CELEBRATED MAGENDIE’S BITTERS
WADLEY & WELLS – NEW YORK
SOLE AGENTS
01 October 2013 (R•072019)
Bitters trade card and ephemera authority Joe Gourd sent in this gorgeous Celebrated Magendie’s Bitters label from his collection made by Sarony, Major & Knapp, the superb New York lithographers. Folks, this is a great piece representing an unlisted bitters!
To give this piece a time period, I searched for Wadley & Wells, New York and came up with these representative listings from 1856 to 1875 for Moses S. Wadley and his partner Joseph A. Wells. These guys were importers dealing in gin, cognac, brandies and Havana cigars.
Wadley & Wells, Imps 121 Maiden la , 1856 Trow’s New York City Directory
Wadley & Wells, Importers of Gin, Cognac & Rochelle Brandies & Havana Segars, 121 Maiden la. & 5 Fletcher, 1868 Trow’s New York City Directory
Wadley & Wells, Imps 121 Maiden la. & 5 Fletcher, 1872 Trow’s New York City Directory
Moses S. Wadley, Imp., 121 Maiden la. h N.J., 1872 Trow’s New York City Directory
Joseph A. Wells, Imp., 121 Maiden la. h 324 E. 18th, 1872 Trow’s New York City Directory
Wadley & Wells, Mers 54 Maiden la. & 29 Liberty, 1875 New York City Directory
Next we try to find a ‘Magendie’ in New York City during the same time period. No corresponding listings jump out. So we are now back to the name ‘Magendie’ which seems to be French. The two gentlemen pictured in the illustration certainly have a slightly European or cultured look to me.
Maybe this is an imported bitters as ‘Magen’ means ‘stomach’ in German. A quick google of ‘Magendie’ yields the following:
François Magendie (6 October 1783 – 7 October 1855) was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a Magendie sign, a downward and inward rotation of the eye due to a lesion in the cerebellum. Magendie was a faculty at the College of France, holding the Chair of Medicine from 1830 to 1855 (he was succeeded by Claude Bernard, who worked previously as his assistant).
Jean-Jacques Magendie (Bordeaux, 21 May 1766 – Paris, 26 March 1835) was a French Navy officer. He famously captained the flagship Bucentaure at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Possibly, either of the above could be a reference for the name. Maybe this bitters product targeted the French population of New York and maybe New Orleans (as there are many Magendie listings). I sure wish I could find some more material such as a bottle or advertisement.
The new listing in Bitters Bottles Supplement 2:
