November 2012 Archives

“For some months, the latest craze on the vaudeville stage has been the vitascope, which I think is invented by Edison. At any rate, it is known by his name. It is practically a kinetoscope enlarged and the instantaneous pictures thrown upon a screen.”

” …This week a still newer development of this has been shown at one of the music halls, having come from France. This is known by the name of cinematographe and was perfected in the great photographic laboratory of Messrs. Lumiere, in Lyons. The remarkable feature about it is that the figures not only go through the action, as in the kinetoscope, but appear and disappear, walk, run, and grow smaller or larger, as seen in perspective or near by.” — Esther Singleton, “Life in Picture Films: Wonders of the Cinematographe Shown in Gotham’s Hall. Out Does the Kinetoscope” Washington Post July 5, 1896, p. 12.

It was on December 28, 1895 that the Lumière Cinématographe opened commercially in Paris. Soon after a home-version was developed and the Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have recently acquired one.

Le Cinématographe Jouet [Cinématographe toy], ca. 1900. Original paper box and toy. Graphic Arts Collection 2012- in process. Rolls of images include the dancer, the acrobats, the cooks, the boxers, and the fencers. Box label in French, English, and German.

Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770), Tenuguikake no kihan (Returning Sail at the Towel Rack), no date [ca. 1768]. Nishiki-e (Color woodblock print). From the series: Fûryû zashiki hakkei (Eight Fashionable Parlor Views). Purchased with funds from the Friends of the Princeton University Library in honor of Gillett Griffin.
Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.01060

Why is the young woman in Harunobu’s print using tweezers to pluck hairs from her lover’s ear or nose? This is what we wanted to know as the print was being studied today.

We know the artist is associated with the early development of nishiki-e (full color woodblock prints). It was Harunobu who made nishiki-e popular and took the craft of Japanese woodblock printmaking to new heights. Within a few years, he used the new palette to create one of his most popular series, the Eight Fashionable Parlor Views or Fûryû zashiki hakkei.

The series is based on the Chinese model of the Shōshō hakkei (Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers). Originally, the eight views were a group of poetic episodes that captured the natural beauty of specific scenes while evoking emotional reactions. The model was appropriated by Japanese artists in the early seventeenth century, who created many variations on the theme based on indigenous geographical areas, such as Ômi, Kanazawa, and Edo.

In this parody, Harunobu playfully replaces the traditional landscape view with an interior scene of an Edo pleasure house featuring a courtesan and her patron. At the top of the sheet, in the cloud-shaped register, we find the corresponding poem filled with innuendo: “The boat over there with sails / swelling to the front / Is it coming to the harbor? / Ah yes it is coming in.”

We understand the sails are reflected in the billowing towel in its rack. The sea is represented in the screen painting to the left. An intimate moment is being shared as we wait expectantly for the boat to reach the harbor and come in. But what is the significance of the courtesan plucking a whisker from the man’s face, not once but seen a second time in the mirror’s reflection? We are still searching for that sexual metaphor.

See also: Chris Uhlenbeck and Margarita Winkel, Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery of the Edo Period (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005); plate 18. Marquand Library Oversize NE1321.85.S58 U34 2005q

In 1862, Albert Nees (1836-1874) and his brother Theodor founded the paper manufacturing company A. Nees & Co. in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Four years later, they developed an innovative method of coating colored paper with a layer of shellac, producing Cambricpapier, and distinguishing the firm among the many decorative paper companies in Aschaffenburg.

Graphic Arts recently acquired a collection of over one thousand paper samples from A. Nees & Co., along with a bound sample book of colored and decorated papers for the year 1936. A printed price list for the same year is laid in.

Richard J. Wolfe, in his study Marbled Paper; Its History, Techniques, and Patterns (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) places the Nees firm in the context of the German decorated paper industry and its spread from Aschaffenburg throughout the world. At one time, the four leading Aschaffenburg firms employed over a thousand people and produced wall papers, paste papers, wrapping papers, and hundreds of other varieties of colored and decorative papers. [Graphic Arts Collection GA Oversize Z271 .W638 1990q]

A. Nees & Co., Buntpapierfabrik. Neuheiten, 1936 (Colored Paper Manufacturer. New Products 1936) (Aschaffenburg: Nees, 1936). Approximately 1000 additional paper samples. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012- in process

William Charles (1776-1820), John Bull Making a New Batch of Ships To Send To the Lakes, 1814. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012-in process

The American caricaturist William Charles drew several prints around the War of 1812. This satire focuses on King George III attempting to restore lost ships after battles on the Great Lakes in 1813 and 1814. Charles was clearly aware of his British contemporaries Thomas Rowlandson, James Gillray, and George Cruikshank, who each drew satires using the image of a politician as baker. Here are a few other caricatures with the same iconography.

Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827), High Fun for John Bull or the Republicans Put to their Last Shift, 1798. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895. Graphic Arts Collection GC112

James Gillray (1756-1815), Tiddy-Doll, the Great French-Gingerbread-Baker; Drawing Out a New Batch of Kings, 1806. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895. Graphic Arts Collection GC108

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), The Allied Bakers or, The Corsican Toad in the Hole, 1814. (c) British Museum

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Broken Gingerbread, 1814. (c) British Museum

When photographer Alec Soth was asked to participate in Apeture’s Remix project by creating a work in response to a book that influenced his career, Soth chose photographer Robert Adams’s 1985 photo-essay Summer Nights (Marquand SAPH TR610 .A33 1985).

This beautiful video, Summer Nights at the Dollar Tree, is Soth’s reply to Adams.

See also Soth’s limited edition artists’ book in the graphic arts collection:
Alec Soth and Lester B. Morrison, Broken Manual. ([Saint Paul, Minn.]: Little Brown Mushroom; Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2010). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2012-0036E

The above is the hair of / Washington / presented to Miss Menitt [?] / by James A. Hamilton / June 10 1871 (EX 4795).

“Hair, that most imperishable of all the component parts of our mortal bodies, has always been regarded as a cherished memorial of the absent or lost. Impressed with this idea, it appears to us but natural that of all the various employment devised for the fingers of our fair country-women, the manufacture of ornaments in hair must be one of the most interesting. Why should we confide to others the precious lock or tress we prize, risking its being lost, and the hair of some other person being substituted for it, when, with a little attention, we may ourselves weave it into the ornament we desire?” From Elegant Arts for Ladies (London: Ward and Lock, [1861])

The largest collection of celebrity hair is held by John Reznikoff, the “world’s pre-eminent historical hair collector.” This 2009 video contains a little of the hair in Reznikoff’s collection.

These are close-ups from the Battle of New Orleans and Death of Major General Packenham [sic] on the 8th of January 1815 by Joseph Yeager (ca. 1792-1859) after William Edward West (1788-1857). We are adding the second state of the print to show the change in Major General Lambert’s hand.

Why? The folklore around the print states that officers in the Army complained about the view of a soldier crying for his lost comrade and demanded that the handkerchief be removed. The pointing figure was the best the engraver could do without altering more of the composition.

But which Army was complaining? Lambert was a British officer and this print shows the battle from the British point of view. It is, however, an American print published in Philadelphia. Was it the American Army that demanded the change in the British soldier? Was Lambert too sympathetic a figure when the focus of the image was meant to be the death of the British troops?

In addition to the complex iconography, there are five variants of the print, which we often categorize into two first states (with handkerchief) and three second states (without handkerchief). We believe our second print is the 2nd state, 2nd variation.

Joseph Yeager (ca. 1792-1859) after a design by William Edward West (1788-1857), The Battle of New Orleans and Death of Major General Packenham on the 8th of January 1815. Philadelphia: Published and Sold by J. Yeager, [1816]. Hand colored engraving. 1st and 2nd state. Purchased in part with support of the Barksdale-Dabney-Henry Fund, 2012.

Nine trade cards printed by L. Sunderland, Providence Rhode Island, 1870s-1880s. Chromolithography. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2012- in process

Harvard educated Joseph LeConte moved to Berkeley California in 1869 to join the faculty of the newly established University of California as the first professor of geology, natural history, and botany. In 1875, he led a group of students from the university on a trip to the High Sierras and kept a journal of the “ramblings.”

On August 5 LeConte wrote, “To-day to Yosemite Falls. This has been the hardest day’s experience yet. We thought we had plenty of time, and therefore started late. Stopped a moment at the foot of the Falls, at a saw-mill, to make inquiries. Here found a man in rough miller’s garb, whose intelligent face and earnest, clear blue eye, excited my interest.”

“After some conversation, discovered that it was Mr. Muir, a gentleman of whom I had heard much from Mrs. Prof. Carr and others. He had also received a letter from Mrs. Carr, concerning our party and was looking for us. We were glad to meet each other. I urged him to go with us to Mono, and he seemed disposed to do so.”— p. 41

Seventeen years later, John Muir and LeConte co-founded the Sierra Club, with LeConte as director from 1892 to 1898.

André Mellerio (1862-1943), La Lithographie originale en couleurs (Paris: Publication de L’Estampe et L’Affiche, 1898). Two lithographs by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). Graphic Arts Collection 2012- in process

For his own book, Mellerio chose Bonnard to illustrate the volume with a lively cover and frontispiece. His essay has, happily, been translated to English in its entirety by Dennis Cate and can be read in: Phillip Dennis Cate, The Color Revolution: Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900; with a translation by Margaret Needham of André Mellerio’s 1898 essay La lithographie originale en couleurs (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Art Gallery, in cooperation with the Boston Public Library, c1978). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize 2009-0243Q

The Battles of the British Army in Portugal, Spain and France from the Year 1808-1814. Under the command of England’s Great Captain Arthur Duke of Wellington. London: edited, published, and sold by Edward Orme, 1815. Also called The Wellington Picture Commemorative Medallion. Thirteen aquatint roundels housed in a double-sided bronze medallion. Graphic Arts GAX 2012- in process

In the summer of 1812, Great Britain was at war. Seventeen-year-old William Heath (1794/95-1840) began a series of watercolors for the Strand print shop of James Jenkins featuring victorious battles scenes to be called The Martial Achievements of Great Britain and Her Allies from 1799 to 1815. Thirteen large paper parts were released between December 1814 and December 1815, including a total of fifty-three hand colored prints with aquatinting by Thomas Sutherland (1785-1838).

Orme issued several variations on this series, including Historic, Military, and Naval Anecdotes of Personal Valour, Bravery, and Particular Incidents which occured to the Armies of Great Britain and her Allies, in the last long-contested war, terminating with the Battle of Waterloo (1819). “The forty coloured aquatints … are from drawings by J. A. Atkinson, F. J. Manskirch, W. Heath, J. H. Clark, etc… . . Of the engravings, thirty are by M. Dubourg, seven by Clark and Dubourg together, and two by Fry and Sutherland together.”

This is one of two Canadian mountain goats given to Princeton University by J. Monroe Thorington, Class of 1915. As a young man,Thorington (1894-1989) spent his summers in the Bavarian Highlands and that was all it took to ignite a life-long enthusiasm for mountaineering. He became an avid explorer of the Canadian Rockies watershed, in particular, where Mount Thorington was named after him.

Roy, as his friends called him, graduated from Princeton University in 1915, received his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1919 and after residency at the Presbyterian Hospital became a practicing ophthalmologist. He worked at the American Ambulance Hospital, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France and then, spent six years as an Instructor in Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania.

But it was mountain climbing that remained the focus of his life. A scholar of alpinism, Thorington published an long series of guidebooks for mountaineers, biographical travel journals, and dozens of articles for international sporting magazines.

See Mountains and Mountaineering; a List of the Writings (1917-1947) of J. Monroe Thorington. Limited edition. (Privately printed, 1947). Firestone Library (F) Z8874 .M686 1947

Printmaker Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) began a series of enormous woodcuts in 1952, shortly after returning to the United States and a teaching position at Smith College. The artist wrote, “I think of the series … as a kind of ambulatory mural. They are insistently black, complexly cut, and reasonably successful in causing alarm, misgivings, and exaltation.”

“I should say that the mastodon woodcuts are the capital achievement of my printmaking activity. Imbedded in those 12 blocks are the traces of my tangled vision.” quoted from Alan Fern, The Complete prints of Leonard Baskin (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984): 8. Marquand SA oversize NE539.B2 F47Q

Graphic Arts is fortunate to hold 7 or the 12 massive prints. Here are a few images.

Saturn, 1970. Woodcut. 182 x 95 cm.

Haman, 1955. Woodcut. 122 x 58.5 cm.

Angel of Death, 1959. Woodcut. 156 x 78 cm.

The deadline for the Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize has been postponed by one week, due to the storm and its aftermath. The new deadline for entries is Monday, November 12. The prize is endowed from the estate of Elmer Adler, who for many years encouraged the collecting of books by Princeton undergraduates.

The personal essay is about a collection owned by the student. It should describe the thematic or artifactual nature of the collection and discuss with some specificity the unifying characteristics that have prompted the student to think of certain items as a collection. It should also convey a strong sense of the student’s motivations for collecting and what their particular collection means to them personally. The history of the collection, including collecting goals, acquisition methods, and milestones are of particular interest, as is a critical look at how the goals may have evolved over time and an outlook on the future development of the collection. Essays are judged in equal measures on the strength of the collection and the strength of the writing.

Essays should be submitted via e-mail, in a Microsoft Word attachment, to Regine: heberlei@princeton.edu by Monday, November 12, 2012 and should be between 9-10 pages long, 12pt, double-spaced, with a 1-inch margin. In addition to the ten-page essay, each entry should include a selected bibliography of no more than 3 pages detailing the items in the collection. A separate cover sheet should include your name, class year, residential address, email address, and phone number. Please note that essays submitted in file formats other than Microsoft Word, submitted without cover sheet, or submitted without a bibliography will not be forwarded to the judges.

Winners will receive their prizes at the annual winter dinner of the Friends of the Princeton University Library, which they are expected to attend. The first-prize essay will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Princeton University Library Chronicle. In addition, the first-prize essay has the honor of representing Princeton University in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. Please note that per the ABAA’s contest rules, the winning essay will be entered exactly as submitted to the Adler Prize contest, without possibility of revision.

Suggested readings from Paul Needham, Scheide Librarian:
Michael Sadleir, preface to his XIX Century Fiction (1951). Firestone 3579.079
A.N.L. Munby, Essays and Papers (1977). Firestone Z992.M958
John Carter, Taste and Technique in Book Collecting (1970). Firestone 0511.241.2.1970
G. Thomas Tanselle “The Rationale of Collecting,” Studies in Bibliography. Online at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva/sb

Image: (c) Jane and Louise Wilson, Oddments Room II (Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle), 2008. C-print, Edition of 4. Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

"...The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC), ... confirmed that their AIC-CERT program (CERT stands for Collection Emergency Response Team) has a help number, (202) 661-8068, and email, info@conservation-us.org, that can aid any institution, organization, collectors, or artists who were impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Their volunteers are trained in dealing with art-related disaster relief and they can act as a remote or onsite resource for those unsure on how to proceed." http://216.74.55.166/resource-center/disaster-response-a-recovery
In addition:
NCPTT, Wet Recovery resources: http://ncptt.nps.gov/wet-recovery/
Heritage Preservation: http://www.heritagepreservation.org/PROGRAMS/TASKFER.HTM
Connecting 2 Collections forum on disaster recovery: http://www.connectingtocollections.org/groups/c2c-disccussions/forum/topic/storm-damage-assistance#post-627