Stockholm: Gjöthström and Magnusson, [1830]. A Remarkable Suite of Sixteen Lithograph Plates - Including Four with Hand-coloring
A Wonderful Caricaturists View of Stockholm
MÖRNER, Carl Gustav Hjalmar. Stockholmska Scener Tecknade och lithografierade. [Caricature Scenes of Stockholm in Lithograph] Stockholm: Gjöthström & Magnusson, [1830].
First Edition in Book Form. Oblong folio (10 1/8 x 13 5/8 inches; 257 x 345 mm.). Sixteen superb, large lithographed plates including four that are hand colored, all by Gjöthström and Magnusson after Mörner.
Contemporary quarter dark brown calf over mottles paper boards, pale gray endpapers. Extremities a little rubbed, otherwise an excellent copy.
Originally published in four parts, each with three uncolored and one colored plate.
Excessively rare with only two copies listed in institutions worldwide: Kunstbiblio Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin (Germany); National Library of Sweden. (both with just four hand colored plates). Not in any of the standard bibliographies although Colas 2141 & 2142 does make mention of the two editions of one of Mörner's other works Scènes populaires de Naples… (1828 edition & 1829 edition).
The plates (translated from the Swedish)
1. Kállare - The Cellar
2. Hyrvagn - Slå bak! – A rental carriage with two stowaways
3. Roddare Båt – Rowers Boat
4. Restauration - Jungfru! Ska bli – Restoration - Oh, my God! To be young…
5. Musikaliskt Sállskap – Musical Society
6. [Untitled] - [Two Police Officers escorting a criminal?] (Colored)
7. Si opp! – Get up!
8. Division hallt – Division kept
9. Får jag den áran att proponera – May I propose that year (Colored)
10. Vira – The card game
11. Upphålls váder – Staying wet (Colored)
12. Kládstånd – Clothes Shop
13. Brunns Bal – Wells Ball
14. Thé Visit – The Visit
15. [Untitled] - [A country picnic in the rain]
16. Á ju full? Sa du – Did you say you are full? (Colored)
Carl Gustav Hjalmar Mörner, born May 7, 1794 in Stockholm, died September 15, 1837 in Paris, was a Swedish artist. He devoted himself first to the military court and participated in the battles of Grossbeeren, Dennewitz, Leipzig and Bornhöved. As with many other officers at the same time he devoted himself to amateur painting, which is testified by many of his sketches from youth, conviviality and the campaign in Germany. Later he turned seriously to art and traveled in 1816 over Germany and France to Italy, where he stayed until 1828. Mörner tried to paint larger compositions with historical or folklore motifs in oil, but had little success with them. One of the more famous paintings in this genre include Odin's arrival to Sweden's Rosendal Palace. His greatest contribution was made as a draftsman and lithographer. In 1820 he published a series of Roman carnival images in outline etching Il Carnevale di Roma, but these was later transformed into lithographs, which suited his drawing much better, as shown in Italian costume pictures (1825), Scenes populaires de Naples (printed in Naples in 1826, French edition 1828), Travel Memories France, Germany and Italy (1829) and Stockholmska Scenes (1830). During a stay in London from 1830-36, Mörner published a lithographic album, Miscellaneous Sketches of Contrasts (1831). A scheduled work on physiognomy was not completes due to the artist's death in Paris in 1837. Hjalmar Mörner's work is represented in the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Östergötland County Museum, Orebro County Museum, and the University Library in Uppsala.