Author Archives: Julie Mellby

The Fixed Income of France in 1789

What was the state of France’s finances at the beginning of the French Revolution? What was the annual revenue for goods produced in France and sold internationally? How much was spent by the Royal family on their china, silverware, or clothing? How much was loaned to the United States to pay for their revolution?

1789 was a pivotal year in the history of France. The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two enormous broadsides itemizing the finances of the country that year. Detailed in gold with capitals rubricated in red and gold, the handwritten sheets are said to have been displayed publicly yet few copies survive (the only other recorded copies outside France are at Harvard). The sheets appear to be a pair, meant to be studied together:

Tableau des Finances de la France à l’Époque de la Tenue des États-Générau[x]: Ensemble, le Résumé de l’Étendue de la Population et des Contributions de chaque Généralité du Royaume = Table of the Finances of France at the Time of the Holding of the States-General: Together, a Summary of the Extent of the Population and the Contributions of Each Generality of the Kingdom.
and
Apperçu de la Balance du Commerce de la France Année – 1789: Ensemble le Relevé de la Population des Finances et Forces Militaires des Principales Puissances de l’Europe = Overview of the Balance of Trade of France for the Year 1789: Together the Survey of the Population of Finance and Military Forces of the Main Powers of Europe.

Itemized lists detail the fixed income and expenses for the year, with the resulting deficit in the bottom corner. There is a list of goods imported from Holland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, England and the United States, as well as trade with India and China. Here are a few details:

Note on the right: Various objects of national industry include paintings, prints, books, leather, and fans, gloves, etc.

Digitization of Hamilton Smalls

“1767 / Heartman #27 / This is the / [George Parker] Winship copy. / The only one / known.” The New-England Primer Improved for the More Easy Attaining the True Reading of English To Which Is Added, The Assembly of Divines, and Mr. Cotton’s Catechism (1767). 10 cm.

In preparation for the digitization of the Sinclair Hamilton Collection, each volume is being examined by Roel Munoz, Library Digital Imaging Manager, and Mick LeTourneaux, Rare Books Conservator. We are working in order by size, not date, beginning with the smallest American imprints that include woodcuts or wood engravings.

Some conservation will be done now and some will wait until after the volume is photographed, making it easier for the technicians to open and shoot the pages. Missing volumes are being located and Gail Smith, Senior Bibliographic Specialist, is revising the cataloguing to reflect the location in our new vaults.

[Above] An early conservator repaired the spine with new sewing and then, continued stitching across the title page.

[Below] This book was probably repaired by a 19th-century reader using a straight pin, which still holds three pages together.

Every binding will be photographed, front and back, as well as all blank pages, although there are very few. If a special box was constructed for the volumes, it will be photographed also. Wish us luck.

Princeton University. Library. Early American book illustrators and wood engravers, 1670-1870; a catalogue of a collection of American books, illustrated for the most part with woodcuts and wood engravings in the Princeton University Library. With an introductory sketch of the development of early American book illustration by Sinclair Hamilton. With a foreword by Frank Weitenkampf (Princeton, N.J., 1958). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton

Extra Extra George Cruikshank

Thanks to the help of the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired an enlarged and extra-illustrated copy of Blanchard Jerrold (1826-1884), The Life of George Cruikshank (London: Chatto and Windus, 1880 (1882)). These four folio volumes are packed with 1,052 additional hand-colored etchings, engravings, portraits, map, letters, drawings, watercolors, and other significant works highlighting and elaborating on the original text.

The Life of George Cruikshank is not an uncommon book, Princeton has several. The text was prepared four years after Cruikshank’s death in 1878 as an homage to the artist. Extra-illustrated versions are also included in our collection but they do not compare to our new acquisition.

Previously, the largest volume in Princeton’s collection was comprised of two octavo books (as published) with 78 additional plates. Our new acquisition is three times the size with extra material from the whole of Cruikshank’s oeuvre, beginning with his earliest caricatures to his book illustrations (especially Dickens) to his obsession with Temperance, including such series as Monstrosities (Fashion), Oliver Twist, Hunting Stories, The Bottle, Drunkard’s Children and many others. Several prints are signed by Cruikshank in pencil and there are frequent notes concerning their rarity.

There are many plates of London views and haunts; portraits of the Royal family and leading celebrities; playbills and posters for theater productions; along with many prints by Cruikshank’s family and colleagues, such as Thomas Rowlandson, Isaac Cruikshank, James Gillray, Robert Cruikshank and others.

There are seventeen manuscripts and signed items including autograph letters by George Cruikshank, Ruskin, Jerrold, Crowquil, and others. One letter has been attributed to Guy Fawkes.

Note the added borders on the lower print.

Extra-illustrated books are receiving attention from a new generation of scholars. A major conference is planned for next spring at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany along with a special issue of the journal Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte on the subject.

In his study of the history, symptoms, and cure of a fatal disease caused by the unrestrained desire to possess printed works, Thomas Frognall Dibdin observes that “[a] passion for a book which has any peculiarity about it,” as a result of grangerising by means of collected prints, transcriptions, or various cutouts, “or which is remarkable for its size, beauty, and condition—is indicative of a rage for unique copies, and is unquestionably a strong prevailing symptom of the Bibliomania.”

Holywell Street

These volumes join Princeton University Library’s collection of over 1000 of Cruikshank’s caricatures and over 100 of his drawings, collected by Richard Waln Miers, Class of 1888. Thanks to our Friends, these new materials enhance an already great collection, bringing added rewards to our students and to scholars worldwide.

Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur

James Sayers (1748-1823), Illustrious Heads designed for a new History of Republicanism, in French and English, dedicated to the Opposition.1794. London: Hannah Humphrey. Lettered with both titles and “JS / Published 12th May 1794 by H.Humphrey No.18 Old Bond Street.” 9 etchings on wove paper. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

An example of a print with and without a liberty cap

On May 12, 1794, Hannah Humphry’s Old Bond Street print shop released a set of satirical prints by James Sayers (1748-1823) titled “Illustrious Heads.” The eight portraits and a cover sheet were “dedicated to the Opposition,” transforming eight prominent British politicians into French patriots, with new names and the “bonnet rouge” (liberty cap). “Mutato nomine de te Fabula Narratur,” = “Change the name and the joke’s on you [or the story is about you].”

The title sheet features a satyr sitting on a pile of books, who warns, “If the cap fit put it on,” and then adds, “The work will not be compleat till all the heads are taken off.”

Collectors took the set home and cut out the hat (making that sheet extremely rare), so that it could be put on each of the illustrious heads. Princeton’s newly acquired set is complete except for the cap, which is a facsimile.

The Sayers entry in the Dictionary of National Biography notes,

“From 1783 onwards, for several years, he drew a series of caricatures, . . . mainly upon Fox, but subsequently upon Burke and other opponents of Pitt. These caricatures . . . were so powerful and direct in their purpose that Fox is said to have declared that Sayers’s caricatures did him more harm than all the attacks made on him in parliament or the press.”

The set includes these British figures, renamed after their French counterpart:

Charles James Fox (1749-1806) = Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794)

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) = Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac (1755-1841)

Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Stanhope (1753-1816) = Anacharsis Cloots (1755-1794)

James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839) = Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793)

John Courtenay (1738-1816) = Camille Desmoulins (1760-1794)

Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818) = Pierre Philippeaux (1754-1794)

William Petty, 1^st Marquis of Lansdowne (1737-1805) = Bernard-François, Marquis de Chauvelin (1766-1832)

Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 4th Duke of Grafton (1735-1811) = Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d’Orléans (1747-1793)

Attention Princeton Students: Submit Your Essay to Win the 2017-2018 Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize

Deadline: Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Are you an avid collector of books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, or other materials found in libraries? If so, consider submitting an essay about your collection for a chance to win the Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize!

Endowed from the estate of Elmer Adler, who for many years encouraged the collecting of books by Princeton undergraduates, this prize is awarded annually to undergraduate students who, in the opinion of a committee of judges, have shown the most thought and ingenuity in assembling a thematically coherent collection of books, manuscripts, or other material normally collected by libraries.

Please note that the rarity or monetary value of the student’s collection is not as important as the creativity and persistence shown in collecting and the fidelity of the collection to the goals described in a personal essay.

The personal essay is about a collection owned by the student that he or she actively collects or curates as opposed to an essay that focuses on whatever is found in one’s library. The essay 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.

Winners will receive their prizes at an annual dinner of the Friends of the Princeton University Library, which they are expected to attend. 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. In addition, the first-prize winner will have the opportunity to have his or her essay featured in a Library-affiliated publication.

Prize amounts:
First prize: $2000
Second prize: $1500
Third prize: $1000

The deadline for submission is Tuesday, November 28, 2017. Essays should be submitted via e-mail, in a Microsoft Word attachment, to Julie Mellby, jmellby@princeton.edu. They should be between 9-10 pages long, 12pt, double-spaced, with a 1-inch margin, and include a separate cover sheet with your name, class year, residential address, email address, and phone number.

In addition to the essay, each entry should include a selected bibliography of no more than 3 pages detailing the items in the collection. 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.

For inquiries, please contact Julie Mellby, jmellby@princeton.edu.

Recent Adler Prize Winning Essays:

Matthew Kritz, ’18. “Books Unforgotten: Finding the Lost Volumes of My Tradition.”

Nandita Rao, ’17. “Of Relationships: Recording Ties through My LP Collection.”

Samantha Flitter, ’16. “The Sand and the Sea: An Age of Sail in Rural New Mexico.” also the recipient of the 2016 National Collegiate Book Collection Contest Essay Award.

Anna Leader ’18. “‘Like a Thunderstorm’; A Shelved Story of Love and Literature” Princeton University Library Chronicle 76:3 (spring)

Rory Fitzpatrick ‘16. “The Search for the Shape of the Universe, One Book at a Time.” PULC 75:3 (spring)

Natasha Japanwala ’14. “Conversation Among the Ruins: Collecting Books By and About Sylvia Plath.” PULC 74:2 (winter)

Mary Thierry ’12. “Mirror, Mirror: American Daguerrean Portraits.” PULC 73:3 (spring)

Solar Eclipse Returns

http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/3044
After a weekend of record attendance, the exhibition Transient Effects: The Solar Eclipses and Celestial Landscapes of Howard Russell Butler, closed at the Princeton University Art Museum and Butler’s triptych Solar Eclipse, Lompoc 1923, returned to Firestone Library where it has been on view in the 3rd floor study room.

As the curator notes, “On Aug 21, 2017 the first solar eclipse of this century [was] visible in the U.S. The solar eclipse has always been a source of mystery and fascination, serving at some times as a foreboding omen and at others as a key means of understanding the scientific concept of general relativity. In 1918, Howard Russell Butler (1856–1934)—a portrait and landscape artist and graduate of Princeton University’s first school of science—painted a new kind of portrait, of a very unusual sitter: the total solar eclipse. With remarkable accuracy, he captured those rare seconds when the moon disappears into darkness—crowned by the flames of the sun, whose brilliant colors had eluded photography.”

Undaunted by the rainstorm today in Princeton or the small size of our elevators, the art handlers managed to get the oil painting upstairs and back on the wall. Thanks to everyone for making this happen so quickly.

For more information, see the exhibition website: http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/transient-effects/painter-sun/eclipse-paintings-howard-russell-butler

Printed Words & Images in America before 1900

Over the long weekend a broad cross-section of historian attended “Good, Fast, Cheap: Printed Words & Images in America before 1900,” a joint conference sponsored by the American Printing History Association (APHA) and the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). https://printinghistory.org/2017-conference/

The program was organization by Sara T. Sauers, APHA VP for Programs, and Nan Wolverton, AAS Director, CHAViC, (with the help of many others). Besides two dozen papers, there were exhibits, receptions, and a performance. A private visit to the Museum of Printing History in Haverhill, Massachusetts, rounded out the weekend. http://apha.memberlodge.org/event-2622155

We learned about typos in the Declaration of Independence, female run and printed newspapers (not only as sheet feeders), the time and cost of adding an intaglio image to a letterpress book, pictorial envelopes, what happened when newspaper publishers ran out of white paper, what happens when you take the ornaments off title pages (including those of William Morris), and much much more.

My favorite printed envelope

APHA is a membership organization founded in 1974 that encourages the study of the history of printing and related arts and crafts, including calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. The organization does this through a wide variety of programs and services: the annual conference and Lieberman Lecture series; the fellowship program; the scholarly journal Printing History; and annual individual and institutional awards that honor distinguished achievement in the field of printing history.

CHAViC was established at the AAS in 2005 and is dedicated to providing opportunities for educators to learn about American visual culture and resources, promoting the awareness of AAS collections, and stimulating research and intellectual inquiry into American visual materials. CHAViC accomplishes these goals by offering fellowships, exhibitions, workshops and seminars, conferences, resources, and improved access to AAS collections.

La Chromolithographie et la Photochromolithographie

One of the best chapters in this volume on lithographic printing describes and illustrates a commercial pantograph, which could be used to reduce or enlarge a picture as well as easily transferring the image to another surface. Written by Frederic Hesse, the technical director of the Lithographic Atelier of the National Printing Office in Vienna, the descriptions are specific without being overly complex.

Frédéric Hess, La chromolithographie et la photo-chromolithographie (Paris: A. Muller, [1897]). Translation of: Die Chromolithographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der modernen auf photographischer Grundlage basirenden Verfahren. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

For a book on color printing, there is little actual color inside but many black and white diagram of machinery and process. For example, Hesse shows how to dis-assemble an image into separate color sections, each one drawn and then printed from a different stone with a different color ink.

Hesse went on to publish Die Schriftlithographie: eine theoretisch-praktische Anleitung zur Erlernung der Schrift: mit Vorlageblättern sämtlicher in der lithographischen Technik zur Anwendung kommenden Schriftcharaktere unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der modernen Kunstrichtung = Lithographic writing: a theoretical and practical guide to the study of the writing: with preliminary sheets of all characters used in the lithographic technique with special consideration of the modern art direction.

Pfeffel’s Fables

Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (1736-1809), Fables et poésies choisies de Théophile-Conrad Pfeffel: traduites en vers français et précédées d’une notice biographique par M. Paul Lehr (Strasbourg: G. Silbermann et L. Derivaux, 1840). Graphic Arts RECAP-97004798

Originally written in German and published as Fabeln und poetische Erzählungen, nine editions of the text were published between 1840 and 1861. Paul Lehr (1787-1865) did the French translation in 1840 for the publishers Sibermann and Derivaus, who paid special attention to the design and printing of this edition. Michael Twyman notes that some of the earliest datable examples of the five-colour method are to be found in this volume.

Georges Zipélius (1808-1890) drew the illustrations and Frédéric-Emile Simon (1805-1886) was responsible for the chromolithographic printing on the title page and on the four chapter or book titles, with text printed by Gustave Silbermann (1801-1876).

David Whitesell, at the University of Virginia wrote a nice piece on planographic printing found in their collection, commenting

“Printers have long sought to demonstrate and advertise their prowess through specimen work, and lithographers have been no exception. Perhaps the finest early chromolithographic printing was that executed by the Strasbourg firm of Frédéric Émile Simon. During the 1830s Simon teamed with the innovative calligrapher Jean Midolle to issue three extraordinary specimen books . . . [including] Album du Moyen Âge (1836). That many of its plates are heightened with dusted gold, silver, and bronze powders, and even some discreet hand coloring, does not detract from their beauty and technical mastery.”

The Young Crocodile and the Lizard

One day a young crocodile, on the banks of the Niger, discovered a lizard; He was going to devour him. “Grace!” said the reptile, “For your cousin.”
“How talkative! You my cousin? Explain the matter to me. – You see in me, my dear parent, A crocodile still child.”
“Indeed, yes, the more I consider you, the more I perceive that we resemble each other; But to dispel my doubts, let us go and find my mother; Quickly, my dear cousin, let us plunge!”
The frightened lizard: “What! you want me to dive? I never supported the water. – Oh! for the blow, all handsome!
“You think I’m imposing it by a rude lie: I’m not your dupe, and I’m going, neighbor, to swallow you!”
At these words, opening his huge mouth, he crunched without pity the alleged cousin.

One cannot always be deceived by appearance.

Sunbonnet Sue and I Want My Man

Thanks to a generous donation from David S. Brooke, director emeritus of the Clark Art Institute, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a new group of magic lantern slides. Among them are an almost complete set of “Sunbonnet Sue,” presumably images to accompany the song of that title, music by Gus Edwards (1879-1945) and lyrics by Will D. Cobb (1876-1930), published in 1908 by Gus Edwards Music Publishing Company.

In addition, there is a set of beautifully colored slides from the firm of Scott and Van Altena (SVA) of New York City, with the title “I Want My Man.” Scott and Van Altena are discussed at length in a recent article entitled “Outstanding Colorists of American Magic Lantern Slides,” by Terry Borton (American Magic-Lantern Theater. P.O. Box 44 East Haddam CT) in a recent Magic Lantern Gazette. He notes:

“One other company needs to be mentioned for out-standing color, both of detail, and of overall flamboyant impact. Scott and Van Altena (SVA) was the leading producer of the “illustrated song” slides that became popular about 1900, so popular that a minimum order became 20 sets and an order of 200 sets was not uncommon. The sets were usually of 12 to 14 images, selling for $5.00 (about $132.00 today).

The slides combine life models, elaborate photographic montages, and vibrant color—all depicting the lyrics of popular songs sung in movie theaters, and all perfectly matching the spirit of a new century. “Novelty” montages were created by combining negatives in a process that SVA guarded closely. The coloring was done in two rooms of the company’s New York studio, using aniline paints applied by camel-hair brushes.

John D. Scott and Edward Van Altena, the principals of the company, had somewhat different roles. Van Altena, whose mother had been an artist, became a photographer, and was the company’s master in that field. Scott was the master colorist—though Van Altena was responsible for coloring half the sets. Scott, who was deaf, had gone to the Lexington School for the Deaf, where he was taught by Dwight Elmendorf, whose comments about coloring were presented earlier, and who will reappear as an out-standing colorist later in this article.”

https://library.sdsu.edu/pdf/scua/ML_Gazette/MLGvol26no01.pdf