Monthly Archives: November 2013

Superbe feux d’artifice

Unidentified Artist, Vue d’un superbe feux d’artifice a Vienne [A View of Superb Fireworks in Vienna], 1780. Engraving with hand coloring. Graphic Arts Collection GA 1995.00005

Princeton’s Graphic Arts Collection has a large group of Vues d’optique (optical views) along with the viewing devices used to look at them. A special sub-set are the transparency views or hold-to-light prints. Rather than simply being designed with exaggerated perspective, these are made to be seen in peep shows, boxes with a top lid so that the light could be directed from the front or the back, offering a daytime view and a nighttime view. Most of our prints are late 18th-century European and have added color or colored paper on the back to enhance the scene.

Below is a shot of the fireworks from the back:

Here is another example. We have a whole series of street views from the City of Scheveningen. I’m sorry the registration is poor.

Unidentified Artist, View of the City of Scheveningen, 1780. Engraving with hand coloring. Graphic Arts Collection GA 1995-00012a

Thomas Rowlandson incorporated magic lanterns into a number of his prints and drawings but this is the only one I know of that is a transformation print.

Engraved by H. Merke (active ca. 1800-ca. 1820) after a design by Thomas Rowlandson (1756 or 1757- 1827), A Magic Lantern, January 20, 1799. Published by Rudolph Ackermann. Mezzotint with transparencies and added color. GC 138. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895. Graphic Arts collection GC 138.

The wonderful Dick Balzer’s website has more: http://www.dickbalzer.com/Vue_d_optiques.363.0.html

Lew Ney’s Circus

Unidentified photographer, Luther Widen with his portable typewriter, 1928.

The First National Poetry Exhibition began in the summer of 1927 under the directorship of Lew Ney (Luther E. Widen, 1886-1963) and his soon to be wife Ruth Willis Thompson. For one dime, anyone from New York to San Antonio to Toledo could submit a poem.

Each Thursday there was a Poets’ Soiree where many of the poems were read and, much like Facebook, people would “like” particular poems by initialing them. Poems were submitted by photographer Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), Charles Henri Ford (1919-2001), Maxwell Bodenheim (1892-1954), and Louis Ginsberg (1885-1976, father of Allen Ginsberg), along with 6,000 others.

Leona M. Kahl, who managed opera singers, came to each Thursday night soiree and read her poems. Lew Ney was so taken with the rhymes that he offered to design, print, and publish a small volume, illustrated with linocuts by another local Dean Dowell. On March 1, 1928, Circus was released at the price of $1.75, with all profits going back into the Poetry Exhibition.

Leona M. Kahl, Circus, with 100 linoleum cuts by Dean Dowell. All printed by Lew Ney (New York: Parnassus [Press] 1928). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2013-0386N

Gillray’s Paradise of Fools!

At the top left of James Gillray’s caricature, St. Peter opens a small door of ‘Popish Supremacy’ where wine, loaves of bread, and fishes are seen waiting. As the petitioners (Grenville, Buckingham, Fox, and others) ascend the stair to this room, they are stopped by three blasts of wind coming from Pitt, Hawkesbury, and Sidmouth.

James Gillray (1757-1815), End of the Irish Farce of Catholic Emancipation, May 17, 1805. Etching with hand color. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

Dorothy George points out that the Irish petition for Catholic Emancipation was introduced in the House of Lords by Grenville on 10 May 1805 and in the House of Commons by Fox on 13 May 1805. Motions for a Committee to consider it were defeated in the Lords by 178 to 49, and in the Commons by 336 to 124.

The all-powerful sword and crown indicates the opposition of George III, making the petition a farce since it was brought forward in the knowledge that it would not be accepted.

Verses from Paradise Lost etched below:
And now St Peter at heav’n’s wicket seems
To wait them with his keys, & now at foot
Of heav’ns ascent they lift their feet: – when lo!
A violent cross-wind from either coast
Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry
Into the devious Air: then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, & habits, with their wearers, tost,
And flutter’d into rags; then Reliques, Beads,
Indulgences, Dispenses, Pardons, Bulls,
The sport of winds! – All these whirl’d up aloft
Fly o’er ye backside of the world far off
Into a Limbo large, & broad, since call’d
The Paradise of Fools!

–Milton B. 3d’ [ II. 484-96. Correctly quoted, except ‘whirl’d up’ for ‘upwhirled’.]

gillray end of 2

The British Museum has posted an extended description of each element in this complicated burlesque of Milton’s lines here: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1644396&partId=1&searchText=gillray+end+of+the+irish+farce+of+catholic&page=1

Eton angler

Richard Jones (1767-1840), Angler in Eton Playing Fields on the Thames, ca. 1820. Oil on canvas. GC164 Kienbusch Angling Collection. Gift of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, Class of 1906.

Born in Reading, the sporting painter Richard Jones was sought after for his depiction of horses, dogs, and fish. Yet, very little is known about the artist’s life besides a small list of paintings and exhibitions from the early 1800s. Our Angler dates from a similar period as The Anglers at the Brooklyn Museum: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4795/The_Anglers#

Fishing is more expensive than ever for Eton gentlemen, young and old, according to Angling News (March 15, 2011). In an article entitled, “Eton College hands over fishing rights to new group,” we learn that “Eton College has handed over the fishing rights to a four-mile stretch of river between Romney Island at Windsor and Dorney Rowing Lake to a syndicate that will charge £100 a year.”

“The college had let local angling clubs have the rights in the past. Eton Fisheries–a group consisting of Newbury-based chartered surveyor Patrick Todd and two colleagues–are now in charge. Mr. Todd said that he had met representatives from all the fishing clubs and that reaction had been mixed. …He said that although there would be an £100 annual charge, keen fishermen or women would also be able to obtain a day licence for just £6 and that he had no intention of pricing ordinary people out.”

Need paper?

Need some paper? Why go to Office Depot when you can make it yourself? That’s what our good friend Allen Scheuch, Class of 1976, did.

Two years after he graduated from Princeton University, Scheuch decided to learn to make paper. The class he attended followed Dard Hunter’s book, Papermaking: the History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (New York: Knopf, 1943). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) TS1090 .H816 1943.

A 24 x 32 inch paper mould was fashioned from varnished mahogany, with a bronze screen, simple brass (kitchen cabinet) handles, an inlaid brass rod on one side for reinforcement, and an “S” (for Scheuch) in a circle for the watermark.

100% linen rag was torn and beaten into a milk-like soup. For each sheet, Scheuch dipped the mould into the mixture and let the water drain. The top “deckle” finished the sides of the paper before the damp sheet was transferred to a felt where it would dry.

“I used one or two pieces but that was all!” Scheuch told me. “I liked the texture and the deckle but could never bring myself to use it casually – it meant too much to me! – and never ended up using it in a special project. So this will be its special project – as a teaching aide in Princeton’s Graphic Arts Department; I can’t imagine a finer one!”

Even better, this winter Scheuch’s mould and some of his paper will find their way into the Princeton University Art Museum as an educational element for the upcoming extravaganza: 500 Years of Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, opening January 25, 2014.

Our sincere thanks to Mr. Scheuch!

Overdue Accounts

In 1923, when Frances Steloff (1887-1989), owner of the Gotham Book Mart, moved her bookstore to West Forty-Seventh Street, it was her friend Lew Ney (Luther Widen, 1886-1963) who gave up his Fourth of July weekend to carry the books and shelves to the new shop. When Steloff needed a brochure or keepsake printed, it was her friend Lew Ney who hand-set the type, dampened the paper, and printed the edition for her.

And so, when Christopher Morley (1890-1957) wrote the verse, “Rubaiyat of Account Overdue,” in response to the many unpaid bills at the Gotham Book Mart, it was Lew Ney who editioned the poem for Steloff.

Lew Ney designed two separate formats: a narrow broadside that would go in an envelope with each overdue notice and a four page keepsake as a reward to those who paid their bills. He printed 350 of each, using his famous Inkunabula type. Morley signed them all and as they went out, Steloff added the date and her signature.

“That not only brought good results,” wrote Steloff, “but also a problem—our prompt paying customers then felt it was more rewarding to be delinquent.” [Special Gotham Book Mart issue of Journal of Modern Literature 4, no.4 April 1975): 792]As soon as he finished Steloff’s project, Lew Ney was on to his next jobs, using the same Inkunabula type to set Robert Penn Warren’s Thirty-Six Poems; Williams Carlos William’s An Early Martyr and Other Poems; and Wallace Stevens’ Ideas of Order, among other project that year.

Christopher Morley (1890-1957), Rubaiyat of Account Overdue (New York: Gotham Book Mart, 1935). Copy 29 of 350. Rare Books (Ex) 3866.5.3785.1935

Christopher Morley ( 1890-1957), Rubaiyat of Account Overdue ([New York: Gotham Book Mart, 1935]). (Ex) Oversize 3866.5.3785q

Moby Dick Goes to Moscow

Herman Mellville (1819-1891), Mobi Dik, ili Belyi kit [Moby Dick]. Москва: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatepbstvo Geografickoj Piteratury [Moscow: State Publisher of Geographical Literature], 1961. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process

In 1930, Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) completed the illustrations for a three-volume set of Melville’s Moby Dick for Lakeside Press. The deluxe edition of 1,000 sold out immediately and Kent’s images became firmly identified with Melville’s story.

Over thirty years later, Melville’s text was translated and published along with Kent’s illustrations in a Russian edition. It was thanks to the popularity of the artist rather than the author that led to this publication.

A radical Socialist who was an outspoken critic of Joseph McCarthy, Kent had to fight with the U.S. government for the right to travel outside the country. (The details of Rockwell Kent VS John Foster Dulles can be read at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/357/116)

Kent was not able to attend the 1957 opening of an exhibition of his work at the Pushkin Museum but after it closed, the artist donated several hundred of his paintings and drawings to the Soviet people. In gratitude for this gift, Kent’s Moby Dick was released in Moscow the following year. Kent went on to became an honorary member of the Soviet Academy of Fine Arts and was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the first edition of the Russian Moby Dick in its original dustjacket. Along with Kent’s Illustrations the book includes a preface by A. Startsev and an afterword by V. A. Zenkovich. Here are a few of the pages.

Save the Date: Info Session for Adler Book Collecting Prize, November 12, 2013

An informational session introducing the Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 in Firestone Library. John Delaney, Curator of Historic Maps, will showcase select treasures from the Historic Maps Collection and discuss the meaning of collecting. The Historic Maps Collection features rare items from the 16^th-century through World War I, including the first printed example of Saint Isidore of Seville’s T and O map of 1472; the first printed map to name the Pacific Ocean, by Sebastian Muenster 1540; the first known linguistic map, by Gottfried Hensel 1741; and Lewis Carroll’s Ocean Chart, from The Hunting of the Snark, 1876. It is also especially rich in New Jersey road and fire insurance maps. The info session will be held in Firestone Classroom 1-8-H (the new classroom next to the main elevators). Regine Heberlein, RBSC archivist, will be on hand to answer questions about the Adler Prize.

Authors paid more than the President and Vice President

“The magic realms of romance never produced a tale so attractive in every particular, and of such unexampled interest and power, as the MERCURY New Year novelette of CATHOLINA.

Although upon entering its TWENTY-THIRD YEAR, the NEW YORK MERCURY teems with all the fire and vigor of youth, and pays more money to eminent male and female writers than all other New York literary weeklies combined. The united salaries of its grand army of authors exceed the total of those paid to the President and Vice President of the United States! The inimitable Q. K. PHILANDER DOESTICKS P. B. will enliven the columns of the Mercury during the year 1861, with his world-renowned original Doesticks’ burlesques. FELIX O. C. DARLEY”S graphic pencil will illustrate its tales and romances.

The NEW YORK MERCURY is the largest, cheapest, and most elegantly illustrated weekly original family journal in the world.”

College and University Bookplates

Our collections hold about 243 catalogued volumes, 130 uncatalogued volumes concerning bookplates, supplemented by approximately 12,000 individual bookplates and still growing.

A large part of the collection was the gift of Janet Camp Troxell, Rosette expert and wife of Gilbert McCoy Troxell (1893-1967), curator of the Yale Collection of American literature and librarian of the Elizabethan Club of New Haven. For a fun read, see his article “The Elizabethan Club of Yale University,” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 27 (Jan 1, 1933): 83. http://search.proquest.com//docview/1301161873

Within the Troxell Bookplate Collection (GC147) is volume 127: College bookplates and volume 108: University bookplates. Here are a few samples.