Genl. Tom Thumb & Wife, Com. Nutt & Minnie Warren. Four Wondrously Formed & Strangely Beautiful Ladies & Gentlemen in Miniatures

WEDDING CELEBRATIONS

Coloured lithograph broadside measuring 270 by 350mm. Small repairs to bottom caption, a little soiled, but very good. New York, Currier & Ives,

A charming depiction of the nuptials of Gen. Tom Thumb (1838-83) and Lavinia Warren (1842-1919).

 

Thumb (born Charles Stratton) was one of the most successful and respected comic performers in nineteenth-century America. He performed across the United States and throughout Europe, before the common public and European royalty. Tom and Lavinia, another Barnum performer, toured Europe in 1864 and again in 1869 to great acclaim.

 

Evidence of their status is found in ANB's description of their wedding: "In 1863 Thumb married Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump in New York City. (Her last name is alternately spelled Bumps and Bumpus; she went by Lavinia Warren.) By all reports a beauty, the 32-inch-tall Warren also worked as a performer for Barnum, and the couple’s wedding was paid for by the showman, whom they considered a dear friend throughout their lives. A highly publicized event, the wedding was attended by the political and social elite of the city."

 

The image was published by famed New York printers Currier and Ives in their most prosperous period. In the central image, they are flanked by Commodore Nutt (another Barnum protégé) and Lavinia's sister, Minnie. The caption beneath reads: "Gen. Tom Thumb's Marriage at Grace Church, N.Y. Feby 10th 1863." The ten vignettes surrounding the group portrait show each of them in various guises: a yankee-boy, Napoleon, a highlander, and in national and street attire.

 

OCLC locates copies at NY Historical Society and AAS.

 

Stock Code: 231276