Antonius Holtmann: | No Masterpiece or : How
"Liwwät Böke" Was Adorned With Borrowed Plumes (2012) |
VIII.
Inter-American Plagiarisms (46, 47, 76, 146-47)
I
discovered the illustration presented on page 46 in two American books.(13) Ridpath subtitled it "Adventures en
route Overland to California", and in the Business
Directory it appeared under the title "Getting There". By contrast
Liwwät Böke subtitled the illustration: "1835. hew ik maolt ut min sinn in
1864" (I drew this from my mind in 1864.).
"Liwwät" | Business
Directory von Cincinnati (1891) |

|  |
I noticed
the illustration presented on p. 47 entitled "usse flatschiff de fussen
hendhal" (our flatboat down the river) by “Liwwät Böke” in a book
published in 1888. (14)
"Liwwät" |

|
W.
H. Venable (1888) |
 |
I noticed
the illustration presented on p. 76 in a book published in 1867.(15) The original illustration included 8
additional persons which were removed by “Liwwät”; only "her husband"
and the family dog remained in the picture ("ein jaohr later") [one
year later].
"Liwwät" |
 |
Nathan
H. Parker (1867) |
 |
I also
noticed the large picture presented on pages 146-47.(16) In 'Liwwät Böke´s illustration three steam-
and threshing-machines are lacking, and a church, a river plain and the
outlines of farmland have been added – in order to hint at Minster´s relatively
small patches of agriculturally used lands and its humid plains? The caption to
'Böke´s' illustration reads: "Dösken mit de niee Dampfer un Dösker, sex
wagens, septein perde, eighteihn männer, frulür, water junge, holt bringer,
1879" [Threshing with the new steam engine and threshing machine , six
wagon, seventeen horses, eighteen men, women, water boys , wood carriers 1879).
"Liwwät" |

|
Frank
Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (1878) |

|
It is possible
that the real Liwwät Böke copied some of these illustrations from the
originals. Anyway: These drawings are plagiarisms.
[16] Sarah Burns: Pastoral
Inventions: Rural Live in Nineteenth Century American Art and Culture. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press 1989.
First publication: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, October 19, 1878 (“Dakota Territory: The Great Wheat Fields in the Valley of
the Red River of the North: Threshing by Steam on the Dalrymple Farm, Formerly
a Barren Prairie”, Wood Engraving). See
also Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann: Landleben im 19. Jahrhundert. München: Beck
1987 (“Das Dreschen mit der Dreschmaschine auf dem Erntefeld”).