Children going to School in a Goat Cart, Antique Print, 1817

An original antique hand colored engraving after Miss Semple, lettered "Children going to School.", from The Costume of the Netherlands published by Rudolph Ackermann in London in 1817. Three children ride in a small high backed cart on spoked wheels, drawn by a shaggy long haired white goat with brown patches and curved horns. The boy in front drives, holding the reins and raising a whip, in a red, white and blue striped cap and a gray blue jacket and breeches. Beside him sits a round faced girl in a white cap, white kerchief and red jacket, and behind her a third child in a black hat is half hidden by the back of the cart.

The engraved caption below the image reads "Children going to School." and beneath it runs the imprint "Published Jan.y 1, 1817, at R. Ackermann's, 101 Strand.". The plate carries no engraver's signature, and the drawings for the whole series are credited on the title page to Miss Semple.

The plate belongs to The Costume of the Netherlands, published in London in 1817 by Rudolph Ackermann at his Repository of Arts, 101 Strand. The title page announces thirty colored engravings after drawings from nature by Miss Semple, with descriptions in English and French, and the plates carry imprints dated in the course of 1817. Each figure or group is set on a small washed patch of ground against the open paper, with the caption engraved in a copperplate script below. Ackermann (1764 to 1834), a German born publisher and print seller working in London, issued many illustrated books with hand colored plates, as well as the periodical The Repository of Arts.

A single plate suits a narrow frame with a generous mat, and several plates from the series hang well together as a group of Dutch street and household scenes.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.