The first edition of THE JOY OF COOKING (1931), self-published by Irma Rombauer, is America’s most popular cookbook, having sold more than 18,000,000 copies. On the original cover, the book featured a silhouette cutout illustration by Rombauer’s daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who was director of the art department at John Burroughs School in St. Louis. Her design depicts Saint Martha of Bethany, the patron saint of cooking (representing here the chore’s drudgery), beating a dragon with a mop.
The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. RombauerThis illustration is by John Falter, for an edition of the Saturday Evening Post. Clearly humorous in intent, I find this intensely irritating. I’m not sure a mother of young children would have illustrated a ‘humorous’ scene quite like this one.George Hughes More Clothes To CleanMarianne Stokes – Polishing Pans 1887Hakon Bjarke Thorsen (1866-1925) Farm Interior With A Woman Washing Clothes, Danish‘Serviceman’s Wife’,ca.1942 Ivan G. OlinskyYuri Ivanovich Pimenov (1903-1977) washing windowsFrank Holl – Peeling Potatoes ca. 1880 kitchenEugenio Edouardo Zampighi (Italian, 1855-1944) Spinning In The KitchenÉdouard Vuillard (1868-1940) The sweeper, 346 rue Saint-Honoré, 1895Portrait of Mademoiselle Boissiere Knitting by Gustave Caillebotte 1877Mr. Fix-It 1956 Art by Stevan DohanosSuffolk author & illustrator Kathleen Hale, Orlando the Marmalade CatThe Wood Street Helpers by Mabel Esther AllanFritz Sonderland (1830-1896) La petite mésaventure, 1868François Bonvin (1817-1887, French) Woman Ironing 1858
Header painting: Garnet Ruskin Wolseley (1884-1967) British
