Engraved Printing Plate, c.1750-1775
A copper engraved printing plate and print from the mid 1700s, advertising the shop of Joseph Smitheman, a draper and bookseller in Braintree.
The plate shows a group of ladies sitting around a table, remarking on Smitheman’s fine tea that they are being served. They are in beautiful gowns possibly showcasing Smitheman’s cloth he sold. The advertisement lists at the bottom what the shop sells. This includes hosiery, gloves, books, pamphlets, magazines, chocolate and tobacco.
Joseph Smitheman was born in 1725 in Bocking. He had opened his shop at 37 Bank Street by the mid 1700s and was a popular destination for books as well as his other wares as a draper. A draper was a merchant who sold cloth by the length for clothing and other household items. Customers would buy fabric from a draper and then take it to a dressmaker or tailor to be made into clothing.
During the 1700s, retailors, such as Smitheman, would have advertised through newspapers advertisements and trade cards. Trade cards were small, beautifully illustrated printed cards that shop owners would have handed directly to customers. The advertisements focused on listing the wide range of goods available, emphasising the quality of the goods, and employing a “polite” language to appeal to a fashionable middle- and upper-class clientele. It is likely that the plate was used to print trade cards.
Smitheman died in 1792 and the shop was later occupied by C. H. Howard and Co as a grocer shop.
