‘The print of [her] feet’ (Wordsworth)

Abstract

What happens when the image factory looks in the mirror? This chapter is framed around an illustration of a wood engraver, made for a children’s encyclopaedia, which can be read as a notional self-portrait. It investigates the concept of self-portraiture within a collective and commercial medium like wood engraving, and tells the story of the five Dalziel siblings involved in Dalziel Brothers: George, Edward, Margaret, John and Thomas. Reappropriating the archive’s wordless illustrations – particularly to Wordsworth’s poetry – and developing creative reading strategies, the chapter proposes ways of remembering Margaret and John Dalziel, skilled engravers whose roles were crucial (especially Margaret as a senior woman engraver) though evidence about them is limited. George and Edward’s work as founders and leaders of Dalziel are materially read in their albums, as are Thomas’s contributions as a draughtsman and in-house art educator. The chapter considers archival evidence of Thomas Dalziel’s illustrative method when approaching A Thousand and One Nights. The final family member considered in the chapter is an employee, Alice Gladden, who worked in the engraving factory as a 12-year-old nursemaid, and who here becomes a catalyst to re-read Dalziel’s wood engravings for Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This chapter asks what it was like to live and work in the image business, uncovering family ties, friendships and professional networks. With reference to Michael Fried’s recent work on painted self-portraits (2010), it thinks through the practicalities of a collaborative self-portrait of a working wood engraver.