Author Archives: Julie Mellby

A Dictionary to Wear Around Your Neck

Thanks to the generous gift of Robert J. Milevski, the Graphic Arts Collection now holds “The Smallest English Dictionary in the World” (Glasgow: David Bryce and Sons, [1900]). This is an estimated date of issue, no printed date can be found in the volume.

The book is contained in a metal case with glass window; designed to be worn on a chain around your neck. Unfortunately, you would also have to carry a large magnifying glass.

Bryce’s English Dictionary [cover title], The smallest English dictionary in the world: comprising besides the ordinary and newest words in the language short explanations of a large number of scientific, philosophical, literary and technical terms (Glasgow: David Bryce and Sons, 1900). 384 pages; 27 mm. References: Welsh, D.V. Miniature books; no. 2408; Bondy, L.W. Miniature books; p. 106-107. Gift of Robert J. Milevski. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process.

Our binding is not as nice as the one in Buckingham Palace: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/1171055/the-smallest-english-dictionary-in-the-world

Correction: Thank you to Gordon Dow, who wrote on September 26, 2024 to explain that the glass window of the case functioned as a magnifying glass.

Espaces aveugles

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired one of the seventeen copies of Espaces aveugles (Blind Spaces) editioned by the filmmaker and visual artist Charles Billot. Best viewed in a dark room, the reflections from each location also add to the visual narrative.


Espaces aveugles is a book with no binding or spine, no introduction or index, no gutter or endsheet. The pages of Billot’s book are comprised of a series of photographs (inkjet on velum paper) to be viewed on a light box, which constitutes the book block. Readers are given the freedom to create their own unique narrative every time they page through the book. “Charles processes his film in complete darkness before exposing it to light. The edition, both a book and a work of art in itself, is a reflection of the artistic process behind the images it brings together.” https://www.instagram.com/storm_editions/


The book is published by the Brooklyn-based studio Storm Editions, which states “We create beautiful objects that are books.” According to their website “Storm Editions is born from love for books. And a need of new ways of interacting with art books. Founded by Nour Sabbagh Chahal, Storm Editions focuses on collaborations between multidisciplinary artists. We are an independent edition house.”

The prototype of Espaces Aveugles is dated 2016 but in truth, the edition was only recently finished and shipped. Special thanks to Nathaniel Wojtalic, who worked with Storm Editions to design and manufacture the light boxes.

Charles Billot, Espaces Aveugles (Brooklyn, NY: Storm Editions, 2017). Copy 11 of 17, numbered and signed. Graphic Arts collection GAX 2017- in process

From Ben Shahn to Andy Warhol to Sister Corita


One of several themes explored during the visit by students in VIS 326 “Pathological Color” with James Welling, was the artistic lineage from Ben Shahn (1898-1969) to Andy Warhol (1928-1987) to Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986).

All three of these celebrated artists also had connections with Princeton, beginning with Shahn who lived a few miles east in Roosevelt, N.J., a homestead originally designed for Jewish immigrant garment workers who wanted to leave New York City.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Shahn’s painting and graphic arts were exhibited in Princeton and at the University. He participated, along with composer John Cage and Judith Malina, co-founder and director of the Living Theatre, in a 1961 panel discussion entitled, “Art and the Responsive Action,” at Princeton’s Murray Theater that inspired many residents to begin protesting injustice.

The following year, Shahn received an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Princeton and that June, designed the set for a production of W.B. Yeats’s play, “Calvary,” at Princeton’s Theatre Intime. These are a few of many interactions Shahn had with the students and faculty.

                    
We are fortunate to own Andy Warhol’s self-published A is an Alphabet and Love is a Pink Cake, given to then curator Gillett Griffin on a visit to the artist in New York City. They are two of a series of books and multiples Warhol printed from 1953 to 1959 as personal gifts to introduce his work to art directors and publishers.

Early in March 1966, many of our students joined Rutgers colleagues to hear Warhol personally introduced a program of his films. Todd Simonds, class of 1968, interviewed the artist:

“Andy Warhol is a nervous, soft-spoken, ordinary-looking man. He dresses informally, wears his hair medium length, streaked artificially with gray. In short, he could get lost in a crowd. He also happens to be the man at the top Ol the Pop Culture heap. If he is not the ‘best, he is at least the best known. Mr. Warhol first gained national attention when his paintings of soup cans and salamis were suddenly in demand by serious art collectors in New York.”

“…With him he brought his circle of co-workers —actors, cameramen and friends. The Rutgers program consisted of three films, ranging from a back-and-white soap opera (one of his first films) through a 35-minute reel of a blonde-haired New York post-debutante named Edie Sedgewick eating breakfast to a wild, multi-projector floor show. Before the show began, Mr. Warhol and Gerard Malanga (who calls himself an “underground superstar”) discussed their work.”

You will enjoy reading the extended article here.



Born Frances Elizabeth Kent, Sister Corita created iconic works of Pop art and social activism. In 1962, she visited the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles where Andy Warhol’s soup cans were on view and began producing her own prints. Like Warhol, she favored brightly colored screen prints.

In 1962, Town Topics reported on an exhibition of liturgical art held at Princeton’s Aquinas Foundation on Stockton Street featuring Ulli Steltzer and Sister Mary Corita, among others. A few years later, the Calvary Baptist Church mounted a show of Carita’s serigraphs and another was held at Murray-Dodge on the Princeton campus.

The artist returned to campus in March 1968 to give a lecture at the Princeton Seminary as part of the fourth Edward F. Gallahue “Theology Today” conference. We are fortunate to have recently acquired a box-set of Corita’s screen prints from that year.

The class will study the history of color both printed and photographic. Here are a few more images from their visit.


See also: Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Remarks on colour, translation of Bemerkungen über die Farben ([Pasadena, Calif: Archetype Press, Art Center College of Design, 1994]). “This work is limited to sixty copies. It is printed in 43 colors on Mohawk Superfine letterpress paper using foundry and wood type and polymer plates. The cover is handmade Diego Negra paper. The end papers are Japanese Moriki. The binder was Alice Vaughn. All work was printed on Vandercook proof presses at Archetype Press …”–Colophon. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize Z232.A59 W57f

Gustaf Nordenskiöld (1868-1895)

Gustaf Nordenskiöld (1868-1895), The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, Southwestern Colorado: their pottery and implements ([Chicago: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1893]). Western Americana F778.N8q

Gustaf Nordenskiöld (1868-1895), Ruiner af klippboningar i Mesa Verde’s cañons / af G. Nordenskiöld; med talrika illustrationer efter originalfotografier af författaren ([Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt, 1893]). Western Americana 2014-0242Q

In his preface, translated by D. Lloyd Morgan and dated August 14, 1893, Swedish geologist Gustaf Nordenskiöld wrote:

The summer and autumn of 1891 I passed in Colorado, engaged upon investigations of the remarkable cliff-dwellings scattered in the canons of an extensive plateau, the Mesa Verde, in the south-west of the State. The present work is the result of those researches. It contains a description of the ruins, an account of the excavations carried out there and of the objects discovered.

In order to trace as far as possible the development of the cliff-dweller culture, I append a survey of the ruins in the South-western States akin to the cliff-dwellings of the Mesa Verde, a description of the Moki Indians, the descendants of the ancient Pueblo tribes, and an account, based on the relations of the first Spanish explorers, of the manners and customs of the agricultural town-building Indians in the middle of the sixteenth century. A special part of the work is devoted to a description by Prof. G. Retzius of the crania found during the excavations.

In order to give my descriptions of the ruins and of the objects found in them as great objectivity as possible, I have almost exclusively employed in the illustrations direct methods of reproduction. The ruins have been reproduced from my photographs, partly in autotype by Messrs. Angerer & Goschl of Vienna, partly in photogravure at the Librairies-imprimeries Reunies in Paris. The pottery, implements, etc. are heliotyped from photographs of the originals by Mr. Chr. Westphal of Stockholm. 14 August, 1893. G. Nordenskiold.

The photogravures were printed from Nordenskiöld’s own photographs at Librairies-imprimeries réunies. managed by Albert Quantin. The actual printer was probably the heliogravurist Paul Dujardin (1843-1913), who worked for Quantin and other publishers from his shop at 28, rue Vavin.

With thanks to our Lecturer in Visual Arts Fia Backström, here is the translation of the inscription in our volume:
To Gustaf’s teacher,

The assistant at the Royal national archive
Honorary A – Hammarskiöld
with many warm regards
from
Gustaf’s father

A Nordenskiöld.

‘Go wanderers on the road of life.
Your path ahead with quick steps
and measure your goal not your reasons
don’t measure your famn!’

Unpublished cut for “Tales of the Cordelier Metamorphosed”

George Hibbert (1757-1837), editor, Tales of the Cordelier Metamorphosed, as Narrated in a Manuscript from the Borromeo Collection: and in The Cordelier Cheval of M. Piron. With translations ([London: Printed at the Shakespeare Press by W. Bulmer and W. Nicol, 1821]). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1821 Robert. and Graphic Arts Collection 2018- in process.

 

The Graphic Arts Collection now holds two of the sixty-four copies printed of Tales of the Cordelier Metamorphosed, with illustrations by Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856). Our new volume seen at the top includes an unpublished Cruikshank cut, presumably rejected by George Hibbert (1757-1837) for the title page. This is Hibbert’s own copy where he kept both side by side.

These are first (and only) editions of the publication, printed for Hibbert, who was a wealthy Jamaica merchant, rare book collector, and an early member of the Roxburghe Club. The text consists of two tales, one a prose novella attributed to Michele Colombo and the other a French verse tale by Alexis Piron (1689-1773).

Hibbert writes to Roger Wilbraham:

The Italian Novel, which I believe to be now for the first time printed, existed, in Manuscript, in the Collection of the late Count Borromeo, of Padua; at the sale of which, in 1817, you made some interesting additions to your already valuable store of Italian Literature; and this manuscript, among other trifles, fell to my lot. It stands entitled, in the catalogue of that Sale, no.250. Novella di Gianni andato al Bosco a far legna, &c &c in 4to, MS, indeita, and it is there, upon what authority I know not, attributed, together with some preceding articles of the catalogue, to Michele Colombo.

It attracted my notice, from its close resemblance in the principal incidents of the story, to ‘Le Cordelier Cheval,’ or, as it is sometimes entitled, ‘Le Moine Bride,’ of Alexis Piron, a tale which I have always esteemed as not the least pleasant of that author’s facetious effusions; and suspecting that Piron, like La Fontaine before him, often gathered his subjects from some older record, I have looked in vain among the earlier novelists, for an original hint of this story. Whether the Italian be really such, or merely an imitation, or whether both the narrations be not borrowed from some preceding collection of facetiae, I will not pretend to determine.

According to Lowndes only 64 copies were printed, presumably distributed only to Hibbert’s friends. Hibbert’s copy has the bookplate of ‘Munden’, indicating the Munden estate, Hertfordshire, which he inherited in 1828. When Hibbert moved out of London in 1829, much of his book collection was sold at auction bringing a total of £23,000. This volume stayed in the family into the 20th century.

The Munden bookplate was engraved by Baron Henry John Fanshawe Badeley (1874-1951). The motto above is Respice, adspice, prospice (Look to the past, Look to the present, Look to the future). Below: Animum ipse parabo (I myself will provide courage).

 

Our first copy was a gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888, donated to Princeton University Library in 1913. It has an armorial bookplate of Thomase Gaisford (1779-1855) and a presentation inscription to Philip Bliss (1787-1857) on front free endpaper: “Philip Bliss, British Museum, 1822. Given me by the Translator, George Hibbert, Esq. R. W., to whom Mr. Hibbert inscribes the vol. is Roger Wilbraham.”


Photogravures after Félicien Rops

From his bookshop at Passage Choiseul, 23-33, Alphonse Lemerre (1838-1912) sold this portfolio of ten provocative prints for the 1874 short story collection Les Diaboliques by Jules Amédées Barbey d’Aurevilly (1808-1889). The prints are described on the title-page, and by bibliographer Erastène Ramiro, as etchings but except for the frontispiece (a portrait of the author engraved by Raul Rajon (1843-1888)), they are all photogravures with additional etching after drawings by the Belgian artist Felicien Rops (1833-1898).

The copper plates were printed by Alfred Salmon (1825-ca. 1894), who was at this time in partnership with Adolphe Ardail (1835-1911), trading as Salmon & Ardail.

A second edition of Les Diaboliques was published in 1882 and these plates may have been for a third edition but no bound copy of the text with Rops’s plates is recorded. It is possible the project was never completed and so, the plates were issued separately. The nine Rops plates are Sphinx; Le Rideau Cramoisi; Le plus bel amour de Don Juan; Le dessous de cartes d’une partie de whist; A un diner d’athées; Le bonheur dans le crime; Le vengeance d’une femme; Postface; and Postface.

Félicien Rops (1833-1898), Dix eaux-fortes pour illustrer les diaboliques de J. Barbey D’Aurevilly; dessinèes et gravées par Félicien Rops ([Paris: A. Lemmerre, 1886]). One portfolio of ten etchings. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process


See also: Erastène Ramiro, Catalogue descriptif et analytique de l’œuvre gravé de Félicien Rops, précédé d’une notice biographique et critique par Erastène Ramiro; orné d’un frontispice et de gravures d’après des compositions inédites de Félicien Rops et de fleurons et culs-de-lampe d’après F. Rops, Jean La Palette et Louis Legrand (Paris: Librairie Conquet, 1887).

La manière de se bien préparer à la mort = How to Prepare Oneself Well for Death


Engravings after Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) and commentary by M. de Chertablon, La Manière de se bien préparer à la mort par des considérations sur la Cène, la Passion et la Mort de Jésus-Christ, (How to Prepare Oneself Well for Death by Contemplating the Last Supper, the Passion and the Death of Christ), avec de très belles estampes emblématiques, expliquées par M. de Chertablon (Anvers [probably Amsterdam]: George Gallet, 1700). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

In 1673, a series of engravings were commissioned from Romeyn de Hooghe for David de la Vigne’s Miroir de la bonne mort. Since then various editions have been published with extended and translated commentaries, and in some cases, new plates re-engraved by unidentified artists. We know the engravings for the 1700 volume, recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection, are after de Hooghe and not by him, since they are laterally reversed from the original.

These plates are not as crisp and clear as Hooghe’s originals. Even so, it is the edition that is in most collections and so, known to most readers.

In each scene, a man is dying. An angel appears with a depiction of a biblical passage, encouraging the man to prepare for death in a Christian manner. If you look closely, you might also find a devil in the shadows, tempting the man away from the Christian path.

“In the tradition of ars moriendi that began in the sixteenth century,” writes Yuri Long at the National Gallery of Art, “this book shows the path to a good death through a series of meditations on the Last Supper, the Passion, and the death of Christ. Each print depicts a man contemplating a religious image accompanied by an appropriate verse of scripture and textual commentary. Though de Hooghe was a Protestant, this work is aimed at a Catholic audience and demonstrates his willingness to take commissions regardless of his own political or religious beliefs.” — www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/2014/romeyn-de-hooghe.html


A detailed interpretation of each plate in the 1700 edition can be found at the Melbourne Prints website, where Benita Champion notes,

“Five images depict the angel accompanying the man while a devil tempts him . . . . This motif is common in ars moriendi works dating from the famous fifteenth century ars moriendi block-book, c.1414-1418. . . . The fight for the soul occurs at the moment of death (Ariès, 1981, pp. 206-208). In the above example (p. 44) the devil tempts the person to despair by showing him his sins. The angel’s response is Matthew 9:2 ‘take heart, son: your sins are forgiven.’”

The frontispieces are more programmatic and individual. The first shows a skeleton (death) knocking at a door, holding an hourglass and scythe. Above the door is written ‘statutum est omnibus hominibus semel mori’ (‘it is appointed unto men once to die’) (Hebrews 9:27). Courtly activity fills the middle ground. To the left a man carries a cross up the hill, towards a ‘radiant pyramid’ with a serpent devouring itself (Scherer, 1973, p.8).

Below the skeleton is an entombment, with skeletons. This scene in fictive relief is framed by conventional foliage and ribbons, but also by skulls, crossbones and a decorative border in the form of vertebrae. Signs of decay abound in skulls and snakes. The road is placed behind this inevitable death. Superficially death conquers all, but the courtiers, if they follow Jesus and the cross, will come to the pyramid, signifying the ‘infinite holiness of the triune God’, with death, now rendered powerless, eating itself (Scherer, 1973, p. 8).”


See also:
Ariès, P. The Hour of our Death, trans. H Weaver, New York: Knopf, 1981.

Coppens, C. Een Ars moriendi met etsen van Romeyn de Hooghe: Verhaal van een boekillustratie, Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten. Brussels: AWLSK, 1995.

Landwehr, J. Romeyn De Hooghe (1645-1708) as Book Illustrator; a Bibliography. Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1970.

Landwehr, J. Romeyn De Hooghe the Etcher; Contemporary Portrayal of Europe 1662-1707. Leiden: A. Swijthoff, 1973.

Reinis, A. “Reforming the Art of Dying: The Ars Moriendi in the German Reformation (1519-1528),” St Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

Roth, F. “Pater Abraham a Sancta Clara, 1644-1709.” Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht 36, no. 6 (1944): 288-303.

Scherer, W. F. “Through the Looking Glass of Abraham à Sancta Clara.” MLN 85, no. 3 (1970): 374-80.

Artists’ books and hand-made posters

The exhibition “This font was handmade by literally chopping off the serifs of Princeton Monticello,” is on view at the Hurley Gallery in the Lewis Arts complex now through February 23, 2018.

The show includes hand-made posters and artists’ books by Princeton University seniors and juniors in the Program in Visual Arts, curated by faculty member Pam Lins. In both, the students explore unique formats for image and text combinations, many going far beyond the usual codex format or flat sheet of paper.

Their website notes, “The senior posters are a response to a project for the students in the Exhibition Issues and Methods Seminar to make a “handmade” poster while considering their upcoming spring thesis shows. The students determined what “handmade” could mean to them at this point in digital culture and gave them a chance to contemplate the history of artists producing their own visual aids in regards to their exhibitions.”

For these class, students also view and study the historical artists’ books in the Rare Book and Special Collections Library at Princeton University. Here are a few samples of their work.

http://arts.princeton.edu/events/junior-book-senior-poster-show/2018-02-07/


Portrait of Niépce in Heliogravure 1856

For the seminal publication, Traité pratique de gravure héliographique sur acier et sur verre (A Practical Treatise on Photogravure Engraving on Steel and on Glass) by Niépce de Saint-Victor (1805-1870), either he or his publisher commissioned a portrait for the frontispiece.

To further celebrate Niépce’s important discoveries in photographic printing, they made the portrait using his own process: “Gravure héliographique d’après une photographie sur acier selon les procédés de Niépce de Ste Victor” (Photogravure engraving after a photograph on steel, according to the methods of Niépce de Ste Victor).

 

Claude-Félix-Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor (1805-1870), Traité pratique de gravure héliographique sur acier et sur verre / par M. Niépce de Saint-Victor (Paris: Librairie de V. Masson, 1856). Provenance: C. F. Chandler. Graphic Arts Collection 2006-3213N

 


Note the photograph was taken by Victor Plumier (1821-1878) and a great deal was made about the fact that he did not retouch his negative. The engraving plate was made by Madame [is it Pauline?] Riffaut and the portrait finished by Adolphe-Pierre Riffaut (1821-1859).

If you use a microscope, you will see the hand engraving on top of the aquatint done, in particular, in the beard. In addition, there are gouache highlights delicately added to the paper print in the hair and the beard.

 

 

 


Welcome to Columbia Students


Founded by an endowment from LeRoy and Janet Neiman, Columbia University’s LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies promotes printmaking through education, production and exhibition of prints. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arts/neiman/about.html Twelve students and their instructor Ben Hagari made the trip south to visit the Graphic Arts Collection of pre-cinema and optical devices on Tuesday.

The class, Print into Motion, encourages undergraduates to “use printmaking techniques to create animation works, optical devices and projections.” The students have already begun creating their own thaumatropes and other phantasmagoria. Future projects will take inspiration from our metamorphosis cards, transformation images, and flap books. Here are a few moments from the class.

 


Ben Hagari is a New York-based artist, who was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. His work “dissolves the distinction between theatrical facades and backstage by creating spaces where magic, subterfuge, and poetry collide.” Hagari’s solo and group exhibitions include Afterwards, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (2012); Invert, Rosenfeld Gallery, Tel Aviv (2011); The Museum Presents Itself: Israeli, Art from the Museum Collection, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014); and in December 2017, 24:7 in New York City’s Time Square. https://arts.columbia.edu/news/vaben-hagari-%E2%80%9814-video-installation-times-square