Monthly Archives: September 2013

Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine

Last night, our friends and colleagues Ronald K. Smeltzer (director of the Princeton Bibliophiles and Collectors); Paulette Rose; and Robert J. Ruben, Princeton Class of 1955, opened a groundbreaking exhibition entitled Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine: Four Centuries of Achievement. The show is open to the public free of charge 18 September to 23 November 2013 at the Grolier Club in New York City. Take your daughters.

Extraordinary Women explores the legacy of thirty-two remarkable women whose accomplishments in physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, computing, and medicine changed science.

Did Marie Curie refuse to wear this academic cap? See the show

As noted in the press release, of particular interest will be Emilie Du Châtelet’s 1759 translation of Newton’s Principia with the bookplate of Talleyrand; copies of all of her other scientific publications; a mathematics workbook and a letter, both in her hand; and materials about her fourteen-year relationship with Voltaire, including a book she co-authored—although without her name on the title page. A scientific breakthrough in genetics written on a brown paper bag is displayed.

A number of events are being held in conjunction with the exhibition including a collectors’ forum on Thursday, 3 October 2013 hosted by Rose, Ruben, and Smeltzer.

On Saturday, 26 October 2013, there will be a half-day symposium featuring Dava Sobel, historian, author of Gallileo’s Daughter and other popular expositions of scientific topics; Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, author of critically-acclaimed books about scientific discoveries and the scientists who make them; Professor Paola Bertucci, Assistant Professor of History and in the History of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine; Professor Sandra K. Masur, Professor of Ophthalmology, Associate Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.

For more information, see http://www.grolierclub.org/

Pochoir Progressive

In the 1920s, Thomas Maitland Cleland (1880-1964) was a premier graphic designer, whose career culminated with the cover design for the new Fortune Magazine in 1930. He also created this image of an advertising man and gave Elmer Adler one of a series of progressive pochoir or stencil colored plates to show how the print was made. The cutouts used in making this stencil print are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. There is at least one other copy recorded at the Library of Congress.

Here are the pochoir plates for The Advertising Man, 1929? Stencil progressive. GC032 T.M. Cleland Collection. “Presented to the Princeton Print Club by E.A. July, 1942”.

“The Princeton Print Club announces an exhibition of the paintings, prints, books, and other work of Mr. Thomas M. Cleland. This is the first exhibit of Mr. Cleland’s work in more than forty years. 36 University Place, Gallery B. 2:00 to 4:30 p.m.”– Princeton University Weekly Bulletin, 37, no. 9 (8 November 1947).

See also T. M. (Thomas Maitland) Cleland (1880-1964), The Decorative Work of T.M. Cleland: a Record and Review, with a biographical and critical introduction by Alfred E. Hamill and a portrait lithograph by Rockwell Kent (New York: The Pynson printers, 1929). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize NE539.C57 A3 1929q

“How the White Man Trades in the Congo”

Frederic de Haenen (1853-1928), How the White Man Trades in the Congo, Bringing in Rubber and Hostages, 1906. Gouache and ink wash. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013-

Frederic de Haenen (1853-1928), The Chicotte (The Whipping), January 1906. Gouache and ink wash. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013-

In the January 1906 supplement to The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, a special series of illustrations was published documenting the treatment of Africans by European traders. The article was entitled “Dark Deeds in Darkest Africa: Scenes and Tales of Cruelty in the Congo Free State” by the Rev. J.H. Harris, of the “Regions Beyond” Missionary Union.

“As our readers are well aware,” writes the editor, “The Graphic is not given in the publication of sensational illustrations. In view, however, of the great and historic importance of the terrible events which have taken place in the Congo Free State, the conductors of this journal have thought it only right to depart from their usual rule, and publish the sketches and photographs contained in this supplement—the accuracy of which are absolutely vouched for by Mr. Harris, who was present at the committee of inquiry.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two original drawing for The Graphic. One of them depicts a brutal flogging of a slave with a chicotte, a heavy whip made of animal hide used in this region. The image was made after a photograph and drawn in high contrast to aid in reproduction. The artist, Frederic de Haenen, was one of many illustrators who worked for The Graphic and The Illustrated London News.

A second drawing, titled “How a White man trades in the Congo,” is believed to also be from a 1906 issue of The Graphic. It comes with a caption glued to the bottom, which reads in part, “The natives are required to bring in their toll of rubber every fortnight or twenty days, according to the wish of the individual agent. The sentries are sent out to bring in the rubber workers. In the event of the rubber being either short or not good enough in quality, these sentries also bring in a number of “hostages” which the white man holds and forces to work on his “factorie” [sic] until the relatives bring in extra quantity to redeem them.”

The Sword of William of Orange, Prince of Nassau

The sword is mounted against a mirror so you can see both sides of the blade.

Thanks to the generous gift of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, Class of 1906 (1884-1976) Princeton University is the proud owner of the hunting sword owned and used by William of Orange, Prince of Nassau, after whom Nassau Hall was named. The blade bears on each side the initials P.V.O. (Prince of Orange), the Prince’s Arms, the Motto of the Order of the Garter, and his personal motto. We recently moved the sword out of Nassau Hall and into the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

William III of England (1650-1702), also known as William III of Orange, was King of England and King of Ireland from February 13, 1689, and King of Scotland from April 11, 1689, until his death in 1702. To watch a series of videos about his life, see the BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange#p00vp2kx

The rest of the Von Kienbusch collection of Arms and Armor found its way to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Their records note the following: “Born in 1884, Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch lived his entire 91 years at 12 East 74th Street in New York City. By the early 1970s, von Kienbusch devoted the entire second floor of his residence to house his collection of medieval arms and armor, which was comprised of more than 1100 objects, including 35 full suits of armor, and more than 135 swords and 80 helmets.”

“Von Kienbusch graduated from Princeton University in 1906 and spent most of his life working in the tobacco industry. His family made their fortune in leaf tobacco. One of his earliest jobs, however, was with Bashford Dean, who at the time he hired von Kienbusch in 1912 was the curator of armor for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Von Kienbusch represented Dean at armor auctions since the latter’s presence at such events often caused prices to rise.”

“Although von Kienbusch was completely blind the last 12 years of his life, he continued to add to his collection with the assistance of Harvey Murton, one of the last armorers, who also worked in that capacity for 43 years in the Metropolitan Museum’s Arms and Armor Department. Prior to his death in 1976, von Kienbusch bequeathed his collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as his related library. Princeton University received his collection of rare books on angling and certain paintings, manuscripts and objects, as well as funding for men’s and women’s athletics, student aid, the library, and art museum.”

The Track of Youth to the Land of Knowledge

Allegorical Map of the Track of Youth, to the Land of Knowledge (London: John Wallis, no. 16 Ludgate Street, June 25, 1796). Engraved by Vincent Woodthorpe (ca.1764-1822) with hand coloring, wood ribs, brass pin and ivory washer. Purchased with funds from the Historic Map Collection and Graphic Arts Collection.

http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/globes-objects/hmc05.html

Thanks to the shrewd collecting of John Delaney, Curator of The Historic Maps Collection, our two collections have partnered to acquire this allegorical map on a fan.

The map takes the viewer from youth, where they are in a state of darkness, to the final lights of Reason and Religion where Content[ment] and Happiness can be found. The voyage may take you through such places as the Great Ocean of Experience, the Rocks of Obstinacy and Idleness, the Coast of Ignorance or the Coast of Hardship. Along the way, you can check the compass for directions to Folly, Misery, Wisdom, and Reason.

The link above will lead you to this and other cartographic treasures including globes, scientific instruments, and much more.

The map was engraved by Vincent Woodthorpe (c.1764-1822) of Fetter Lane, London, who engraved maps for Faden and Laurie & Whittle as well as Wallis. Woodthorpe also engraved Robert Woolsey’s Celestial Companion: Projections, in Plano of the Starry Heavens (1802).

Rowlandson’s School for Scandal

In 1788, when this panoramic print was made, Thomas Rowlandson was thirty-one years old. He had stopped exhibiting at the Royal Academy but hadn’t yet joined Rudolph Ackermann’s stable of artists. Thirty-seven year old Richard Brinsley Sheridan had given up management of the Drury Lane Theatre for politics, following the spectacular success of his play School for Scandal, which premiered in 1777.

The text of School for Scandal was first printed in 1780 in Dublin. A note inside this volume describes how Sheridan refused to give his manuscript to a publisher, wishing to continue to work on it. Finally, “he presented a manuscript copy of it to his married sister, Mrs. Lefanu, in Dublin, to be disposed of, for her own advantage, to the managers of the Dublin Theatre. This brought her a hundred guineas and free admissions to the theatre.”

About this panoramic print Joseph Grego writes, “One of the long strips containing subjects arranged in series, which were popular at this period, belonging to the same order as The Bath Minuet and The Progress of a Lie, by H. Bunbury; A Country Dance and A Cotillon, by W. H. Kingsbury; The Installation Supper, as given at the Pantheon, by the Knights of the Bath (on May 26, 1788), by James Gillray; The Prince’s Bow, by F. G. Byron; English Slavery, or a Picture of the Times, 1788; Chesterfield Travestied, by Collings, &c, &c.”

The print has seventeen female figures, “of ages varying from a tender maid to an antiquated grandmother; the respective characteristics of the different individuals are hit off with Rowlandson’s usual spirit and success; the pretty maidens being extremely flattered, and the traits of less favored dowagers coming in for grotesque exaggerations. The fair members of this coterie are supposed to be making their several comments, as exclamations, upon a recent elopement, a proceeding not unusual at the time The School for Scandal was given to the public.”

Read more in: Joseph Grego (1843-1908), Rowlandson the Caricaturist: a selection from his works, with anecdotal descriptions of his famous caricatures and a sketch of his life, times, and contemporaries (London: Chatto and Windus, 1880). Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF) Oversize NE642.R7 G8q

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), The School for Scandal ([London]: V. M. Picot, No. 6 Greek Street Soho, Aug.t 1, 1788.). Stipple engraving. 25 X 155 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1788.3

Isaiah Thomas, The Baskerville of America

The History of Miss Kitty Pride: Together with The Virtue of a Rod; or The History of a Naughty Boy (Worcester, Massachusetts: Isaiah Thomas, Jun. sold wholesale and retail by him, 1799). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

“The Baskerville of America,” this is what Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) called the Massachusetts printer Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831). “Thomas was the leading publisher of his day. His printing establishment in Worcester eventually employed 150 persons and included seven presses, a paper mill, and bindery . . . He is still famous for his more than a hundred children’s books of which he published tens of thousands of copies.”–Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography.

Princeton University Library holds over 100 volumes published and sold by Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831) and his son Isaiah Thomas Jr (1773-1819) from their shops in Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts. They also had branches in Walpole, Brookfield, Portsmouth, Windsor, Newburyport, Baltimore, and Albany.

Sinclair Hamilton (1884-1978) alone collected and donated 49 book published by Thomas with woodcuts and wood engravings. Happily, we have now added Miss Kitty and Virtue of a Rod to our holdings (bound in a piece of decorative wallpaper). Each story is illustrated with a surprising number of cut, for such a tiny (11 cm.) volume. Here are a few examples.

One of Isaiah Thomas’s original printing presses at the American Antiquarian Society.

Eighteenth-Century Heraldic Designs

We recently acquired W. Townley’s archive of heraldic designs and other related pieces. Drawn by Mr. Townley in pen and pen & ink, these designs date from the second half of the 18th century. Included is a sketchbook (measuring 320 x 205 mm), in marbled wrappers, which holds 43 drawings of heraldic supporters such as birds, beasts and humans. The majority are fully formed figures in ink and wash, with watercolor used for the uniform of a soldier and the robe of a female figure.

What is most interesting is that many are “pricked” with pin holes marking the outline of the design so that it can be transferred to another surface. If you click on one of the thumbnails posted here, it is easier to see the holes in the enlargement. Several are folded and the design copied from one side to the other, ensuring the exact proportions are maintained. In this manner, only one side needs to be “pricked” since they are the same (in reverse).

There are an additional nine heraldic designs, four impressive drawings of classical vases (the largest measuring 395 x 278 mm, with pricking), and 17 drawings of human figures, wild and domestic animals, and farmyard and camp scenes, some with watercolour and a number with pricking.

Also included are two manuscript fragments. The first contains a herald’s expenses and income in 1755, including fees for drawing up various pedigrees. The second records court announcements, including the appointment of Charles
Townley to the office of Lancaster Herald in 1781 (having been Bluemantle Pursuivant since 1774).

Amongst five small printed pieces are two bookplates of Sir Charles Townley, as Clarenceux King of Arms (a post he held from 1755 until 1773) and as Garter Principal King of Arms (1773-4). It appears that our W. Townley was a relation of Sir Charles Townley (1713-1774) and his son Charles (1749-1800). He never held high office himself, but these drawings show him to have been an heraldic draughtsman of some accomplishment.

W. Townley’s Archive of Heraldic Designs, 18th century. Sketchbook and loose pages with drawings in pen and ink with watercolor. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process.

Mexican postcards. Disembodied images and physical artifacts.

Mexican Postcards Collection, 1890-2000. Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage, RCPXG-5830371

After years of researching, tracking and collecting, the antiquarian book/print dealers David Margolis and Jean Moss filled twenty-five boxes with a fascinating collection of Mexican postcards. Dating from 1890 to 2000, the material is now at the Princeton University Library and available to all researchers through the RBSC reading room. Included are prints, photographs, collotypes, maps, tourist souvenirs, landscapes, and traditional postcard views, each organized under either the cities or the genres represented.

This fall, images from our Mexican postcard collection will play a small part in the Princeton University Art Museum’s exhibition: The Itinerant Languages of Photography, on view Saturday, September 7, 2013 to Sunday, January 19, 2014. The show and catalogue examine the movement of photographs, as disembodied images and as physical artifacts, across time and space as well as across the boundaries of media and genres, including visual art, literature, and cinema.

The culmination of a three-year interdisciplinary project sponsored by the Princeton Council for International Teaching and Research, the exhibition traces historical continuities from the 19th century to the present by juxtaposing materials from archival collections in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico and works by modern and contemporary photographers from museum and private collections including Joan Fontcuberta, Marc Ferrez, Rosâgela Renno and Joan Colom. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, in the shop or by mail.

In particular, mark your calendar now for the related symposium that will be held at Princeton November 20-22 (the keynote will be artist Joan Fontcuberta). For more information about the exhibition, see: http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1550

The Typolithographic Press on White Lion-Court

Lithography expert Michael Twyman called The Parthenon “remarkable for its ambitious and technically daring foray into typolithography.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a complete run of The Parthenon, which is highlighted in Twyman’s chapter on lithographic incunables. He includes it as an “unusual early British work … which was the first journal to be produced anywhere entirely by lithography. Though it appeared much later than the other works discussed in this chapter, it seems appropriate to mention it with the incunables of lithographic book production because of its priority in periodical publishing and because of the particular techniques employed in its production.” -Michael Twyman, Early Lithographed Books (London: Farrand Press & Private Libraries Association, c1990). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) NE2295 .T99

Twyman continues “It was published weekly in London by Black, Young, and Young of Tavistock street, Covent Garden and ran from 11 June 1825 to January 1926 [in Princeton’s copy all 16 issues are bound in one volume]. It was printed from stone by Ross and Co. at the Typolithographic Press, White Lion-Court, Wych-street, London, using their own special process which they called Typolithography.”

“The first few numbers of the Parthenon amply demonstrate the advantages of typolithography and include facsimiles of autographs, line sketches of works of art illustrating an outline history of Italian painting, and passages of music. The whole journal has the flavour of a letterpress production…

All the same, there must have been production problems because, without a word of explanation to the reader, the numbers from 6 onwards had their text matter printed letterpress to much the same design, with the non-text matter overprinted by lithography… “–Twyman

The Parthenon: a Magazine of Art and Literature (London: Black, Young and Young, 1825-1826). Title-page and preface and no. 1-5 printed from stone at the Typolithographic press./ Title-page has imprint: London : Printed from stone, At the Typolithographic Press, White Lion Court, Wych Street. Published by Black, Young, and Young, Tavistock street, Covent Garden, 1826./ At foot of p. 437: Printed by Ross and Co., at the Typolithographic Press, White Lion Court, Wych Street. Graphic Arts GAX 2013- in process

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