John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera for Art Historians: Home

(C) John Johnson Collection: Trade Cards 1 (75)

The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera is a treasure trove for those interested in the history of British art. especially commercial art, from the 18th century to 1939..

You can find

• Ephemera relating to fine art: handbills and catalogues for exhibitions, artists' invitations, prospectuses of prints
• Prints: popular prints, political cartoons, trades and professions prints
• Socio-historical background to give context to artistic and aesthetic movements
• Above all, a wealth of commercial art

A lot of this material is online. The aim of this guide is to introduce the many finding aids to the Collection and to explain how to use them most efficiently to locate:

•  works by and information about artists, engravers and lithographers
• online images (with iconographic indexing)

This guide is not a substitute for the John Johnson Collection website, where you will find all general information and user updates.

There are a lot of words in this guide, but it might be best to start by experimenting with our online resources so that you get a sense of the wealth of imagery available.  Why not:

• Try some quick searches of your own in the ProQuest project: The John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera. Clown,for example or Cupid. Try the same in the main Search screen, typing the search into the Subject of Illustration box and using 'select from a list'.
• Browse the JJ Coll images in the VADS Collections page

John Johnson Collection website: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/johnson

The John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera (ProQuest):

http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk or 

http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk/geoLocSubscription.do 

This resource is free of charge within the UK, but available by institutional subscription only elsewhere.

John Johnson Collection Now and Then

John Johnson Collection Ephemera Resources blog