Isaac Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), The Air Balloon or the Ascension of Drury, April 1821. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection
When actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) broke a contract with the Drury Lane Theatre and sailed to America in October 1820, actor/manager Robert Elliston (1774-1831) had to come up with an equally charismatic performer or the theater would go bankrupt.
He signed a contract with an unknown nineteen-year-old soprano named Mary Ann Wilson (1802-1867) who made her debut at the Drury Lane on January 18, 1821, as Mandane in Thomas Augustine Arne’s Artaxerxes. She was an immediate sensation and remained there until July 5, singing for about 65 nights. The Morning Post declared that “the unparalleled and highly merited success of the incomparable fair warbler of Drury, has already obtained for her the distinguishing appellation of ‘The Wilson’.”
In advertising her upcoming performance Elliston used red lettering for the first time at a major theater. The Times‘s reviewer wrote “Miss Wilson, who has made her debut at Drury Lane, has not shamed the prologue which announced her. We were sadly afraid, we confess, that Mr. Elliston’s red letters would amount to little or nothing, but we have been agreeably disappointed. The lady is a powerful singer. . .”
No less than King George IV (peeking out on the right) came to see her perform on February 6, 1821 along with his royal brothers, the Dukes of York and Clarence. By April, the theater’s success was so great that Isaac Robert Cruikshank drew this print showing the Drury Lane being lifted out of dependency and the weight of debt by the aria “The Soldier Tir’d of War’s Alarms,” which was Wilson’s climactic song in the third act.
In the print, Elliston is seen waving his hat from the basket and Kean, labeled “the deserter,” performs Richard III far away in America, exclaiming, ‘Twas but a Dream [‘I did but dream’, Richard III, v. iii].
Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), The Soldier Tired of War’s Alarms, Sung in Artaxerxes, Composed by Dr. Arne (New York: J.A. & W. Geib at their Piano Forte Warehouse and Wholesale & Retail Music Store, between 1818-1821).
162 figures have been counted in this monumental engraving composed by Charles LeClerc I and dedicated to Louis XIV. The print has been revised and reused many times, this impression for the 1788 New Royal Encyclopædia. It found its way to Princeton in the Harold Fowler McCormick Collection of Aeronautica assembled by Harold Fowler McCormick, Class of 1896, and given to the library by Alexander Stillman. See more: Maurice H. Smith, “Travel by Air before 1900,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 27 (1966), pp. 143-147 [ full text],
Charles Grignion (1721-1810) after Sébastien LeClerc (1637-1714), A General Display of the Arts and Sciences, no date. Engraved frontispiece to volume one of William Henry Hall (died 1807), The New Royal Encyclopædia; or, Complete Modern Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, on an improved plan. Containing a new, universal, accurate, and copious display of the whole theory and practice of the liberal and mechanical arts, and all the respective sciences, ... In three volumes…. assisted by other learned and ingenious gentlemen (London: printed for C. Cooke, [1788]).
This was a revision of Le Clerc’s earlier engraving:
Sébastien Leclerc I (1637–1714), L’Académie des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts, 1698. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1962 (62.598.300). http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/387878
After the original pen and ink study:
Sébastien Leclerc I (1637-1714), The Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts, pen and black and grey ink, with grey wash, over red chalk, on two joined pieces of paper, with many smaller pieces inlaid and overlaid, ca. 1698. British Museum
Although you will not find any listed in OCLC, the Argentine books edited, constructed, and published by Carlos Ríos through his imprint Oficina Perambulante are numerous. Their format is consistent: each volume 10 x 7 cm, 16 pages, and a cardboard cover from found materials. Don’t look for them in the bookstores around Buenos Aires or elsewhere, Ríos prefers to sell (or give) them directly from his backpack. Where he is, there are his books.
Here is a small section of a conversation between Luciana Caamaño and Carlos Ríos (loosely translated to English):
LC: How did the Oficina Perambulante come about?
CR: A long time ago I was playing with some formats, after Ediciones el Broche, my first editorial experience. I really like editorial work. The Oficina Perambulante emerged as a need to edit and also make books. . . . every person who writes should have to go through the experience of making books, their own books.
I am very concerned about the price of books, people can’t afford to buy them because they need that money for other things. I make inexpensive booklets that can be bought by anyone. In addition these books have an exceptional character. I lost count of the number of copies I made.
It is a press I carry with me, I can load the items to make the books and make them anywhere; As I walk through the streets, I gather cardboard for the covers of the books, the glossy American cardboard. It is a space of maximum freedom, writing a story in the morning and by night the book is ready to be released. . . The books are with me, carried in my backpack, and if I am not there, there are no books. I tried leaving some in bookstores but it doesn’t work, it works with me, sold where I am.
— https://www.eternacadencia.com.ar/blog/contenidos-originales/entrevistas/item/la-perfeccion-tambien-aburre.html
The Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a small number of Oficina Perambulante volumes: Amé Dieciocho Veces Pero Recuerdo Sólo Tres by Silvina Ocampo, no date Bing by Samuel Beckett [1966], no date Biografía by Carlos Ríos, 2016 Calandria by Sergio Chejfec, 2018 Cuando Nada Pasa Hay un Milagro que no Estamos Viendo by Daniel Sada [1987], no date El Dedo del Maniquí by Carlos Ríos, 2016 El Día que Fuimos Perros by Elena Garro [1964], no date El Dogo del Amor by Carlos Ríos, 2016 El Mes de las Moscas by Sergio Chejfec, no date “En qué to han transformado, Daniel?” by Carlos Ríos, 2016 Sobre la Dificultad de Leer translated by E. Kavi, by Giorgio Agamben, 2016 Un Relato Infantil by Carlos Ríos, 2016 Una Noche, Senté a Donald J. Trump en Mis Rodillas, [Carlos Rios?], 2017 Una Obra, Un Museo by Carlos Ríos, 2016
With summer vacation over, many friends of the Graphic Arts Collection are returning with additions to our printed cork collection. Along with printed cloth, printed boxes, printed cigarette cards, printed labels, and other printed ephemera, we also collect printing-in-the-round with these international corks.
Friends, less talk and more Champagne. . .
From The New York Times: “Who Made That Champagne Cork?” By PAGAN KENNEDY, December
According to legend, a French monk named Dom Pérignon realized that a cork could seal in the fizz and flavor of Champagne after he saw Spanish travelers using tree bark to plug their water gourds. But George Taber, author of “To Cork or Not to Cork,” and other historians dispute this story. Taber cites evidence of Champagne corks on the Duke of Bedford’s household inventory list from 1665 — several years before Dom Pérignon took charge of the vineyards at the abbey of Hautvillers. Still, Pérignon and his name remain indelibly associated with Champagne. . . .
The Graphic Arts Collection is the fortunate new owner of eight 18th-century optical views from The Netherlands, meant to be viewed with a zograscope. These are early hand colored etchings on heavy wove paper without any title printed either above or below the view. Thanks to our donor Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986. Several have a hand-written note taped to the back and others can be identified online. Any additional information would be appreciated.
Can you figure out the reason for the second story hut?
These are not “hold to light” prints, there are no holes or treatment to light up the windows or stars when placed in front of a light. It is possible they were meant to be but never finished, just as the titles have not been printed.
Vue du coté du Port pres la Tour Abbaije à Middelbourg
Gezicht van de Oude Waalse-Kerk (Face of the Old Walloon Church), Amsterdam, ca. 1783.
John Syme, John James Audubon, 1826, oil on canvas. White House Historical Association.
Within the first six months of John James Audubon’s arrival in Great Britain, he was immortalized with two portraits: an oil painting by John Syme and a life mask cast under the supervision of George Combe. James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans was taking Europe by storm and Audubon was everyone’s image of an American woodsman.
For the oil painting, he was instructed to wear his wolf-skin coat and later wrote, “if the head is not a strong likeness, perhaps the coat may be. …It is a strange-looking figure, with gun, strap, and buckles, and eyes that to me are more those of an enraged Eagle than mine.”
Still the portrait had lasting effect:Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans, released September 25, 1992.
N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), Last of the Mohicans, 1919. Oil painting reproduced as the endpapers of James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919).
November 27, 1826: …at nine was again with Mr. Lizars, who was to accompany me to Mr. Combe’s, and reaching Brower Square we entered the dwelling of Phrenology! Mr. Scot, the president of that society, Mr. D. Stewart, Mr. McNalahan, and many others were there, and also a German named Charles N. Weiss, a great musician. Mr. George Combe immediately asked this gentleman and myself if we had any objection to have our heads looked at by the president, who had not yet arrived. We both signified our willingness, and were seated side by side on a sofa. When the president entered Mr. Combe said: “I have here two gentlemen of talent; will you please tell us in what their natural powers consist?” Mr. Scot came up, bowed, looked at Mr. Weiss, felt his head carefully all over, and pronounced him possessed of musical faculty in a great degree; I then underwent the same process, and he said: “There cannot exist a moment of doubt that this gentleman is a painter, colorist, and compositor, and I would add an amiable, though quick-tempered man.”
Monday, December 18: At five I dined with George Combe, the conversation chiefly phrenology. George Combe is a delightful host, and had gathered a most agreeable company. . . . Mr. Combe has been to see me, and says my poor skull is a greater exemplification of the evidences of the truth of his system than any he has seen, except those of one or two whose great names only are familiar to me; and positively I have been so tormented about the shape of my head that my brains are quite out of sorts. Nor is this all; my eyes will have to be closed for about one hour, my face and hair oiled over, and plaster of Paris poured over my nose (a greased quill in each nostril), and a bust will be made.
Wednesday, December 20: Phrenology was the order of the morning. I was at Brown Square, at the house of George Combe by nine o’clock, and breakfasted most heartily on mutton, ham, and good coffee, after which we walked upstairs to his sanctum sanctorum. A beautiful silver box containing the instruments for measuring the cranium, was now opened … and I was seated fronting the light. Dr. Combe acted as secretary and George Combe, thrusting his fingers under my hair, began searching for miraculous bumps. My skull was measured as minutely and accurately as I measure the bill or legs of a new bird, and all was duly noted by the scribe. Then with most exquisite touch each protuberance was found as numbered by phrenologists, and also put down according to the respective size. I was astounded when they both gave me the results of their labors in writing, and agreed in saying I was a strong and constant lover, an affectionate father, had great veneration for talent, would have made a brave general, that music did not equal painting in my estimation, that I was generous, quick-tempered, forgiving, and much else which I know to be true, though how they discovered these facts is quite a puzzle to me.
January 14, 1826: After receiving many callers I went to Mr. O’Neill’s to have a cast taken of my head. My coat and neckcloth were taken off, my shirt collar turned down, I was told to close my eyes; Mr. O’Neill took a large brush and oiled my whole face, the almost liquid plaster of Paris was poured over it, as I sat uprightly till the whole was covered; my nostrils only were exempt. In a few moments the plaster had acquired the needful consistency, when it was taken off by pulling it down gently. The whole operation lasted hardly five minutes; the only inconvenience felt was the weight of the material pulling downward over my sinews and flesh. On my return from the Antiquarian Society that evening, I found my face on the table, an excellent cast.–https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Audubon_and_His_Journals/The_European_Journals
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), Last of the Mohicans (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, [February 1826]).
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), Last of the Mohicans (London: John Miller, [March] 1826).
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), Last of the Mohicans (Paris: L. Baudry, [April] 1826).
The Chicago Siegel-Cooper Company was established in 1887 and nine years later owner Henry Siegel opened an enormous department store in New York at 18th Street and 6th Avenue. It was, at that time, the largest store in the world. On opening day, a near riot occurred as 150,000 shoppers tried to squeeze into the store built to house only 35,000. Note the elevated railroad stop exclusive to the store.Twenty-three electric elevators carried shoppers to four floors (five and six were confined to staff), along with a basement restaurant and botanical garden on the roof. The first floor book department included a stationary unit with a small press for engraved wedding invitations and visiting cards. From 1905 to 1915, the concession was managed by Cassius Coleman and his son, painter Glenn O. Coleman (1881-1932). See number 29 on the floor plan:Along 18th street between 7th and 8th avenue was their enormous stable housing 200 horses for home delivery of purchases and a hospital for sick horses run by a team of veterinarians.
Besides the botanical garden, the roof featured an immense photography gallery, “the largest and most complete in the United States. It is fitted up with all the latest improvements appertaining to the photographic art, and an able staff of assistants under the control of a master of the art of artistic portraiture. Here the visitor can obtain the finest and most artistic portraits, varying in size from the smallest miniature to life size.”
According to the store’s literature, the gallery completed “4,000 photographs on a bright day and 20,000 in a week, [in] the most modern and up-to-date gallery in America. Enlarging is done in crayons, water colors, pastel, and oils. The visitor can obtain a crayon portrait for $1 to $25, or he can pay $250 to $300 for the finest kind of reproduction in pastel or oils.”
The space included a great reception room where sitters congregated along with various cozy dressing and retiring rooms for changing clothes and preparing to be photographed.
Read more: A Bird’s-Eye View of Greater New York and Its Most Magnificent Store: being a concise and comprehensive visitor’s guide to Greater New York, its myriad sights and scenes, and its grandest emporium of commerce, the big store of Siegel-Copper Co. (New York: Siegel, Cooper & Co., 1898).
“How do we start to imagine ourselves as deeper caretakers of the things that exist in the world?” —Theaster Gates In 2012 Gates purchased the Stony Island Trust & Savings Bank for one dollar. Today, “the Stony Island Arts Bank is a hybrid gallery, media archive, library and community center … built in 1923, the bank … had closed and the building remained vacant and deteriorating for decades. Reopened in October 2015, the radically restored building serves as a space for neighborhood residents to preserve, access, reimagine and share their heritage.” —https://rebuild-foundation.org/site/stony-island-arts-bank/
Forget about the $30 million sale of the Johnson Publishing’s historic Ebony and Jet magazine photo archive, the Johnson Publishing Archive + Collections was donated, free of charge, to the Arts Bank collection.
“The archive features more than 15,000 items including books, periodicals, ephemera, paintings, and sculpture, along with original furnishings and interior design elements custom-designed for JPC’s downtown Chicago offices by Arthur Elrod.”
The library, including complete runs of Jet and Ebony along with African history, American literature, and more, is open to all researchers.
Other collections include the University of Chicago glass magic lantern slides, over 60,000 slides of art and architectural history from the Paleolithic to Modern eras.
“In 2009, the Visual Resources Center’s historic collection of lantern slides at the University of Chicago was digitized and donated to artist Theaster Gates. Since then, a public digital collection has been made available online, the physical slides have been a part of several artist projects, and now the collection is permanently housed in the new Stony Island Arts Bank, a cultural venue for the community on the South Side of Chicago.” https://online.vraweb.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=vrab
The Stony Island Arts Bank is several blocks south of the site of the Chicago Columbian Exposition and the upcoming Barack Obama Presidential Center https://www.obama.org/the-center/. The New York-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA), who designed Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, will design President Barack Obama’s presidential library.
Base-Ball
The Ball once struck off,
Away flies the Boy
To the next destin’d Post,
And then Home with Joy.
Moral
Thus Seamen, for Lucre
Fly over the Main,
But, with Pleasure transported
Return back again.
Now online is a digital copy of Sinclair Hamilton’s: A little pretty pocket-book: intended for the instruction of amusement of little Master Tommy, and pretty Miss Polly. With two letters from Jack the Giant-Killer: as also a ball and pincushion: the use of which will infallibly make Tommy a good boy, and Polly a good girl: To which is added, A little song-book, being a new attempt to teach children the use of the English alphabet, by way of diversion . . . First Worcester edition (Printed at Worcester, Massachusetts: By Isaiah Thomas, and sold wholsesale and retail at his bookstore, MDCCLXXXVII [1787]). 11 cm, 64 woodcuts. Digital: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/jm214s73x. Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 115s; also in Cotsen Eng 18 8136
This is a reprint of Newbery’s edition originally published in London in 1744; first published in the United States by Hugh Gaine in 1762 as A Little Pretty Book. According to Hamilton, the mention of baseball on p. 43 might be the first. It predates other possible baseball “firsts.”
“The earliest known mention of baseball in the United States was in a 1792 Pittsfield, Massachusetts by law banning the playing of the game within 80 yards of the town meeting house. Another early reference reports that “base ball” was regularly played on Saturdays on the outskirts of New York City (in what is now Greenwich Village) in 1823. …The booming port city of New York had more than 120,000 residents in 1823, according to the census, and its warren of cobblestone lanes had pushed as far north as present-day Canal Street. The Retreat mentioned in the article was a two-acre rural estate that in 1822 became the site of a tavern run by a man named William Jones.– https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-pittsfield-baseball-bylaw-of-1791-what-it-means-940a3ccf08db
It also pre-dates the mention of the first game at The Retreat in New York City. “… articles appeared April 25, 1823; they indicate that some form of the game was even then being called ”base ball” and was played in Manhattan. … The game was played on the west side of Broadway between what is today Eighth Street and Washington Place in Greenwich Village, long before anyone dreamed of putting on a pinstripe uniform.– https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/08/nyregion/baseball-s-disputed-origin-is-traced-back-back-back.html
On August 10, 2019, the priest/poet Ernesto Cardenal (born 1925) received an award from the Academy of Sciences of Nicaragua (ACN) for his contributions to national literature. This follows the February 2019 absolution granted Cardenal by Pope Francis from “all canonical censorships,” which he incurred in 1984.
In 1988, Cardenal was scheduled to speak at Princeton University but was denied a visa by the United States government. Again in 1990, a scheduled visit was cancelled fearing denial of access. The Daily Princetonian, 114, no 104 (26 October 1990) noted:
“Professors yesterday said they were outraged at reports that U.S. government visa restrictions prompted Nicaraguan poet and priest ErnestoCardenal to cancel a nation-wide speaking tour scheduled to begin here yesterday. Though the state department granted Cardenal admission privileges, the poet’s colleagues said visa restrictions caused him to doubt that immigration authorities would allow him to enter the country. “McCarthyism is still alive in relation to Latin America,” said Latin American Studies director Arcadio Diaz-Quinones, whose program sponsored the visit. “It’s very disturbing that intellectuals and writers are not allowed to lecture and engage in dialogue with us.”
In 2018, Uruguay named Cardenal the winner of the Mario Benedetti International Prize. The Iberoamerican Poetry Awards Pablo Neruda (2009) and the Reina Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize (2012) are among the many other important awards he has received.
Princeton’s online catalogue lists 189 titles by Cardenal, beginning in 1965 with Oración por Marilyn Monroe, y otros poemas. (PQ7519.C34 O7 1965). See also: Antonio Martorell (Puerto Rican, born 1939) and Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaraguan, born 1925). Los Salmos [The Psalms]. Puerto Rico: Martorell, 1971. Graphic Arts Collection, Copy 24 of 200.
Listen to Cardenal read at Vanderbilt University in 2011 (translations provided).
Isaac Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), The Air Balloon or the Ascension of Drury, April 1821. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection
Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), The Soldier Tired of War’s Alarms, Sung in Artaxerxes, Composed by Dr. Arne (New York: J.A. & W. Geib at their Piano Forte Warehouse and Wholesale & Retail Music Store, between 1818-1821).
