Sol Eytinge Jr.

"Flora and Mr. F's aunt", illustration by Sol Eytinge Jr. to Little Dorrit Solomon Eytinge Jr. (23 October 1833 – 26 March 1905), was an American illustrator of newspapers, journals and books by authors that included Charles Dickens and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Early life His father, Solomon Eytinge, was a Dutch merchant who settled in New York and married an American woman, Mary Ann Miller. Sol Eytinge was born in New York on the 23 October 1833.

Career By the age of twenty three he was an established staff artist at Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper where he mentored a sixteen-year-old Thomas Nast. Shortly afterwards, he worked for the New York Illustrated News later contributing to the journals Every Saturday and Harper's Weekly. His colleagues at this time included Frank Bellew and the brothers Alfred and William Waud.

Eytinge and his group of friends frequented Charles Pfaff's beer cellar on Broadway and they were part of the Bohemian social scene that existed in New York at this time. Before Pfaff's had opened in 1855, Eytinge was involved with a circle of writers and artists who referred to themselves as the Ornithorhynchus Club. One friend, the writer William Winter, described Eytinge as a "man of original and deeply interesting character, an artist of exceptional facility, possessed of a fine imagination and great warmth of feeling.... In his prime as a draughtsman he was distinguished for the felicity of his invention, the richness of his humor, and the tenderness of his pathos. He had a keen wit and was the soul of kindness and mirth”.

Family In 1858 he married divorcee, Margaret (Winship) Wyckoff, who had two children from her previous marriage, one of whom took the name of her new step father and became actress Pearl Eytinge. Eytinge's wife was a published author and wrote under the names of Margaret Winship Eytinge, Madge Elliot, Bell Thorne and Allie Vernon.

Several of Eytinge's relatives were connected with the theatre: Samuel D. Eytinge and Rose Eytinge were cousins and his brother Charles D. Eytinge was a renowned “reader”. Another brother, Harry, was a producer and actor. His nephew, Dennis Miller Bunker, was an impressionist painter.

One brother, Clarence Eytinge (1835-1900), followed his family into the arts. During the Civil War, he joined the United States Department of State as clerk and worked in the short-lived Immigration Bureau. He went on to serve as Secretary of the United States Legation at Lima, Peru.

Eytinge died in Bayonne, New Jersey on 26 March 1905 and is buried in Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery.