Additional creatorThompson, G. HTitleThe Noah's arkDate of publication[189-?]Description
Ernest Nister (1842-1909) born in Oberklingen, Germany, is best known for high-quality color printing and movable books. In 1877 he acquired a lithographic workshop in Nuremberg and began a printing business. By 1888 he had opened several premises in London, though the printing was still done in Germany to benefit from the high-quality chromolithographic printing processes available there. Nister produced a variety of publications including annuals, storybooks, toy books, poetry, and religious stories, as well as greeting cards, calendars, embossed pictures and games.
From the 1890s the firm began producing toy or movable books almost exclusively. The cutting out and construction of all of the movable books produced by Nister's company was done by hand and required considerable skill to align the pieces. In many cases the illustrators' names as signed in an illustration were lost in this process of cutting.
The Noah's Ark is one of Nister's non-movable, but shaped, books and is handsomely illustrated in colour and black and white by GH Thompson (fl. 1833-c. 1900) who undertook a great deal of work for Nister. Rather than being a story of Noah and the flood, one of the most popular Bible stories for children, Nister has used the concept to produce a collection of verses about animals, as the introductory verse states:
A Noah's ark! Pray stay to peep inside, For we have gathered here, from far and wide, Strange animals, of every size and age, All brightly pictured here on many a page.
Anomalously, the animals march across the page not two by two, but singly.
