H.H. Kohlsaat by Carlo de Fornaro
$750
Art Sz: 13 3/4"H x 10 1/4"W
Carlo de Fornaro (sometimes spelled Carlo di Fornaro) (1872–1949) was an artist, caricaturist, writer, humorist, and revolutionary.
His work is in the collection of the US National Gallery of Art and Harvard's Fogg Art Museum. His caricatures have been compared to those of Sem, Leonetto Cappiello, and Carlo Pellegrini.
His 1902 book Millionaires of America contains color caricatures of the captains of American industry.
Herman Henry Kohlsaat was born March 22, 1853, in Albion, Illinois, one of six children of Reimer and Sarah (Hall) Kohlsaat. His father had been an officer in the Danish Army, and immigrated to the United States, settling in Albion in 1835. Kohlsaat's mother came from England to Illinois with her family in 1821. Reimer and Sarah Kohlsaat were abolitionists whose home was reportedly a station on the Underground Railroad. Kohlsaat's siblings included Christian C. Kohlsaat, who later became a well known jurist in Chicago. The year following Herman's birth, the family moved to Galena, Illinois, where he attended school and learned farm work until 1865, when they moved to Chicago. He attended school there for two years and in 1867 went to work as a carrier for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Kohlsaat later worked for several Chicago merchants, including Carson Pirie Scott and Company. He became a traveling salesman, eventually working for Blake, Shaw and Company, a wholesale bakery owned by Ebenezer Nelson Blake, who was to become Kohlsaat's father-in-law. In 1880, Kohlsaat married Mabel E. Blake (1861–1959) and became a junior partner of Blake, Shaw in charge of a bakery-lunch establishment. In 1883 he bought out Blake, Shaw's interest in the establishment and started H.H. Kohlsaat and Company, which for thirty years was one of the largest baking establishments in Chicago. He became the originator of the "bakery lunch", and subsequently became successful in other enterprises.