John Tenniel

Sir John Tenniel is best known for his illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, 1866, and Through the Looking Glass, 1872. He was also a staff artist at the periodical Punch for fifty years (1851-1901), serving as their principal political cartoonist and producing 1,860 full-page cartoons. At Punch, the editors and staff met every Wednesday evening to discuss the content of the following week’s issue, including the subject for the “big cut,” a large political cartoon usually drawn by Tenniel. Tenniel described his own process of invention and transfer to the woodblock for engraving:

I get my subject on Wednesday night; I think it out carefully on Thursday, and make
my rough sketch; on Friday morning I begin and stick to it all day, with my nose
well down on the block. By means of tracing paper—on which I make all alterations
of composition and action I consider necessary—I transfer my design to the wood
and draw on that. Well, the block being finished, it is handed over to Swain’s boy at about 6:30 to 7 o’clock...and at 7:30 it is put into hand for engraving. That is completed on the following night and on Monday night I receive by post a copy of next Wednesday’s paper.

These drawings represent the original sketch for the left and right sides of the woodblock design that Tenniel would have completed by Thursday night. Thereafter, Tenniel elaborated his drawing with a hard pencil on the woodblock, which was coated with a thin layer of white pigment. The block was then ready for the engravers, to be completed by Saturday night.