3-074-996 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Facsimile of the Mulready Envelope, designed for the Penny Post, 1890. '...the design by Mr. Mulready, R.A...brought so much ridicule on the artist and his employers that it had to be abandoned...[necessitating] the destruction of nearly all the vast number prepared for use. A London daily journal made extremely merry: 'With very great propriety the name of the artist is conspicuously placed in one corner, so that the public and posterity may know who is the worthy Oliver of the genius of a Rowland on this triumphant occasion...it is no common man, for the mighty effort has taxed the powers of the Royal Academy itself, if the engraved announcement of W. Mulready in the corner may be credited. Considering the infinite drollery of the whole, the curious assortment of figures and faces, the harmonious mélange of elephants, mandarins' tails, Yankee beavers, naked Indians, Cherokee chiefs, with feathered tufts, shaking missionaries by the hand; casks of Virginia threatening the heads of young ladies devouring their love-letters, and the old woman in the corner, with hands uplifted, blessing Lord Lichfield and his Rowland for the saving grace of 11d. out of a shilling...altogether, it may be said this is a wondrous combination of pictorial genius".' From "Illustrated London News", 1890.