Dr. Jayne's moment for reading and reflection

"Dr. Jayne's"

brings you a moment for reading and reflection
updated 13 May 2018

"Words of Comfort" by Thomas Faed, an artist from Scotland (1825-1900)

"Words of Comfort" portrays an activity that was commonplace in the household of Earl J. Arnold. Earl and his wife Pansy would hold daily Bible readings with each other. They attended Congregational church regularly and participated in the affairs of the church. Grace was said before meals. In their time and that of their parents, this type of daily religious observance was much more common than it is now in American society.

Reverse of above card. Click on the document to enlarge it.

Luckily for us, during the years when Thomas Faed was painting, another artist, John Ballantyne, was making the rounds painting portraits of his contemporaries. From the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland comes this 1865 portrait of artist Thomas Faed in his studio made by John Ballantyne, who made portraits of several of his fellow artists:

Copyright held by National Galleries of Scotland
On Faed's easel is his famous painting, "The Mitherless Bairn" (the orphan)

Based in Philadelphia PA, Dr. Jayne's patent medicines became widely known. Jayne's company was one of the first to publish annual almanacs to advertise its products. The following video will give you an overview of the patent medicine era, which flourished in the Civil War years and continued with abandon until the passage of the Pure Food & Drug act of 1906:

(YouTube: 7 min.)

For a more detailed look at the patent medicine years this 42min. YouTube video is recommended.

Below is a sample cover from the 1870 edition of "Jayne's Medical Almanac:"

Anybody with good vision reading the contents of the 1870 Jayne's Medical Almanac and Guide to Health month by month would need reading glasses by the end of the year! Here's a sample of the print, actual size:

Perhaps this is one sample you wouldn't want to read, anyway!

Here's another sample of the sort of soothing images associated with Dr. Jayne's advertising cards:

"Summer at the Seaside"
According to the reverse of this Jayne's card, the image depicts an "anxious" mother.
On the contrary, the expression I see is one of joy.

Google Maps finds Washington County, TN, but no "Brownsborough."

Dr. Jayne continues with his gentle, soothing theme with the beautiful trade card below, which I have named "expressions" for its extraordinary depiction of both human and feline emotions:

Expressions

(click image to enlarge)

I was pleased to discover the name of the artist inscribed on the back of the following card, entitled "The Morning Prayer." R.Epp turned out to be Rudolf Epp, the German artist (1834-1910) whose works included many pleasant portraits of German family life. He loved cats and included them in most of his paintings. A selection of his paintings and a brief biography can be seen on bit.ly/RudolfEpp