A Peculiar Literary Journal

Le Petit Journal des Refusées (1896)

Modernist Journals Project page


Despite its title Le Petit Journal des Refusées is both American and in English.  Appearing in San Francisco in 1896 it announced the launch of a new artistic journal that would accept only work rejected elsewhere.  This was the only issue.  Did it just fail to take off?  Was it a one-off joke?  A prank?  Almost certainly the latter two considering the advertisement in the image below (from January 1902 issue of The Literary Collector).

The contents aren't exactly what you might expect ("I'd love to hunt for angels / And shoot them on the wing") while physically the journal has an odd trapezoidal shape and most surviving copies are slightly different.  (The link above has three versions.)  There are hand-applied images to a few pages, changes in paper stock (wallpaper according to some sources), and even some with differing content.  Despite all the names attached to the various pieces it was actually done by one person.

There's very little background information (though why would there be?).  The most substantial appears to be a piece by Johanna Drucker but I can't find an accessible version and have only read the first couple of pages. 

Though the credited name is James Marrion that's actually a pseudonym for Gelett Burgess, a San Fransisco artist and poet with a decidely comic sensibililty.  I've posted some work of his on this blog before - Burgess Unabridged, The Burgess Nonsense Book and My Maiden Effort.  (He wrote the still remembered poem "The Purple Cow".)  His account of creating the journal is the last image below.

Miniature Painting

John Lumsden Propert - A History of Miniature Art (1887)
Archive.org direct link
Open Library main page

Dudley Heath - Miniatures (1905)
Archive.org direct link
Open Library main page

Charles William Day - The Art of Miniature Painting (1852)
Archive.org direct link 
Open Library main page

George Charles Williamson - Portrait Miniatures (1897)
Archive.org direct link 
Open Library main page

J.J. Foster - Chats on Old Miniatures (1908)
Archive.org direct link
Open Library main page


It's probably no surprise that miniature paintings are small paintings, largely portraits and according to these books most common from the late Renaissance through the Victorian era.  (There's another type of "miniature painting" which is still in existence and involves minature figures used for table-top games.)  Some of the work here goes into more detail about the artists than I would have expected was known but then they're focusing on court or society works.

The book by John Lumsden Propert (1834-1902) seems to be the standard work on the subject.  A quick search didn't find anything substantial that's more recent.  Propert was a London physician who collected art and appears to have created the interest in miniatures.  He claims to have written A History on slips of paper while making his medical visits.  The first bookplate Aubrey Beardsley designed was for Propert (and is included below).

Dudley Heath (1867-1945) was the son of a miniatures painter who later added photography to his business.  He followed in that career, also becoming an art historian and lecturer.  A more full biography is online.

Charles William Day (dates not found) was best known for a popular 1836 etiquette manual that went through many editions and was published in the US.  His book on miniatures is a how-to guide but seemed worth including.

George Charles Williamson (1858-1942) was a prolific author, usually on art history.  He studied at the University of London and later became the art editor at the publisher George Bell.  He contributed several entries to the 11th edition of the Britannica and to the Catholic Encyclopedia.  Some of his paperes are held at Boston College. 

In one of art's more curious developments there was a trend in the 18th century for miniature portraits of single eyes. (Of course there's a Wikipedia page.)  According to Hanneke Grootenboer's 2012 Treasuring the Gaze: Intimate Vision in Late Eighteenth-Century Eye Miniatures, Williamson organized the first exhibition of these works in 1905.  (n53 on p188)

Joshua James Foster (1847-1923) was born in Dorchester and trained in art publishing.  He seems to have run the London Art Business, possibly a studio since a photo Foster made of Henry Irving is in the National Portrait Gallery.  Foster published several works on art topics.