 The new service was launched in May 1840 with a postage-paid machine-printed illustrated (or pictorial) version of the wrapper and the much-celebrated first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, for the production of which the Jacob Perkins printing process was used to deter counterfeiting and forgery.The wrappers were printed and sold as a sheet of 12, with cutting the purchaser's task.Known as Mulready stationery, because the illustration was created by the respected artist William Mulready, the envelopes were withdrawn when the illustration was ridiculed and lampooned.