younger children.

This print is by the English artist George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Cruikshank’s father, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist who specialized in song sheets and caricatures and trained George and his brother Robert Cruikshank in these arts. George started as a caricaturist for magazines and children’s books. His most famous works included The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children, designed and etched by Cruikshank to show the wickedness of alcohol. Cruikshank's father and brother were both alcoholics and he himself drank heavily until he took a vow of abstinence in 1847. The prints were originally published by David Bogue, who published most of Cruikshank’s works in the 1850s. David Bogue (1807–1856) was born in Scotland and moved to London in 1836. Bogue began working in Charles Tilt's bookshop as a publisher and bookseller in 1836 and became Tilt's partner in 1840. Bogue bought the shop in 1843. He was the principle publisher of Cruikshank’s short-lived periodicals, brief illustrated stories, and the Comic Almanack1835-53. David Bogue published The Bottle series in 1847. Bogue suffered from heart disease and died in 1856 at the age of 48.

This print was produced by lithographer Elijah Chapman Kellogg (1811-1881). He was the youngest of the four Kellogg brothers, all of whom were lithographers. The brothers were born in Tolland, Connecticut, a small town located near where the family business was established in Hartford. E.C. Kellogg was the only brother among the Kelloggs to receive his professional training in Hartford. In 1840, Elijah Chapman Kellogg, along with his brother Edmund Burke Kellogg (1809-1872), took over the D.W. Kellogg & Co. after Daniel Wright Kellogg (1807-1874), its founder, moved west. Elijah and Edmund Kellogg were responsible for most of the company’s future partnerships. Elijah Chapman Kellogg retired in 1867.

Harry T. Peters appears to have only acquired this one Kellogg version of the series.

Currently not on view