Yearly Archives: 2014

Graphic Candy, pt. 2

Longtime readers will remember that the Graphic Arts Collection contains a candy wrapper collection established by Ephraim di Kahble, a fictitious member of the class of 1939. https://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2008/11/graphic_candy.html
Kahble was invented by Frederick E. Fox, Class of 1939 (1917-1981), who wrote to American candy companies as a Princeton freshman and gathered a collection of wrappers, fliers, and stationery.

We thought we had all the candy recorded but recently, graphic material from the Hershey Company appeared, including this enormous broadside describing the location and history of the company’s factories.

To request the collection, please ask for GC149: Printed Ephemera, Candy

Frederic Fox, ’39. Keeper of Princetoniana. Courtesy of the Princetoniana Committee

Effusions of a Pot of Porter

The weather in the fall of 1799 was particularly harsh, as seen in the top half of Gillray’s satire of the Tory Prime Minister William Pitt (1759-1806) and Whig politician Samuel Parr (1747-1825). The four winds blow on the upper right.

A well-known drinker, Parr is represented by the ‘pot of porter’ and Pitt is seen rising out of the beer as a monumental equestrian statue, except his is backwards. The title continues quoting Parr, “its all owing to the War & the cursed Ministry! – have not They ruind the Harvest? – have not They Blighted all the Hops? – Have not They brought on the destructive Rains, that we might be Ruin’d in order to support the War? – & brib’d the Sun not to Shine, that they may Plunder us in the dark?”

The pipe is also a reference to Parr, a smoker, and the introduction he wrote to an edition of three treatises of W. Bellenden, Praefatio ad Bellendenum de Statu, in which he praised Fox and attacked Pitt, among others. He also blamed Pitt for the rising cost of porter and the print notes the price on the mug.

James Gillray (1756-1815), Effusions of a Pot of Porter, – or – Ministerial Conjurations for Supporting the War, as Lately Discovered by Dr. P—r, in the Froth & Fumes of His Favorite Beverage, November 29, 1799. hand-colored etching and aquatint. Graphic Arts Collecton GAX 2014- in process

Genii of Strange Appearance

Hishikawa Moronobu (ca. 1618-ca. 1694), Newly Published Picture Book of Genii of Strange Appearance (Shinpan igyo sennin ehon)(Edo: Urokogataya, 1689).

Hishikawa Moronobu is considered one of the earliest Japanese book illustrators. The translation of the title used here is taken from our colleagues at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston but on Princeton’s copy someone has written “Stories of immortals.” Someone else, probably Elmer Adler, has noted “Ghost stories in Chinese style.”

There is a second volume of this book that seems to have been separated from the first, but it was here and will eventually be found when our Japanese books are completely catalogued.

Patent Steel Pens

“Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, made for his own use pens from steel watch-springs. In 1816, he sold his invention to J. Alexander of Birmingham, who started the manufacture of steel pens. At first they were a luxury but about 1830 they came into extensive universal use.” —Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, v. 6 (1917). Here is an early advertisement for Alexander’s firm. Today, Birmingham is home to the Pen Museum: http://www.penroom.co.uk/

Belgian trade card for J. Alexander, ca. 1830. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of W. Allen Scheuch II, Class of 1976.

Photographic Embellishments 1866

James Inglis, “Right Still Now,” The Philadelphia Photographer, v. III. No. 35 (Nov. 1866).

When Edward Livingston Wilson (1838-1903) began his journal, The Philadelphia Photographer in 1864, he embellished the articles (his word) with an original albumen silver print as a frontispiece for each issue. In 1866, the photographers he published included William Notman (1826–1891); John Coates Browne (1838–1918); Max Petsch (active 1860s); Henszey; S.G. Rogers; Walter C. North (1831–1891); James Inglis (1835–1904); and Frederick August Wenderoth (1819–1884).

The photograph posted above is a view of James Inglis’s Montreal studio on St. James Street, with a very young operator at the daguerreotype camera. Inglis eventually moved to Rochester and then Chicago, where he died in 1904 following an explosion while experimenting on a new form of magnesium lighting. Over at The Photo-Beacon, F. Dundas Todd wrote a remembrance of the photographer,

“Getting interested in dry plates in the early eighties, [Inglis] entered upon the experimental stage with his usual whole-souled energy, and, like many more of that time, with disastrous financial results. He gravitated to Rochester, where he founded the Inglis Dry Plate Company, and entered with enthusiasm into their manufacture.

Those were troublous times in the photographic world, where a cool head was essential to financial success. Gelatin is a very uncertain substance even in the present day, as plate and paper manufacturers well know, and in those days it was more so, and many a promising business was ruined by an unsuitable brand of gelatin, and, unfortunately, the cause was rarely suspected. Then the wet plate was emphatically slow, while it was so easy to make dry plates that were decidedly faster.

Photographers would persist in overexposing, and many a good emulsion was wasted because photographers could not get out of their old ways. With his usual habit of going to the limit, James Inglis twenty years ago made dry plates as fast as are on the market to-day, but they proved his financial ruin.”

Here are a few of the other photographs published by Wilson in 1866.
S.G. Rogers, “Oil Well, Carmichael’s, Pa.,” The Philadelphia Photographer, v. III. No. 35 (April 1866).
John Coates Browne (1838–1918), “Portraits by Magnesium Light,” The Philadelphia Photographer, v. III. No. 35 (January 1866).

Where are the female printmakers?

“Claudine Stella was apprenticed to her uncle Jacques de Stella. She did drawing and painting but gave up painting for engraving, which she preferred and taught to her two sisters. She did both burin engravings and etchings, mostly after Poussin and Jacques Stella. With her supple, fluid approach, she was unsurpassed in her ability to render the colour and genius of Poussin, as well as the more affected talent of Stella. In her will dated 1693, she lists the plates she engraved besides her early works; a grand total of 125.” Benezit Dictionary of Artists

Claudine Stella (1636-1697) after Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Untitled [The Arrest of Christ], no date (1600s). Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.01378

Like many women, Claudine or Claudia Stella lived in the shadow of her uncle, the celebrated painter Jacques de Stella. This print, in the Graphic Arts Collection, along with others in the series, was of questionable attribution for many years. Here’s a bit of Alexander Montgomery’s article “James Stella,” from The Illustrated Magazine of Art, 1854:

Stella sent to Lyons for his nephew, Antoine Bousonnet, and his three nieces, Antoinette, Francoise, and Claudine, taught them drawing, and having perfected them in that art, induced them to apply themselves to engraving, in which branch one of them, Claudine, became justly celebrated. Then were published the innumerable drawings which James Stella had brought from Rome. Francoise Bousonnet, who confined herself to burin engraving, published, in a series of fifty plates, a precious collection of vases, scent-bottles, salt-cellars, lamps, and chandeliers; and in another collection of sixty-seven plates, ornaments suitable for sculpture on different parts of architecture, guilloches, twine, roses, and flowers, imitated from the antique. Antoinette, less laborious, only executed a few etchings.

Claudine, who had taught her two sisters the art of engraving, divided her celebrity with her uncle. Rendered by this learned woman, the works of James Stella rose almost at times to the height of Poussin. This is so true, that the collection of pieces on the “Passion,” which Claudine Bousonnet engraved, and which death prevented her from finishing, were attributed to the painter of Andelys. In truth, one could almost detect in them his heads, and the strong effect and powerful energy of that artist. These compositions are in reality the finest productions of Stella.

Princeton University Library is fortunate to also have a set of 50 engravings by Claudia Stella in the Cotsen Children’s Library.

Jacques Stella (1596-1657), Les ieux et plaisris [sic] de l’enfance (Paris. Aux galleries du Louvre chez la ditte Stella, 1657). [2] 50 engravings. Prints by Claudine Bouzounet Stella. Paper and quality of impressions suggest a later restrike; inscription dated 1846. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) European 18 790

The Last of the Buffalo

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), The Last of the Buffalo, 1888. Oil on canvas. Corcoran Gallery of Art. Gift of Mary Stewart Bierstadt (Mrs. Albert Bierstadt) 09.12.

In 1888, Albert Bierstadt painted The Last of the Buffalo and submitted it to the organizing committee of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889. The painting was rejected as not in line with modern art. Today it hangs in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

The Washington Post tried to explain the rejection as Bierstadt’s fault by submitting too late and ran the headline “The Bierstadt Picture: It Was Not Rejected by the Art Loan Exhibition Committee,” on April 1, 1889:

The following extract is from yesterday’s New York World. It is headed “Real American Art:” What manner of “pigmies’” of pigment are these alleged artists who are seeking a notoriety beyond the reach of their daubs by forming ‘committees’ from their petty little selves and then giving wide publication to the fact that they have ‘rejected’ one of Albert Bierstadt’s pictures: the latest bit of this idiotic impertinence was the exclusion from a Loan Exhibition in Washington of a fine canvas which had not been loaned, but actually given, most generously, by Mr. Bierstadt for the benefit of the charity for which the exhibition was held. The only excuse for this amassing impudence furnished by the ‘artists’ in charge was the Mr. Bierstadt “did not belong to their school of art.” This same thin excuse was also given by the learned committee of chromo-tinkers who selected their own nightmares for the Paris Exhibition, insulted Mr. Inness and ‘rejected’ Mr. Bierstadt’s magnificent work, “The Last of the Buffalo.”
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), The Last of the Buffalo, 1891. Photogravure. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00906

As Bierstadt grew further out of favor with the contemporary art world, his debts also grew. In 1891, he commissioned a photogravure of the rejected painting for widespread sale. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to hold a copy of the enormous print.

Winter Landscape by William Sommer

William Sommer (1867-1949), Winter Landscape, 1924. Oil on pressboard, mounted on plywood. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02638. Gift of the Mildred Andrews Fund in honor of Dr. William Milliken, from the collection of Joseph M. Erdelac.

Twenty-eight year old poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) dedicated the poem Sunday Morning Apples to his friend and mentor, the sixty year old artist William Sommer (1867-1949). A collection of Sommer’s paintings and drawings, including the “Apples” still life, are in the Graphic Arts Collection at Firestone Library, donated to Princeton University thanks to the Mildred Andrews Fund in honor of Dr. William Milliken, ’11, *33 (1889-1978). The arrangements for this gift were made between 1985 and 1986 by Sommer’s foremost collector Joseph M. Erdelac (died 2004), and Peter Putnam ‘42, *50 (1927-1987). Less than one year later, Putnam was tragically hit and killed while riding his bicycle.

The untitled winter landscape above is not unlike the one seen below from the Akron Art Museum, entitled Bach Chord and dated one year earlier. Both are painted on board with a bright palate and rhythmic composition.

The 1920s were a busy time for both the artist and the poet. In a letter from Crane to Sommer, dated May 9, 1923, Crane notes, “Dear Bill, At LAST! A letter from you!!! And let me mention that it was one of the most beautiful I ever got from anyone. AND I am expecting more. I read it, the second and third times during my meal last night . . . ” Thanks to Crane, Sommer has two drawings published in the July 1923 issue of The Dial.

In 1924, Sommer was awarded first prize for drawing at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s May show and Crane finally published his first book, White Buildings, with a poem dedicated to Sommer. One can’t help but wonder if Crane was thinking of this series of paintings when he was titling his book.
William Sommer, Bach Chord, 1923. Oil on composition board. Akron Art Museum. Gift of Russell Munn in memory of Helen G. Munn; 1992.45 a,b

Slip-slides

The Graphic Arts Collection has a large collection of magic lantern slides but only a few mechanical or movable slides. We have some chromotrope slides with cranks or pulleys that produce abstract geometrical patterns and colors. Others have two or three sheets of glass that slide back and forth to conceal and reveal parts of a scene. These are known as slip-slides. Some are meant to be snapped, creating a sudden appearance, while others move slowly, dissolving from one view to another.

Here are a few animated GIFs of our slipping slides.

Roaring at One Hundred

On March 7, 1882, volume one, number one of The Princeton Tiger made its first appearance on campus, with the title page stating “Here we are.” To celebrate the Tiger‘s centennial, a wonderful book was published in 1983 entitled, Roaring at One Hundred: The Princeton Tiger Magazine Centennial Album, with a book jacket designed by Jonathan Bumas, Class of 1978.

Thanks to the generous donation of W. Allen Scheuch II, Class of 1976, the Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the artist’s original watercolor for the front and back of the jacket. It is inscribed on the verso with the following note:

Jonathan Bumas, [Roaring at One Hundred], 1983. Watercolor. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Gift of W. Allen Scheuch II, Class of 1976 in honor of Henry Martin, Class of 1948.
The Centennial staff included Jose W. Pincay-Delgado, Class of 1977, El Navegador de la Locura; W. Allen Scheuch II, Class of 1976, Air Compressor #2; Henry R. Marin, Class of 1948, AKA The Incredible Hank; Katherine R.R. Carpenter, Class of 1979, Doctor Literarum, Honoris Causa; and Donald W. Arbour, Class of 1979, The Fine Chisel.

The book’s introduction begins, “In our frequent wanderings on the planet, we have inadvertently crossed paths with people whose natures seem rooted in rushing through life. We have, on occasion, observed such desperate souls nervously gulping down meals, madly sprinting to the library, or dashing somewhere to prepare for jogging or some equally inspired activity. We are not of that ilk. Rather, we prefer to pause and savor the passing show; to delight in its endless ironies, quandaries, and contradictions, and to laugh at them. The Tiger taught us that; to relish the moment; to take a long drag on the pipe and recreate Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks in smoke rings; to sip the julep by Andy’s Puddle in May with a fine eye for the crabs of their shells and the crisp catches of ours; to sit hearthside in the warmth of a winter’s blaze midst lively company long after the last crumb of cake has reached our gullets, strengthening friendship’s bond with good humor, bad puns, and curious potions; to know the poets not by their call numbers but by their muses.”–Jose W. Pincay-Delgado and W. Allen Scheuch II

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