Collection P072 - John Howell Evans Collection

4 cm of textual records.
Approximately 700 lithographs.

Purchased by the Osler Library in 1960. Old accession numbers 30, 86, 89, 214 and 306.

Collection contains over 700 prints of portraits, mostly English physicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but also pathological illustrations from the late 1860s to the mid-1920s. The collection includes papers, clippings and reprints associated with the portraits. The collection contains examples of various types of prints, including mezzotints, line, etchings, lithographs, and stipple. Approximately 56 of the finest mezzotints are framed and glazed. A large number of the prints are taken from such works as Pettigrew's Medical Portrait Gallery, Layland's Contemporary Medical Men, Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, and from the Gentleman's Magazine and the European Magazine. There are a number of early photographs of British medical men made by the London Stereoscopic Company. There are several bundles of portraits of foreign medical worthies, comprising quite a good representative collection of early prints. Many of these are taken from Sambucus' Icones (1603). The total number of foreign portraits is, however, quite small, and it seems obvious that the British portraits represent Mr. Evans's main interest. One bundle contains engravings of notorious quacks such as Valentine Greatrakes, Joshua Ward, and Chevalier Taylor. Apart from portraits, there are a few of the well-known subject prints. These include two or three of Teniers's pictures of barber-surgeons and quacks, a fine mezzotint of Rembrandt's Anatomy, the Siege of Warwick Lane, and some caricatures. There is also a set of the Vanity Fair cartoons of the 19th century medical men by "Spy" and "Ape", apparently complete and with accompanying biographical sketches.