Civil War print - Baby Secesh and the real Confederate flag
Regular price
$40.00
Sale
Print size 24 x 18, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit.
I love this image for so many strange reasons. First, it is the only graphic generated by The South and reflecting their viewpoint represented in our exhibition. That is not to say there are not more Southern images out there, but as we always have to work from originals and as the Southern economy went almost immediately into collapse mode and these envelopes, and the money to purchase them, were a small luxury in an otherwise unluxurious Confederacy, very few Southern political envelopes were made.
That said, here you have a chubby, therefor well fed, white Southern baby sitting on top of the world, holding the flag of the Confederacy, choking the snake of abolition. In a frame on a wall it opens up so much in the way of historical discourse that it does, like the best of what we work with at The Grand Review, serve as a ripe portal to further inquiry. In a comical twist, The North used exactly the same image minus the copy at the bottom, with the American flag rather than the Confederate flag, and choking the snake of secession!
Because of the racial themes and regional associations and loyalties at the heart of the Civil War, I pay extra attention to how many of the prints in this exhibit are perceived by the public. I admit a wry delight that this print has proved so popular with historians and academics in general of all stripes... and all colors!
I admit to my embarrassment that at the beginning of curating this exhibit I had forgotten that the flag in this print is the proper flag of The Confederate States of America, rather than the much more familiar stars and bars. Again, it invites dialog and inquiry as the viewer is reeled in, and has proven more comfortably popular with Northerners than Southerners.
***NOTE***
I LOVE corrections from viewers. Every project I take on is an endless series of doorways to walk through. Through some I get the Lady, through others I get the Tiger, but I keep swingin' 'em open. An anonymous person sent me this correction about the Confederate flag, and I print it here in its entirety. What the correction does not embrace is that the St. Andrew's Cross battle flag has become, in the hearts and minds of nearly all Americans, the flag of the Confederacy. Learning about the First National Flag should still be a fun revelation for most folks, and whereas a great many people would not fly the St. Andrews Cross flag on the wall of their living rooms even in a print such as this, they would and do present this image, flag and all, for all the good historic conversation it opens up. Again, the corrections are just below...
'Just wanted to give you a correction, the flag pictured in the print, the First National Flag of the Confederacy, IS the Stars & Bars. The one that I assume you meant, when you referred to the "more familiar" one is the St. Andrew's Cross Battle Flag, also known as the Southern Cross or Starry Cross. They are BOTH "proper" flags of the Confederacy...one was a national flag and the other was a battle flag. There are also two other National Flags of the Confederacy, the 2nd & 3rd, known as The Stainless Banner and the Blood-Stained Banner, respectively.'
- Handmade item
- Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
- Made to order
- Only ships within United States.
SHIPPING
All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.
BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!
International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.
A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.
Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”
There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.
There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.
Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.
This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.