Print, Relief

Description

This copy in the Shaker Museum collection includes two leaves, pages 133-136, removed from The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge (Volume 2, Number 3, November, 1835). The wood engraving, "The Village of the United Society of Shakers in Canterbury, N. H.," appears on page 133 of this magazine. It is the first illustration of a Shaker Village to appear in print. The illustration is accompanied by an untitled article on pages 133-135. Following a description of the village taken from various published sources the magazine includes a statement submitted by Canterbury trustees, Brother Francis Winkley, Brother Israel Sanborn, and Brother David Parker. Following the observation "that among those who have appeared before the public, as informants of our religious faith and principles, but on whose statements concerning us no reliance can be safely placed, as many of them are wholly destitute of truth," they present a short summary of the history and religious tenets of their church. Robert Emlen notes that, "while the Shaker experience evolved throughout the years, that original illustration stayed in print for decades, inspiring at least eight other published versions of the same scene. Although they varied in size, medium, and artistic quality, for almost half a century all successive illustrations of the Canterbury Shaker village were predicated on the vision of some nameless artist whose drawing was the basis of that original wood engraving." For a full discussion of this image and its successors, see: "Canterbury Views: The Enduring Image of a Shaker Village," in Robert P. Emlen's Imagining the Shakers: How the Visual Culture of Shaker Life Was Pictured in the Popular Illustrated Press of Nineteenth-Century America (Chapter 2: pp. 51-71).