Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 November 18

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November 18

Paintings of William Allan, the Scottish painter

William Allan (1782-1850) - The Slave Market, Constantinople - NG 2400 - National Galleries of Scotland

William Allan (painter) seem to have personally visited not only Turkey but also Russia, Crimea and Circassia and drawn the paintings there. He seem to have drawn Ottoman times slavery related a paintings called 'The Slave Market, Constantinople' and 'The Sale of Circassian Captives to a Turkish Bashaw (Pacha) (1816)'; the later one engraved by James Stewart (engraver) available at National galleries Scotland website

• Whether William Allan (painter) had painted any more of slavery related paintings or these 2 only?

• Whether second drawing 'The Sale of Circassian Captives to a Turkish Pacha' is based on any real event witnessed by or heard by William Allan (painter) during journey. Is there any travelogue of William Allan or memoir of Stewart available to that effect.
• If it is depicting any based on any specific event then which incidence William Allan (painter)has been illustrated through the painting.
• Is any colour version available for the painting?
• Even first painting is on what he witnessed at Istanbul or that is an imagined painting based on the Istanbul he saw and slavery he heard about?
• Last but not least, if engraving by Stewart is of 1820 almost 100 yrs old why it's creative commons allowing only non commercial Creative Commons CC by NC ?

Thanks

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 07:27, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

You can BUY the colour original here, if you have a spare £11,000: https://www.1stdibs.co.uk/art/paintings/figurative-paintings/sir-william-allan-sir-william-allan-british-1782-1850-circassian-captives-oil-board-painting/id-a_5889612/ Chuntuk (talk) 14:09, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

After 158 years Stewart died in 1863, Allan in 1850 painting still not Public domain? I am bit bemused,£11,000 rate for public domain thing. Oh Oh I don't want original piece certainly :)

Are you serious? The £11,000 is the expected price for the painting, a physical object, measuring 16 by 24 inches (41 × 61 cm) and coming with a centuries-old giltwood frame. You are freely allowed to make a copy and hang it on your wall, but it would be illegal to try and sell it as a painting by Allan.  --Lambiam 09:51, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Creative Commons developed a series of free and partly free licences for others to use for their works. They do not validate others use of their licences, so they are not "allowing only" anything. It's just what some other party has said about the work.

As for the more general point, I'm speaking very generally here since I don't want to violate our no legal advice rule, but in the US there is no copyright over faithful reproductions reproductions of 2D artworks as decided in the famous Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. case. However as that article mentions, the case law is less settled in some other places, notably the UK. While many experts including those in the IPO in recent years, believe it does not (and even more believe it should not), some museums and art galleries still claim it does and try to charge licencing fees for such reproductions. See also this German case [1]

Mostly OR here but I believe it's not uncommon that major companies pay these fees probably in part since even if there is no copyright, proving it may be far more than what they pay in fees. Although I also suspect that given the risks they'll lose, those charging such fees don't push it too hard especially in recent years probably in part seeing how things are going such as with the IPO advice. E.g. Despite what Bridgeman Art Library said in 2006, they still apparently haven't found a test case. And since the National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Foundation copyright dispute in 2009 which IMO seemed a terrible test case from a PR standpoint whatever later happened to the editor concerned, the NPG doesn't really seem to have tried anything similar.

In any case, regardless of the legitimacy of such claims, since many owners of the original works such as the NPG do still claim copyright over faithful reproductions of 2D artworks in the UK and often other places, they put copyright notices and offer licences for such reproductions, sometimes including universal ones like CC BY-NC-SA.

However the WMF has completely rejected copyright over faithful reproductions of 2D artworks (see Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#The position of the WMF, so editors are free to upload such faithful reproductions including to commons no matter who claims copyright over it or where it was made. (Unlike the normal situation where a work needs to be public domain both in the US and wherever it was made to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.) However as highlighted by the NPG case, editors may want to consider their personal circumstances before doing so.

Note that for the specific case of an engraving it may get more complicated. It's possible some jurisdictions allow people who make prints from engravings to claim copyright over the prints reasoning there may be sufficient creativity in the process e.g. the type of ink, how it's applied, how hard you press etc; and so the result. Meaning you may not just have to worry about the copyright over the artist who made the original engraving but also the copyright of whoever made the print from it. (Although given the Copyright Act 1911 I'm not sure if this is the case in the UK.) If the print is also from the 19th century, this is irrelevant, but if the print is more recent, then perhaps the print really is still copyrighted in some jurisdictions.

Finally, while a print is clearly a 2D artwork, the original plate isn't really. So even if you're talking about a (recent) photograph of the plate, it may be the photographer or whoever they made the work for can claim copyright even if they can't with a photograph of the print. (See the example of a coin mentioned in the Commons advice.)

Nil Einne (talk) 11:32, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: Many thanks for such an informative reply. @Lambiam: Thanks for your inputs.

• I am still confused where the original painting of Circassian captive is located and not clear displayed color image is of original or is a duplicate.

• Came across a biography page on Wikisource but that too is not clear enough whether he sketched drawings on location. His Slave market must have been sketched at location since some details seem to largely match with textual details of other authors and paintings by other painters. About Circassian captives biography indicates part of drawing might have been finished after reaching UK but whether initial part of it or a skecth was done earlier is not clear. But Allan specifically wanted to be a historical painter and collected clothes and other accessories from respective visited regions for maintaining details.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 14:16, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Most detailed account of Allan's travels i find is in Bivar, A. D. H. (1994). "The Portraits and Career of Mohammed Ali, Son of Kazem-Beg: Scottish Missionaries and Russian Orientalism". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies: 290–4. He is even said in several accounts to have visited Turkey at this time. However, confirmation of so early a visit to Turkey is lacking, and his famous Turkish paintings, 'The slave-market, Constantinople' and 'Lord Byron reposing in the house of a Turkish fisherman, after having swum across the Hellespont' (an event which took place on 3 May 1810) were, even though sketches of the young Byron made for the latter are thought to have been from life, most probably later compositions inspired by his visit there in 1829. You may also be interested in Allan, William (1817). Haslan Gheray: a narrative illustrative of the subject of a painting by William Allan., which besides letters seems to be his only account. I imagine a resemblance in the subjects of The Sale of Circassian Captives and Haslan Gheray Conducting Alkazia Across The Kuban. fiveby(zero) 17:12, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Here's a letter to John Christian Schetky on his visit to Constantinople fiveby(zero) 17:24, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Chuntuk, Fiveby, and Lambiam: many thanks for informative response and being helpful. Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 13:03, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Work conquers all

Banned user.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Travelling on a bus this afternoon I was surprised to see a stone carving of a man holding the shields of the cities of London and Westminster on the wall of an imposing building. It's dated 1908 and the motto around the top is LABOR OMNIA VINCIT. I was surprised because the sentiment is so close to the notorious Arbeit macht frei. The building turns out to be the apparently now disused LCC Central School of Arts and Crafts. Are there any other mottos on this theme? 2A00:23C3:9900:9400:AC1E:5047:B0B1:BFE (talk) 15:28, 18 November 2021 (UTC) Wikipedia has an article titled Labor omnia vincit, which has many such uses. It is a very common motto. --Jayron32 15:39, 18 November 2021 (UTC) The fact that labor is right there makes it transparent for an intended double-meaning for the working person. The labor party was founded in 1900. To me, Arbeit has different connotations from laborare, but YMMV. The book that "Arbeit macht frei" comes from looks like it must be a tutting, top-down authoritarian, cultural orthodoxical moralist kind of thing, which would put it on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Latin message, which is meant to tell Clapham man "the worker will prevail." Anyway, Auschwitz wasn't built yet. Temerarius (talk) 00:28, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Cartoonists in british tabloids

a British cartoonist drew a cartoon in which the Mediterranean countries of the EU were portrayed as fat pigs swimming in money, does anyone remember the name of the cartoonist, the newspaper and perhaps can find the date of publication of the cartoon? 2.226.12.134 (talk) 16:07, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

About how long ago? That reminds me of a cartoon from the 1970s. Someone took a world map showing nations' sizes in proportion to their quantities of oil reserves, and relabeled it "stupidity reserves". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:50, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like a reference to the European debt crisis (circa 2009–2013), when the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) had some difficulty paying their government dept. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:23, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I found this one which seems to be by an American cartoonist called Robert Ariail. BTW, PIGS (economics) is the relevant article, or if you include Italy, "PIIGS". Given the unflattering acronym for those countries, the analogy was a bit of a gift for cartoonists and there were probably many more in the same vein. Alansplodge (talk) 13:58, 19 November 2021 (UTC)