The nineteenth century witnessed a series of revolutions in the production and circulation of images. From lithographs and engraved reproductions of paintings to daguerreotypes, stereoscopic views, and mass-produced sculptures, works of visual art became available in a wider range of media than ever before. But the circulation and reproduction of artworks also raised new questions about the legal rights of painters, sculptors, engravers, photographers, architects, collectors, publishers, and subjects of representation (such as sitters in paintings or photographs). Copyright and patent laws tussled with informal cultural norms and business strategies as individuals and groups attempted to exert some degree of control over these visual creations.
With contributions by art historians, legal scholars, historians of publishing, and specialists of painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic arts, this rich collection of essays explores the relationship between intellectual property laws and the cultural, economic, and technological factors that transformed the pictorial landscape during the nineteenth century.
This book will be valuable reading for historians of art and visual culture; legal scholars who work on the history of copyright and patent law; and literary scholars and historians who work in the field of book history. It will also resonate with anyone interested in current debates about the circulation and control of images in our digital age.
Author(s): Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire, Will Slauter
Edition: 1
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Year: 2021
Contents
Contributor Biographies
Acknowledgements
1. Law, Culture, and Industry: Toward a History of Intellectual Property for Visual Works in the Long Nineteenth Century
New Visual Media and Artistic Practices
Existing Studies and New Lines of Inquiry
Structure and Common Themes
Bibliography
2. The First Copyright Case under the 1735 Engravings Act: The Germination of Visual Copyright?
Introduction
The Statutory Background: The Statute of Anne (1710) and the Engravings Act (1735)
The Meaning of Invention and Design
Who Was Elizabeth Blackwell?
Making and Selling A Curious Herbal
The Proceedings in Chancery
Conclusion
Bibliography
3. Who Owns Washington? Gilbert Stuart and the Battle for Artistic Property in the Early American Republic
Stuart v. Sword: Controlling Copying in Early Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia
Painting as Intellectual Property in Eighteenth-Century London: Art Theory and its Intersection with Artistic and Trade Practices
Stuart and the Visual Economy of the Young Republic
Bibliography
4. The Scope of Artistic Copyright in Nineteenth-Century England
Bibliography
Statutes
Legal Cases
5. The ‘Death of Chatterton’ Case: Reproductive Engraving, Stereoscopic Photography, and Copyright for Paintings ca. 1860
The Poet and the Painting
The Rise of Stereography
Photography and tableaux vivants
Reproductive Engravings and the Threat of Photography
Turner’s Stand on Behalf of Engraving Rights
Robinson’s Defense
What Constitutes ‘Publication’ of a Painting?
Gallery Rules Related to Copying
What Constitutes an Illegal Copy?
Legal Significance v. Commercial and Cultural Effects
Conclusion
Bibliography
6. Before an Image Was Worth a Thousand Words: Ben-Hur and Copyright’s Right of Derivatives
All the Profits of Publication Which the Book Can, in Any Form, Produce
Ben-Hur: My God, Did I Set All of This in Motion?
The Masterpiece of the Nineteenth-Century Illustrated
It Is a Very Valuable Property
Aftermath: Harper v. Kalem and the Logic of Derivative Works
Bibliography
7. The Frame Maker/Picture Dealer: A Crucial Intermediary in the Nineteenth-Century American Popular Print Market
Philadelphia Frame Makers’ Role in the Print Market
‘Growing Taste for Beauty in Forms and Colors’: Philadelphia Frame Makers and Subscription Art Unions
Frame Maker/Picture Dealers, Print Values, and Copyright
Conclusion
Bibliography
8. Piracy, Copyright, and the Transnational Trade in Illustrations of News in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Trading Visual News, 1842–1860
The Parties
The Case
Conclusion
Bibliography
9. (Re)Assembling Reference Books and Recycling Images: The Wood Engravings of the W. & R. Chambers Firm
Sources for Visual Material in Chambers’s Encyclopaedia
The Culture of Copying Among Encyclopedia Publishers
On-the-Ground Book Production Management
How New Illustration Styles Presented the Face of ‘Modernity’
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
10. Architectural Copyright, Painters and Public Space in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain
Introduction
Building Nineteenth-Century Public Spaces
Image-Making and Public Space
Architecture and Copyright in the Nineteenth Century
Architects and the Society of Arts Copyright Committee
Architectural Copyright and the RIBA Copyright Committee
Tensions between Painters and Architects
Conclusion
Bibliography
11. Nineteenth-Century American Sculpture and United States Design Patents
Hiram Powers
John King and Thomas Ball
John Rogers
Dayton Morgan
Leonard Volk
Clark Mills
Conclusion
Bibliography
12. New or Improved? American Photography and Patents ca. 1840s to 1860s
The Smithsonian Institution, the Patent Office and Innovation History
The Patents
Keeping and Embellishing Photographs
Conclusion
Bibliography
13. King Tāwhiao’s Photograph: Copyright, Celebrity, and the Commercial Image in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand
Blackman v. Monkton
Celebrity, Consumers, and the Circulation of Images
King Tāwhiao
Conclusion
Bibliography
14. ‘Photography VS the Press’: Copyright Law and the Rise of the Photographically Illustrated Press
Introduction
Sales Killers: Halftones and the Business of Professional Photographers
American Newspaper Publishers Association v. Photographers’ Copyright League of America: The 1895 Amendment to the Copyright Act
Loopholes and Letdowns: Bolles v. Outing Co. (1899) and Falk v. Curtis Publishing Co. (1900)
Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Index
