Michael William Balfe, 1808-1870 – Vintage Print
![Michael William Balfe, 1808-1870, [no date recorded on caption card] — antique engraving](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/f4/f4293734a52e-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: Michael William Balfe, 1808-1870, preserved in this antique engraving. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. A fine choice for anyone who loves history, and a gift that gets noticed. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Michael William Balfe, 1808-1870
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Michael William Balfe, the Irish-born composer and singer, is the particular figure this wood engraving commemorates, and the portrait places him among the most popular opera composers of the mid-nineteenth century. Balfe, who lived from 1808 to 1870, won wide audiences in London and abroad with works such as *The Bohemian Girl*, first staged in 1843, which became a staple of English-language opera. Wood engravings like this one were the standard means of reproducing likenesses in illustrated periodicals of the period, so the print also shows how a performer's face traveled to readers who never saw him on stage.
| Created / published | [no date recorded on caption card] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : wood engraving. |
| Notes | This record contains unverified data from caption card. Caption card tracings: BI; Shelf. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,198 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-156679 |
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