MacDonald, Duncan | The accomplished slack-wire walker

MacDonald, Duncan

The Celebrated Scottish Equilibrist. [London]: Fenwick Bull, 1753

Broadside (400 x 270 mm). Large engraved illustration, after a drawing by P. Boitard, of a slack-wire walker depicting a "composite repertoire," text printed in two columns, decorative woodcut initial; minor spotting, minor browning, faint mat burn. Framed and glazed with Plexiglas.  

An influential illustration of a slack-wire walker

"This handsome broadside, engraved from a drawing by Boitard, features one of the more remarkable illustrations of an entertainer ever recorded … The letterpress text tells the tale of Duncan MacDonald, an extremely accomplished slack-wire walker who, like a number of his compatriot Scotsmen, was compelled to leave England for safe haven in France. There was once considerable speculation that this broadside was a piece of anti-Jacobean propaganda describing a nonexistent performer. No doubt the credibility-straining stunt pictured here precipitated such rumors… Of course, whoever thought that MacDonald's was a hyperbolic hoax was also likely duped. As [Willson] Disher suggests, the image of the funambulist probably depicted a composite repertoire" (EE, p. 34).  

REFERENCE:

Exemplars, p. 306; EE, pp. 34-35