Yearly Archives: 2014

Alexander and Hephaistion Visit the Family of Darius

famillia de darius2Gérard Edelinck (1640–1707) after Charles le Brun (1619-1690), Alexander and Hephaistion Visit the Family of Darius in their Tent after the Battle of Issus, 1661. Diptych engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA Flemish prints. *The date indicates the year le Brun finished his painting for Louis XIV, now in the Musée du Château, Versailles.

famillia de DariusIn 333 BC Alexander defeated Darius III, the last king of the Achaemenid Empire, at the Battle of Issus. Darius escaped capture, but his wife Statira, his mother, Sisgambis, and his daughters Statira and Drypetis were taken by Alexander.

“The picture tells a famous story of Alexander’s generosity. After the flight of the defeated Persian king Darius, Alexander visited his wife, mother and the other women of the family. As he entered the tent, Darius’s mother mistakenly prostrated herself before Alexander’s companion Hephaestion; but instead of flying into the sort of murderous rage that might be expected of a slighted oriental despot, Alexander dismissed this error as of no importance and extended his protection to the royal family. All the figures in the composition were carefully devised by Le Brun to respond to this event with a range of expressions from fear or wonder to admiration.”–Christopher Allen The Australian January 19, 2013

Edelinck engraved le Brun’s painting in two prints, printed with an irregular dividing line so that the break will disappear when they are framed together. We have left a slight space between the two sheets in this image.

 

The private tears of Bartholomeus Spranger

privatas sacrymat2Christina Müller was the beloved wife of the Mannerist painter Bartholomeus Spranger. When she died, he painted an allegory in her memory and had it engraved by his friend and colleague Aegidius Sadeler. The elaborate print shows Spranger, surrounded by the personifications of the visual arts. He is pointing to his wife on the right, who is also admired by a putto holding a scull, with one foot on an overturned hourglass. Spranger is ready to follow her but just as Death is about to spear him, Time steps forward to show that the painter’s hourglass is not yet empty.

Inscribed at the bottom of the plate: Priuatas lacrymas Bart. Sprangeri Egid. Sadeler miratus artem et amantem redamans, publicas fecit: et eidem promutua beneuolentia dedicauit. Pragae Anno Seculari [The private tears of Bartholomeus Spranger are made public by Aegidius Sadeler, who admired his art and his marriage; and dedicates the print to him with sincere affection. At Prague in the centennial year.]

privatas sacrymatAegidius Sadeler, the younger (ca. 1570-1629) after Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611), Portrait of Bartholomeus Spranger with an Allegory of the Death of his Wife, Christina Müller, 1600. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GAX Flemish prints

 

 

Edelinck’s copy of Rubens’ copy of Leonardo’s lost painting

flemish4Leonardo finished a large cartoon in 1504 depicting the Battle of Anghiari to hang opposite Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina. Besides the preliminary drawing, we have Leonardo’s words stating, “First of all, the smoke of the artillery must be rendered, mingled in the air with the dust thrown up by the cavalry and the combatants… The air must seem full of streaks of fire like lightning flashes… You must show the victors running with wild hair tossed, like their draperies, by the wind, with wrinkled faces and swollen knitted brows.” The final work was either lost or destroyed.

flemish3Rubens made a sketch in 1603, based on an engraving, and in turn, Edelinck made an engraving after Rubens’ sketch. Born in Antwerp, Gérard Edelinck became a naturalized French citizen in 1675, however, this print is thought to have been finished before that date and is classed with Flemish prints.

From 1666 until his death, Edelinck worked in Paris. On the recommendation of Charles Le Brun, royal painter and director of the Gobelins factory, Edelinck was hired as an instructor for the tapestry workers. Under he direction, several of Edelinck’s earlier designs found their way into the woven designs.

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flemish drawer Gérard Edelinch (1640-1707) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) after Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), The Battle of Anghiari (The Battle of Four Horsemen), ca. 1657-1666. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014 Flemish prints

louvre-990_49648_600x450Sketch by Rubens. (c) Louvre, Paris, France

 

 

 

Isotypes

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From 1925 to 1934, Otto Neurath (1882-1945) was Director of the Gesellschafts-und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna, where he and his team produced informational charts using a system of pictorial statistics. Neurath referred to them as Isotype (International System Of TYpographic Picture Education). This series of pictograms presents dry statistics in colorful, easy to understand visual images.

ussr2ussr1Neurath was invited to help establish an institute for pictorial statistics in Moscow, that became known as The All-Union Institute of Pictorial Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy or the Izostat Institute.

“The most notable English-language Izostat publication,” writes Emma Minns, “is an album produced for the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the design of which was overseen by the artist [El Lissitzky], USSR: An Album Illustrating the State Organization and National Economy of the USSR.”

“…The use of only photographs and Isotype charts brings an air of authority and gravitas to the books, and gives the impression that these are objective works concerned with facts, rather than anecdotes or points of view.” — Emma Minns, “Unity in Difference: The Representation of Life in the Soviet Union through Isotype,” A People Passing Rude (2012).

 

 

El Lissitzky (1890-1941), USSR. An Album Illustrating the State Organization and National Economy of the U.S.S.R., edited by Ivan V. Sautin and Ivan P. Ivanitsky (Moscow: Scientific Publishing Institute of Pictorial Statistics, 1939). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

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Soviet Pavilion at 1939 New York World’s Fair

soviet aviation7“Russia to Spend $2,000,000 on Exhibit at Fair” proclaimed the New York Herald Tribune in 1938. “Plans for the pavilion of the Soviet Union at the New York World’s Fair 1939 have been approved by the Fair’s board of design, Vasily V. Bourgman, Soviet commissioner to the exposition announced yesterday at the Soviet Consultant. ‘Russian,’ Bourgman said, ‘will spend more than $2,000,000 on its building and exhibit.’” A year later on May 1, 1939 the paper reported that over 600,000 people had visited the fair on the first day.
soviet aviation6Constructivist artists Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) and his wife Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) were commissioned to photograph and design a number of books for the Soviet pavilion. They worked on issues on the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (Vsesoiuznaia sel’skokhoziaistvennaia vystavka) and the photograph albums Soviet Aviation, Procession of the Youth, and The Red Army and Navy, among others.
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soviet aviation1             soviet aviation3

Thanks to Marquand librarian Sandra Brooke, we found that Princeton had these rare volumes in their original covers on the open stacks and moved them into the Graphic Arts Collection.

Soviet Aviation. Designed by Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova (Moscow, Leningrad: State Art Publishers, 1939). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

ussr the red army1USSR, The Red Army and Navy. Designed by Alexander Rodchenko and Stepanova Varvara Stepanova (Moscow and Leningrad: State Art Publishers, 1939). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Original red leatherette boards, lettered in red and cream and with large stamped red star on cover.
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Lady’s Almanac

lady's almanacThis 1857 almanac has advice for women who might want to travel abroad this summer.
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lady's almanac4Woman’s Sphere in Modern Life.

A woman’s true sphere is in her family, in her home duties which furnish the best and most appropriate training for her faculties, pointed out by Nature herself. And for those duties some of the very highest and noblest that are entrusted to human agency, the fine machinery that is to perform them should be wrought to its last point of perfectness.

The wealth of a woman’s mind, instead of lying in the rough, should be richly brought out and fashioned for its various ends, while yet those ends are in the future, or it will never meet the demand. And for her own happiness, all the more because her sphere is at home. Her home store should be exhaustless, the stores she cannot go abroad to see.

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Lady’s Almanac for … (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1857). Graphic Arts Collection, Hamilton SS 431s

Des Animaux

grandville23Thanks to the generous donations of Mary M. Schmidt, former art librarian of Princeton’s Marquand Art and Archeology Library, the Graphic Arts Collection is the proud new owner of eight 19th -century French illustrated books. Among them, J. J. Grandville (1803-1847), Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux: études de moeurs contemporaines (Scenes from the Private and Public Lives of Animals: Studies of Contemporary Manners) might be the most curious.
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The first question one might ask is who is responsible for this book?

Authors include Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850); George Sand (1804-1876); Charles Nodier (1780-1844); Jules Janin (1804-1874); Pierre Bernard (1810-1876); Émile de La Bédollière (1812-1883); Louis Baudet (1804-1862); Édouard Lemoine (1814-1868); Lhéritier (dates unknown); Paul de Musset (1804-1880); Louis Viardot (1800-1883); Marie Mennessier-Nodier (1811-18??); and Alfred de Musset (1810-1857).

Wood engravers include Louis-Henri Brevière (1797-1869); Louis Dujardin (1808-1857); Célestin Nanteuil (1813-1873); Adolphe-Jean Best (1808-1879); J.-H. Caqué (1820?-1885?); Pierre-François Godard (1797-1864); Henri Désiré Porret (1800-185?); Charles  Tamisier (1813-1855?); Brugnot (dates unknown); Saint-Elme Gautier (1849-1876?); François Rouget (1825?-18??); E. Bernard (dates unknown); Barbant (dates unknown); John Andrew (1800?-185?); Isidore Leloir (1802-18??); D. Thiébault (date unknown); Guibault (dates unknown) and Quichon (dates unknown).des animaux 4

The concept and original drawings were by J.J. Grandville (pseudonym for Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, 1803-1847), however, according to Gordon Ray, “The moving force behind this book was its publisher P.J. Hetzel, who himself contributed many chapters under the pseudonym of P.J. Stahl. Though his model was Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, Hetzel’s primary objective, as he remarks in his preface, was ‘to give words to Grandville’s marvelous animals, and to join our pen with his pencil…'” Gordon Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 1700 to 1914 (1982) Graphic Arts: (GARF) Oversize NC980 .R3 1982q

Grandville provided 232 illustrations, about 2/3 of which are full page plates, during the book’s serial appearance between 1840 and 1842.

des animaux 1Mary Schmidt’s gifts, for which we are extremely grateful, include the following;
Le Lithographiana. Recueil de caricatures amusantes; d’anas, de reparties, bons mots, plaisanteries et petites anecdotes (Paris: Aubert, 1835).

Virgil, Les Georgiques de Virgile, traduites en vers français par Jacques Delille; avec des notes et les variants (Paris: De l’imprimerie de P. Didot aîné, 1803)

Molière, Oeuvres complètes de Molière. Nouvelle edition (Paris: Laplace, Sanchez et Cie., 1871)

Alain René Le Sage, Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Paris: Paulin, Libraire-Éditeur, 1836)

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Torquato Tasso, La Jérusalem délivrée. Édition illustrée par MM. Baron et C. Nanteuil (Paris: J. Mallet et Cie, 1841)

Lodovico Ariosto, Roland furieux (Paris: Morizot, Imp. S. Bacon, 1864)

Jean de La Fontaine, Fables de la Fontaine (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1868)

J.J. Grandville, Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux: études de moeurs contemporaines (Paris: J. Hetzel et Paulin, Schneider et Langrand, Lacrampe et Cie, 1842)

 

Another good source of information on Grandville’s book, and the others, is H. Hazel Hahn, Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Firestone Library (F) HC280.C6 H34 2009
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Welcome back Friends and Alumni

friends of the libraryThank you to the Friends of the Princeton University Library who joined us last night, perusing a small selection of new acquisitions in the Graphic Arts Collection. We looked at graphic material from the 17th century to the present, including one project that is still being printed.  There are so many events taking place over this busy alumni weekend, we are doubly grateful that so many of the Friends of the Library stopped by!

In case you missed it, here’s a list of what we saw:

  1. Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean (1654-1695), [Collection of the Costumes of France] (Paris, 1678-1698). Spine title: Mode de France. All engraved, engravers identified in the plate are Gérard Scotin (1643-1715) and Franz Ertinger (1640-ca.1710). Graphic Arts Collection.
  2. “The Learned Antiquarians Puzzl’d (by an English Epitaph),” January 1, 1770. Etching. Published by Mary Darly in Darly’s Comic Prints. Graphic Arts Collection. Inscription reads: Beneath this stone reposeth Claud Coster, tripe-seller of Impington, as doth his consort Jane.
  3. Allegorical Map of the Track of Youth, to the Land of Knowledge (London: John Wallis, June 25, 1796). Engraved fan by Vincent Woodthorpe (ca.1764-1822) with hand coloring. Purchased with funds from the Historic Map Collection and Graphic Arts Collection and Exposition universelle [souvenir] Paris,1867. Designed by the French printer Charles Maurand (1824-1904). Wood engraved fan. Graphic Arts Collection.
  4. London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1816 ([London]: Printed for the Company of Stationers, [1815]). Miniature with original decorated red morocco binding, gilt, onlays in buff, blue and green and a central hot-air balloon. Matching slipcase. Graphic Arts Collection.
  5. Fore-edge paintings on: Lord Byron (1788-1824), The Works (London: Printed for John Murray, 1814-1824). Graphic Arts Collection.
  6. John Sartain (1808-1897), after a drawing by James Hamilton (1819-1878) after daguerreotypes taken on the spot by John M. Hewitt (active 1840-1860). Ashland. The Homestead of Henry Clay. Philadelphia: F. Hegan, 1853. Etching, engraving, stipple engraving with hand coloring. Graphic Arts collection.
  7. J. Wilkes Booth, The Assassin, 1865. Altered albumen photograph after Charles Deforest Fredricks (1823-1894). Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Donald Farren, Class of 1958.
  8. Chang-rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea (New York: Riverhead Books, 2014). Copy 471 of 500. Graphic Arts Collection. 3D printed slipcase designed by  art director Helen Yentus. Fabricated on the MakerBot® Replicator® 2 Desktop 3D Printer.
  9. Antonio Martorell, Las Antillas Letradas [The Lettered Authors of the Antilles], 2014. 27 multi-media prints. Copy 1 of 100. Graphic Arts Collection. Purchased with funds provided by the Program in Latin American Studies.

 

Portraits de Louis le Grand

Portraits de Louis le GrandThis engraving offers ten profile portraits of Louis XIV (1638-1715) at various ages, beginning with his childhood. Thanks to research by Professor Volker Schröder, we believe the engraver to be Charles Simonneau (1645-1728), after the painter Antoine Benoist (1632-1717); along with text by the poet Etienne Pavillon.

This is also confirmed in the Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’le-de-France, “Le Cabinet des Médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale possède une double série de portraits en grisaille de Louis XIV à différents âges et de membres de la famille royale, qui ont été exécutés par Antoine Benoist, selon toute vraisemblance, en 17o4. Ces miniatures sont réparties dix par dix en deux cadres pareils; le premier, intitulé: Portraits de Louis le Grand suivant ses âges; le second, Portraits de la maison royalle. Le premier de ces cadres a été reproduit, à de très légères variantes près, sans doute au lendemain de la mort de Louis XIV, en une gravure attribuée à Charles Simonneau et dont on a plusieurs exemplaires au Cabinet des Estampes.”

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The Bibliothèque nationale de France owns Benoist’s beautiful set of portraits, painted in grisaille on paper pasted on metal and mounted within a gilt frame.

Charles Simonneau (1645-1728) after the painter Antoine Benoist (1632-1717), Portraits de Louis le Grand graves suivant ses differents âges MDCCIV [1704]. Text by the poet Etienne Pavillon.  Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.01433

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More Horrors 1815

rowlandson corsican2Attributed to Thomas Rowlandson (1756 or 1757, died 1827), The Corsican and His Blood Hounds at the Window of the Thuilleries Looking over Paris, April 16, 1815. Etching with hand coloring. GC112 Thomas Rowlandson Collection. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

On 6 April 1814, Napoleon abdicated his throne, leading to the accession of Louis XVIII and the first Bourbon Restoration. The defeated Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, where he lived for almost a year before returning to Paris in March 1815.

In Rowlandson’s caricature, we see Napoleon back in Paris, looking out over the city from a parapet labeled ‘more horrors’ and ‘death and destruction.’ At his sides are Death and the Devil. The sand in an hourglass is running out and the sun is setting. The bloody hounds mentioned in the title are his four marshals: François Joseph Lefebvre, Dominique Joseph Vandamme, Louis Nicolas Davout, and Michel Ney.

rowlandson corsican and his blood