Anderson, John Henry (The Great Wizard of the North) | A striking portrait

Anderson, John Henry (The Great Wizard of the North)

From the Strand Theatre and Palace of Necromancy … Giving His Grand Expose of the the Gamblers Trick "Sauter la Coup." Liverpool: Maclure, Macdonald, & Macgregor [and] L. Brunswick, nd

Lithograph (370 x 240 mm) on chine collé (421 x 261) with letterpress caption. Portrait of Anderson holding playing cards, facsimile signature on the caption; left margin browned, some soiling and smudging. Professionally washed and restored.

A large, charming portrait of the Scottish-born, "globe-trotting John Henry Anderson, who claimed to carry seven tons of equipment that he described as being the 'most gorgeous and costly apparatus of solid silver … hitherto known in Europe.' A newspaper review of an 1846 engagement in England reveals a few of the principles employed in Anderson's magic: 'A more scientific entertainment we never witnessed than the feats of the Wizard, where we find experiments accomplished by chemistry, mechanism, electricity, hydraulics--which baffle even professors.' At least part of Anderson's success must be attributed to his lavish, multicolored playbills, printed with ornate illustrations and in quantities that cities were awash in paper announcing the imminent arrival of 'The Wizard of the North'" (Magic). 

REFERENCE:

Magic, pp. 151–152