Testimonials to Alexandre Vattemare. Lithograph by F.G. Netherclift, ca. 1839.

Facsimiles of handwritten testimonials collected by Nicolas-Marie-Alexandre Vattemare (1796-1864), ventriloquist, philanthropist, and promoter of exchanges of cultural goods between nations and institutions; b. 7 Nov. 1796, d. 7 Apr. 1864

The portrait of Olbers appears to be printed on a separate sheet and stuck on above his autograph: it is lettered "Procédé de A. Collas"

[Paris] : [M. P. Henrichs], [1839?] ([Paris?] : Imp. Roger & Cie)

1 print : lithograph ; image and border 31.1 x 49 cm

Album cosmopolite ... Les traductions se trouvent dans le texte. F. Netherclift lithog.

Facsimiles of handwritten testimonials to Alexandre Vattemare by the following: Gustav Seyffarth (1796-1885, German-American Egyptologist), writing in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Leipzig 1833; Ludwig Tieck, wishing health and a long life, Dresden 1833; de Candolle, Geneva 1829, presumably Alphonse de Candolle (1806-1893); Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers (1758-1840, physician and mathematician at Bremen), 1834, with a portrait of him engraved by A. Collas after a medal; Heinrich Christian Schumacher (17801850, German-Danish astronomer), Altona 1834; "Bainkly (astronome)", i.e. John Mortimer Brinkley (1733 or 1766-1835), with thanks for Vattemare's display of his "wonderful powers" [of ventriloquism] at the Record Tower, part of Dublin Castle, 2 March 1825; D. [C.W.?] Hufeland, providing reminders of mortality "Respice finem. In memoriam", Berlin 1834; Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775-1853), writing in cuneiform with Latin translation; Willem Bilderdyk, poet, Leiden 1819; de Hammer, presumably Joseph de Hammer, Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856), writing in Persian and French on Mardi Gras 1833

Suzanne Nash, 'Alexandre Vattemare: a 19th-century story', 2004 http://maelko.typepad.com/Vattemare.pdf ("Around the age of seven he [Vattemare] discovered that he could make his voice speak as though it were issuing from outside of his body, at a great distance or up close, and that he had an uncanny ability to imitate all manner of sounds: human, animal, and mechanical. He could become a barking dog, a querulous old man, a silly young girl, a banging door or the whine of a saw. One can only speculate about the psychological origins of this gift that allowed him to change character at will, first tried out on his family and on the villagers of Lisieux, the town to which his father had retired during the revolutionary years to practice law. Later in life he would describe many of his most successful tricks, some of which can be seen as the expression of a repressed self creating farcical situations for its own release: cries of a drowning man being swept away by the current that brought crowds of Lisieux's inhabitants with barges to drag the bottom of the river; cries of a voice in the chimney and cupboards and haystacks of neighbouring farms that the superstitious rustics believed to be the Devil or souls trapped in Purgatory; cries of a dead relative out of the embers of a fire that inspired the local curate to sprinkle the hearth with holy water.")

Wellcome Collection 3039195i