Dunlap, William:

$2,250 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

DESCRIPTION OF DUNLAP'S PAINTING OF THE CHRIST REJECTED [caption title]. Broadside describing William Dunlap's painting, CHRIST REJECTED (1822), with a line noting that admission is 25 cents, though a ticket "admitting the bearer at all times during the Exhibition" is 50 cents. Dunlap (1766-1839) was a dramatist, historian, and painter, authoring numerous stage plays and managing a theatre company. Born in New Jersey, the son of a merchant, Dunlap had little formal schooling, but trained as a painter, eventually studying with Benjamin West. While in London, however, he primarily reveled in the theatre scene, writing and producing his first play in 1787 upon his return to New York. He became a managing partner in the American Company in 1796, an organization which eventually went bankrupt. Though he returned officially to his painting career, he flirted with the theatre on and off for financial reasons until 1811, though he continued to write plays. "As his principal biographer, Oral Sumner Coad, has noted, Dunlap was a man of moderate innate talent but of seemingly unlimited versatility, energy, and enthusiasm, who participated in practically all of the significant cultural activities of his day" - ANB. He is considered to be one of the fathers of American drama. He also wrote several histories on the American theatre and the first book on the history of the fine arts in the United States, HISTORY OF THE ARTS OF DESIGN.During the 1820s, Dunlap produced a series of large-scale

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