Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Brian O’Doherty/The Structural Plays

The Graphic Arts Collection received its new copy of Brian O’Doherty/Structural Plays, published by Stoney Road Press, with both pleasure and sadness yesterday. James O’Nolan, co-director of Stoney Road, passed away in July 2018 and so, this will be the last of his beautifully printed books.

Based in Dublin, Stoney Road Press is the only independent commercially run fine art print studio in Ireland. An obituary for O’Nolan, published in The Irish Times, July 21, 2018, was titled “Printmaker who made his mark as an artist. His enduring legacy is as a teacher and mentor, and as an interpreter across different media for some of the country’s most distinguished contemporary artists.”

In his work with his business partner David O’Donoghue at the Stoney Road Press (SRP) in Dublin since 2001, James O’Nolan created an internationally renowned fine print press, counting among its clients some of the most prominent names in contemporary Irish art, and setting a globally appreciated standard of excellence which has seen its products displayed in leading galleries throughout Ireland, the UK and the US.

O’Nolan, who has died aged 65 from injuries sustained while cycling in inner-city Dublin, was a self-taught printmaker, and made his mark as an artist in woodblock and carborundum, examples of which are held in public collections such as the National College of Art and Design and the Arts Council. They are described by James Hanley, Keeper of the Royal Hibernian Academy, as having “an intellectual purity of geometric and colour-filled abstraction.” …In his eulogy at O’Nolan’s Humanist funeral service in Dublin this month, Hanley gave a pointed example of this in practice: “Thirty odd years ago, one student [of O’Nolan’s] vacillated and said she had picked textiles, but really wanted to do fine art. James told her firmly, ‘Go . . . and change to fine art.’ The art student concerned was Rachel Joynt, today one of Ireland’s greatest sculptors.”

…O’Nolan came from a particularly renowned Irish family. His father, Kevin, was a Professor of Ancient Classics at University College, Dublin and one of his uncles was Brian O’Nolan, the writer Flann O’Brien, aka the satirist Myles na gCopaleen, columnist with this newspaper. His mother, Maureen Dwyer, who died when he was aged six, was the matron at Glenstal Abbey School where her husband was teaching when James was born. Kevin O’Nolan later remarried, his second spouse being Marie O’Connell, a noted novelist of the period.

“In re-publishing the Structural Plays,” wrote O’Nolan, “the primary aim was to gather them together in one place, a sort of textbook from which they could be enjoyed, read together, or used as a blueprint to re-create the performances. The original notations are included at the bottom of each. These, together with Brian’s notes on the plays, provide a clear account of how the plays might be performed today.” To page through a digital version, see: https://issuu.com/stoneyroadpress/docs/brian_odoherty_structural_plays-iss


Brian O’Doherty is quoted as saying, “The Ogham Drawings, which preoccupied me for over twenty years, look like drawings, behave like drawings, can be seen as drawings, are drawings, but they also have a voice, that is, they can be spoken and performed. Vowel Grid is a performed drawing.” Many of the structural plays are inspired by Ogham script–an ancient Celtic translation of the Roman alphabet into a writing system of 20 linear characters.

An artist and a teacher, O’Doherty exhibited at Documenta and the Venice Biennale; served as director of both the visual arts and film and media programs at the National Endowment for the Arts; taught film and art criticism at Barnard College and Long Island University; and has written two works of fiction, The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. and The Deposition of Father McGreevy, which was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2000. He received the College Art Association’s Mather Award for art criticism in 1965 and was a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2009–2010.

 

 

Maria Philippina Küsel’s Angels

Johann Ulrich Krauss (1645-1719), Biblisches Engel-Werck: alles das jenige Was in Heiliger Göttlicher Schrifft Altes und Neuen Testaments Von den Heiligen Engeln Gottes Dero Erscheinungen, Verrichtungen, Bottschafften, Gesandschafften, auf mancherley Art und Weise aus Göttlicher Verodnung zu finden ist … ; In zierlichen Kupffern, mit beygefügten Teutschen Erklärungs- und Andachts Reimen vorstellend... [Biblical Angel-Work: all that which is in Holy Divine Scripture Old and New Testaments of the Holy Angels of God, the apparitions, works, bouquets, ministries, in some ways from divine order are to be found …; In dainty cupids, together with German descriptive and devotional rhymes…] (Augspurg: Gedruckt bey Johann Jakob Lotter, [ca. 1705-1710]). 15 cm.

 

Many academic collections including Princeton hold a copy of Johann Ulrich Krauss’s late 17th-century emblem book of angels but our recently acquired miniature edition (seen here) is extremely rare.

At 15 cm or approximately 6 inches, all the plates have been redrawn and newly engraved for the tiny hands of children. In both editions, the frontispiece and 31 plates were made by Maria Philippina Küsel (born 1676), a member of the celebrated German family of engravers. The daughter of Melchior Küsel I and the niece of Matthäus Küsel, she and her sisters, Maria Magdalene Küsel and Johanna Sibylla Küsel, were admired for their designs and for their technique in copper plate engraving. See volume 20, Hollstein’s German Etchings, Engravings & Woodcuts 1400-1700. Maria Magdalena Küsel to Johann Christoph Laidig (Amsterdam, Van Gendt, 1977). This volume includes Maria Magdalena Küsel (1683-1707), Maria Philippina Küsel (born 1676), Matthäus Küsel (1629-1681), and other family members.

Nina Musinsky has researched this rare volume and writes:

The original Biblisches Engel- u[nd] Kunst Werck, the first of his religious publications, used an innovative visual presentation, which Krauss would follow in his vast Historische Bilder-Bibel (1698-1700): in the uppermost portion of each of the 34 engravings was a large Biblical scene in rectangular format, while the lower half contained a smaller, related scene within ornamental borders. The explanatory caption and 12-line German poem were engraved at the top and between the two parts of the engravings.

In this “baby” edition, the explanatory text for each plate, which reprints the original engraved text, is printed in letterpress on the facing page. The preliminaries are the same, except that this edition replaces the dedication to Kaiser Leopold with a rather humbler dedication to children, a 7-page Vorrede und Zuschrift an die Gott- und Tugend- liebende zarte Kinder-]ugend, in which Krauss declares his desire to plant the seeds of pious habits in children and youth.

Other than the frontispiece, Kusel’s fine engravings modify the plates of the larger edition in various ways. First, they contain no engraved text. Secondly, Kusel’s adaptations of the upper scenes usually eliminate some architectural or background detail, and select salient details to focus on. Most, but not all, are in reverse. In the lower portions are one to five roundels (occasionally overlapping) on unadorned backgrounds, without the elaborate rococo borders of the original plates, the roundels containing an adaptation of the religious scenes shown in the original engraving, once or twice including a new scene not in the original (e.g., plate 10).

Plate wear shows that this edition post-dates the only other known edition of the plates, printed by Johann Christoph Wagner, ca. 1700, for Krauss. This edition is not to be confused with the 1702 edition of the entire Historische Bilder-Bibel, including the Engel- Werck, which contained smaller reversed copies of the original plates, including the engraved text, also by Maria Philippina Kusel and by her sister Johanna Sibylla Krauss. That 1702 edition (of which the Bavarian State Library is digitized) is much larger than this one, the engravings are different, and it includes no letterpress text; nor was it explictly intended for children, as is this one.

See also Johann Ulrich Krauss (1645-1719), Biblisches Engel- u. Kunst Werck: alles das jenige, was in Heiliger Göttlicher Schrifft Altes und Neuen Testaments von den heiligen Engeln Gottes … zu finden ist … in zierlichen Kupffern, mit beygefügten Teutschen Erklarungs und Andachts- Reimen vorstellend: mit Fleiss zusammen getragen, in Kupfer gestochen und verlegt / von Johann Ulrich Krause … [Biblical Angels and Art Work: all that is to be found in the Holy Divine Scripture of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Angels of God … in dainty cupids, with attached German explanatory and devotional rhymes presented: together with diligence, engraved in copper by Johann Ulrich Krause] (Augsburg: [Johann Ulrich Krauss], 1694). 35 cm. Rare Books Oversize NE654.K81 A2q

Diploma Scherzoso


The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this satirical diploma or certificate from the University of Big Noses. Note the empty spaces where we can fill in your name, should it apply.

The document states, it has come to our attention that certain people are carrying inappropriate noses on their faces. All such men and women are to go to the town square (Piazza Bottom), where disproportionate schnozzolas will be ground down to size.

The etcher is Pietro Ridolfi, who was active between 1710 and 1716, although this print has several earlier dates.

 

See left: no. 1247 in Zotti Minici, Le stampe popolari dei Remondini (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, c1994). Marquand Library NE659.2 .Z677 1994

Noi Macrobio Culaccione visitatore generale dell’ Università de Nasi Grossi indecenti nappioni smisurati dinutili difformati e sproportionati auditore di male lingue e maldicenti consultore della Congregatione de Gossi, protettore de buffoni magri, &c. in Bassano per Gioseppe Remondini [18th-cent.] Quarto bifolium, each leaf 220 x 162, each inside page with one engraved plate (158 x 128 within platemarks).

 
See a copy that has been hand colored: http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/stampe/schede/H0110-16026/

The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland

Given that Princeton University has both Presbyterian and Scottish roots, this photography album filled with portraits by Thomas Annan (1829-1887) of ministers, elders, and missionaries affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland is a fitting acquisition. [See: Leitch, Alexander. A Princeton Companion.

Annan printed these images as deep, rich woodburytypes to preserve them for future generations (although the album pages are now quite warped). We don’t have a final date for the album but it includes material from 1862-82, including a composite photograph of identified theological students and their professors by Annan and an additional composite photograph of unidentified students and their professors “who have just finished their Theological course” by Edinburgh photographer John Moffat.


 

The men are identified on the lower part of each support by a facsimile autograph, followed by their position within the church. Below each portrait is engraved “Photo by T. Annan” and his respective studio addresses from Glasgow & Edinburgh spanning 1862-1882. It is unclear whether the album was commissioned by the Church or sold to the individuals but it is a rare volume. We hope someday to compare it with the one held by The University of Glasgow Special Collections: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/results_ca.cfm?ID=100789

Carl Browne’s Open Letter

Carl Browne (1849-1914), Carl Browne’s Illustrated Open Letter (San Francisco, Calif.: C. Browne, [1800s]). January 16, 1887 issue composed of multiple sheets, entirely hand drawn and printed, with masthead also hand drawn. Cover design includes “a copy of an etching by Th. Nast of himself and presented by the Great Caricaturist of Harper’s Weekly to Carl Browne, ‘The Nast of the Pacific Coast.'” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

 

The Washington Post, Saturday, January 17, 1914https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-ragtag-band-reformers-organized-first-protest-march-washington-dc-180951270/

Carl Browne was an American cattle rancher, cartoonist, journalist, and politician. A former close political associate of controversial San Francisco politician Denis Kearney, Browne is best remembered as a top leader of the Coxey’s Army protest movement of 1894.

Carl Browne was a hulking ex-con, an itinerant labor leader and a mesmerizing speaker. A guest at Coxey’s farm and oddly dressed in fringed buckskin suit, he’d marched around, pronouncing that Coxey had been Andrew Jackson in a past life. Browne considered himself the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and asked that admirers call him “Humble Carl.” His eye for spectacle also made him a brilliant promoter. Together with Coxey, he planned a pilgrimage to Capitol Hill to present their Good Roads Bill, a $500 million Federal jobs plan.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-ragtag-band-reformers-organized-first-protest-march-washington-dc-180951270/#zigYFGUPuYzQtHz1.99

Browne was born July 4, 1849 in Newton, Iowa, and worked a variety of jobs during his younger years, including time as a printer, a painter, a cattle rancher, a cartoonist, and a journalist. He moved to San Francisco and became active in politics as an active member there of the Workingmen’s Party. Browne was recognized for his commitment to the organization and served as personal secretary to Denis Kearney, a politician who championed exclusion of the Chinese people from the United States.

While in San Francisco, Browne launched a radical weekly newspaper, which he edited and for which he drew political cartoons, The Open Letter. In a 1929 monograph, historian Donald L. McMurry described the colorful Browne in the following manner: “Browne’s picturesque appearance made him a conspicuous figure wherever he went. Tall, heavy, and bearded, his unkempt hair streaked with gray, he added to the effect by wearing an exaggerated Western costume. It consisted of a buckskin coat with fringes, and buttons made of Mexican silver half-dollars, high boots, a sombrero, a fur cloak when weather permitted, and around his neck, instead of a collar, a string of amber beads, the gift of his dying wife…. Closer inspection revealed the reason why his men called him ‘Old Greasy. It was suggested that he would have been a more pleasant companion if he had bathed oftener.”

At a Chicago convention of advocates of free silver held in August 1893, Browne made the acquaintance of Ohio politician Jacob Coxey, who saw in the charismatic labor agitator Browne a potential popularizer of his proposed governmental reforms. Browne had become well-known in Chicago as an exceptional public speaker, addressing a series of public meetings at Lake Front Park on the problem of unemployment and its possible solution — one means of which, he is said to have suggested, would be a march of unemployed workers on the nation’s capital.

Impressed with the charismatic Browne’s effectiveness and intellectual proximity to his own ideas, Coxey convinced Browne to join his campaign for the Good Roads Bill — a plan for putting the unemployed to work improving the transportation infrastructure of the United States. Browne obliged, both speaking in its behalf and drawing a series of cartoons illustrating the dysfunctional nature of the current economic system and depicting the benefits to be obtained by society through passage of the Coxey plan.

Coxey was pleased with Browne’s commitment to the cause of labor reform and persuaded him to stay with him at his home in Massillon, Ohio through the winter of 1893-94, a grim time when the United States was buffeted by the severe economic contraction known to history as the Panic of 1893. Together Coxey and Browne discussed a means of better publicizing the Good Roads Bill, with the pair determining to, in Coxey’s words, “send a petition to Washington with boots on” through a cross-country march of the unemployed.

Browne and Coxey held a series of public meetings in Massillon and other towns in the area, drawing attention to Coxey’s proposed Good Roads Bill and drawing attention to the planned march, which was to depart from Massillon for Washington, D.C. on Easter Sunday 1894.

Browne gained notoriety for his Theosophic religious views and Coxey was converted to his unorthodox ideas. They came to regard their march as an “Army of Peace,” giving the name “Commonweal of Christ” to their movement. This quasi-religious interpretation of the 1894 march movement was broadly ridiculed, generating some publicity for the cause but generally doing “a great deal more harm than good,” in the estimation of at least one historian.

The “Commonweal of Christ” arrived in Washington, DC on May Day, 1894, with about 400 marchers in the ranks. “Coxey and Brown made their way to the steps of the United States Capitol to address the accompanying crowd, but were blocked by mounted police. The pair jumped a stone wall in an attempt to reach their goal, along with Christopher Columbus Jones, leader of the marchers from Philadelphia, but police on foot chased the three down and detained them, first holding down Browne and beating him, tearing his clothes and ripping off the amber bead necklace from his neck. Coxey was released, but Browne and Jones were placed under arrest, with bond posted by two wealthy sympathizers of the marchers.”

On May 2, Coxey, Browne, and Jones were charged in police court with carrying an illegal banner on capitol grounds, with Coxey and Browne additionally charged with trampling the grass. A jury trial followed, during which the District Attorney denigrated Browne as “a fakir, a charlatan, and a mounteback who dresses up in ridiculous garments and exhibits himself to the curious multitudes at 10 cents a head.” The three defendants were convicted on the morning of May 8 and freed on bond.

Sentence was pronounced on May 21, with Coxey and Browne each fined $5 for walking on the grass, and Coxey, Browne, and Jones sentenced to 20 days in jail for carrying banners on capitol grounds.

In January 1914, Browne collapsed and died at the age of 64 years old. Special thanks to Donald (“Rusty”) Mott for all his good research on Browne. This post is also copied from the following sources:

W.T. Stead, Chicago To-Day, or, The Labour War in America. London: Review of Reviews, 1894.

Donald L. McMurry, Coxey’s Army: A Study in Industrial Unrest, 1893-1898. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1929.

Benjamin F. Alexander, Coxey’s Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015; *pg. 119.

Carlos A. Schwantes, Coxey’s Army: An American Odyssey. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1985.

 

 

The Darts Champion

To make a color lithograph, each individual color in the design must be separated and drawn onto an individual lithographic stone. Then, the stones are printed one after another onto a single sheet, with careful registration.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a progressive series of proofs for the well-known lithograph The Darts Champion by Barnett Freedman (1901-1958). This large (590 x 920 mm) print was commissioned by Guinness for its first lithograph series in 1956 to celebrate the publication of Guinness World Records. It was printed at the Curvwen Studio and the proofs kept by Freedman for many years. Emma Mason also used it to illustrate “Who? When? Where? The Story of the Guinness Lithographs” (see: https://www.emmamason.co.uk/a/guinness-lithographs) Here’s the series:

Staglieno

Epigraph: He was not unlike a traveler walking into a landscape which may prove mirage.—from Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot.

“The Staglieno cemetery near Genoa was created in the 19th century. It is home not only to those whose bones lie buried beneath, but also to the splendidly ornate display of sculptures erected in their memory. Carved from inanimate lumps of stone, these memorials have become more than the monumental tributes they were originally commissioned to be. Now feathered with a gentle coat of dust, each appears to have taken on a life of its own and out of the melancholy of death comes the comforting notion of a presence that will remain.”—Nazreali Press.

In 2002, a bound volume of Lee Friedlander’s photographs taken in the Staglieno cemetery was published in an edition of 2,000 copies. The duotones were printed by Oceanic Graphics in China and released by Nazraeli Press in Tucson, Arizona. Peter Galassi, former Chief Curator, Department of Photography, MoMA, wrote in the foreword, “Photography likes sculpture. It likes to see how things look from different angles, especially things that don’t move. It likes light falling on surfaces and the way the two become one in the picture. . . . Above all, it likes the way photography, which makes living figures still, awakens figures frozen in stone.” – [Marquand recap Oversize TR658.3 .F75 2002q]

The following year, a special limited edition portfolio of 15 photogravures from the Staglieno series negatives was produced at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at the School of the Arts at Columbia University, New York. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired copy 10 of the edition of 25 portfolios.

Housed in a red velvet-covered clamshell case with the title embossed in silver, it is a tour-de-force of photographic capture together with expert copperplate printing. Master printer Lothar Osterburg created the copper plates and printed the edition with the assistance of students at the School of the Arts at Columbia University. Each print is signed and titled Staglieno Cemetery, Genoa, Italy.

 

 

Lee Friedlander, born in 1934, began photographing the American social landscape in 1948. He was the first photographer to receive the MacDowell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (1986), and in 1990 he received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award. His photographs are included in major museum collection around the world and there are multiple websites dedicated to his life and work. See: https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/lee-friedlander
; https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.6514.html and many others.

Lee Friedlander: Staglieno (New York: LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at the School of the Arts at Columbia University, 2003). Photogravures by Lothar Osterburg from negatives by Lee Friedlander. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

The Legend of Phra Malai

Guest post by Martin Heijdra, Director, East Asian Library, Princeton University https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9985474

The following content is largely based upon comparing our images with the list of selected readings at the end of this blog.
8.

The Legend of Phra Malai is one of the core texts of popular Theravada Buddhist teaching in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand. The story relates how Phra Malai, a monk who has accumulated great merit, travels to hell, where people ask him to urge their relatives to make merit on their behalf, which indeed he successfully does after having come back to the human realm. When on earth, Phra Malai receives eight flowers from a poor peasant or woodcutter, offered with the hope to not be reborn as a poor man in his next life. To enable that, Phra Malai goes to the Tāvitiṁsa Heaven, where he meets Indra, the King of Gods, in front of the Cūḷāmaṇi Cetiya, a stupa with the relics of the Buddha’s hair.

This stupa was built by Indra in order to give the Deities an opportunity to continue to gain merit. Indra explains to Phra Malai the circumstances in which twelve of these deva deities had gained their merits. Finally Metteyya, the Buddha of the Future (Maitreya) comes from Tusita Heaven, and converses with Phra Malai. Some detailed ways to gain merit are discussed, including listening in one day and night to the Vessantara Jātaka. A deterioration of the world is predicted, to be followed by the final coming of Metteya, beginning a reign of harmony and happiness. On earth, Phra Malai tells this story to his listeners, explain to them the many ways of gaining merit.

24.

85.

There are several traditions of this legend, from popular to elitist. Ours belongs to the popular Phra Mālai klō̜n sūat พระมาลัยกลอนสวด tradition: illustrated texts written on accordion-folded samut khoi paper manuscripts using Khmer script, but in the Thai language (and incorporating Thai tone marks in the Khmer script). These are recited, sung and dramatized for an unsophisticated audience, with colloquial, sensational, even bawdy texts. The earliest extant version dates to the first half of the 18th century, although earlier versions most likely existed.

Samut khoi books (samut: book, khoi: a kind of tree: Streblus asper, or Trophis aspera) are made of boiled khoi bark: the resulting paste, of a naturally off-white color, is dried on cloth frames, and when ready, inscribed on both sides with black ink (or the paper is blackened with lampblack and inscribed with white or colored chalk/ink.). Recitation sessions (and texts) start after a brief chanting of Pali scripture (usually seven books of the Abhidhamma, i.e. the Basket of Higher Doctrine, the last of the three constituting parts of the Pali Canon which contains a detailed scholastic analysis and summary of the Buddha’s teachings.), before the actual Phra Malai legend begins.

69.

The legend is in rather easy Thai, written in the kap poetry style derived from Cambodian, and emphasizes karmic retribution for sins and good deeds. The popular versions include greatly expanded parts and illustrations about Phra Malai’s visit to Hell. In addition, Phra Malai Klon Suat manuscripts are also commonly combined with at least images (rarely texts) from the Thotsachāt ทศชาติ (The last ten birth tales of the Buddha), as is our version. Indeed, the last tale of the Thotsachāt, the Vessantara Jātaka, is the tale whose recitation in one day and one night is told to Phra Malai to be one of the best merit-increasing endeavors.

The Thai funerary context originally implied entertainment and an atmosphere of fun. Such screens are often depicted in the first illustration of the manuscripts, although not in ours, where the monks are rather serious. Reactions against that began during the times of Rama I, but proved difficult to enforce. Still, reading the Phra Malai in these contexts suffered a slow decline, and is now rarely performed.

3.

12.

Selected sources:
Brereton, Bonnie Pacala, Thai Tellings of Phra Malai: Texts and Rituals Concerning a Popular Buddhist Saint, Tempe: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies, 1995.

Brereton, Bonnie Pacala, “Those strange-looking monks in Phra Malai manuscript paintings: Voices of the text,” paper for the 13th International Conference on Thai studies: Globalized Thailand? Connectivity, conflict and conundrums of Thai Studies, 15-18 July 2017, Chiang Mai, Thailand, pp. 68-75

Ginsburg, Henry, Thai Art and Culture: Historic Manuscripts from Western Collections, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000

Ginsburg, Henry, Thai Manuscript Painting, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989.

Igunma, Jana, “A Buddhist monk’s journey to heaven and hell,” Journal of International Association of Buddhist Universities 3 (2012), pp. 65-62

Peltier, Anatole, “Iconographie de la légende de Braḥ Mālay,“ Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême Orient 76 (1982), pp. 63-76

Explanation of the images
Our version of the Phra Malai Klon Suat contains the following illustrations (the numbers refer to those given to the images given in the digitized version, not to the actual folio): https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9985474

3. This is the usual opening scene of Phra Malai Klon Suat manuscripts, where monks, carrying their talabat fans preside over the funeral wake of a deceased person. Wakes traditionally were an occasion of entertainment, although the 19th century saw a religious movement and laws against that practice. In fact, both the monks and the attendees are here, in comparison with other manuscripts, rather demure. The Phra Malai manuscript would be read during such funeral wake, making this a self-referential image.

5. This manuscript contains also images from the Thotsachāt (The Ten Birth Tales of the Buddha) and Pali extracts from the Buddhist canon, before the actual Thai Phra Malai Klon Suat starts. These images refer to the third tale. Sama, the future Buddha, looks after his blind parents living as ascetics in the forest. The misguided demon king Piliyakkha shoots Sama when fetching water for his parent, attended by two deer. Thanks to his and his parents’ great merit, Sama comes back to life, and his parents regain their eyesight.

8. In the sixth tale of the Thotsachāt, the future Buddha is a serpent divinity (naga) called Bhuridatta. While coiled around an ant-hill during a fast, he is captured by a vicious hunter who has a spell which can even ensnarl a naga (the spell is hidden in the water he sprinkles on the naga with the branch leaf). The tortured Bhuridatta then is carried to events where has to perform for the hunter, which he does without resentment, ultimately regaining his freedom.

12. These images exemplify the intertwining of the Ten Birth Tales with the Legend of Phra Malai. The left image could come from the fourth birth tale, on King Nimi, who, like Phra Malai, is guided by a divine charioteer through the hells and heavens, as well as the Phra Malai. To the left we see a kapok thorn tree, where adulterers are punished, with the man bitten by a dog and being forced to climb the thorn tree to reach his lover at the top pecked by a vulture. They never meet each other, and the punishment is continuous. To the right we see Phra Malai himself hovering above the denizens of hell. Displayed here are probably those who became intoxicated while on earth, and they have acid or molten copper poured down their throats. Visiting Hell, by his very presence Phra Malai temporarily causes rain to decrease the fire of Hell, allowing the victims to tell their stories. They implore him to make their situation known to their descendants on earth, and create merit on their behalf. The crucifixion shown here and in other similar illustration may be a Western influence of the 19th century—the image above this victim’s head probably derives from a halo, or a crown of thorns; it may also refer to the flying disks which in Hell torture victims’ heads.

24. This is a full-fledged hell scene, the only image without a central text. Those who butcher pigs for a living or cheat others have their body hairs become sharp swords embedded in their skin (upper left); corrupt rulers are have huge, decayed, foul-smelling testicles hanging down the ground “like a yam shoulder bag” (bottom left); those who abuse their parents or corrupt leaders will have disks cutting of their heads drenched with blood (left?); those abusing monks fall into an iron cauldron in the Lohakumbhi Hell (right, below Phra Malai); those who believe in false spirit mediums are reborn as ghosts that are part animal, part human (top.) The crucified image of the Nimi Tale reoccurs at the bottom, with halo/ crown of thorns/flying disk.

32. A very poor man plucks lotuses and presents them to Phra Malai, with the request that he will never be born poor again. His wish is granted, and Phra Malai will later offer the lotuses in heaven at the Culamani Cetiya. This event is the occasion for painting a landscape scene in these manuscripts. Originally a woodcutter who came to bath, in later versions the poor man became to be described as a poor peasant needing to wash of his sweat after a day of work, with whom the listeners to the story could identify themselves.

46. Having received the eight lotuses from the poor peasant, Phra Malai immediately goes to the Tavatimsa heaven to offer them to the eight directions of the Culamani Cetiya, a stupa with the relics of Buddha’s hair. He encounters there many deva Great Beings or Deities, one of whom is displayed at the right side, with red halo and exquisitely dressed. Each of these male devas is accompanied by from hundred to tens and tens of thousands of female angels, the number varying according to their merits. These devas all come to pay homage to the Culamani stupa, which was built by Indra, the King of Gods, in order to give also the Deities an opportunity to continue to gain merit. Indra tells Phra Malai the circumstances of how each of these Great Beings accumulated their number of merits.

69. Finally the Buddha of the Future (Metteyya, in Sanskrit Maitreya) arrives from his Tusita Heaven. After having paid reverence to the cetiya, he explains to Phra Malai what will happen on earth before he will be reincarnated on earth. First the world will see a strong deterioration of the Buddhist dharma, with people’s life spans becoming increasingly short and incestuous promiscuity in every possible combination reigning everywhere. Most people will die. But after seven days, a new harmonious society will appear, and the earth will flourish. The Metteya will then be born in the human realm and attain enlightenment. These two images are of that harmonious society. All humans who have followed the Buddha’s way of life will be reborn. Huge kalpavriksha wish trees will provide those humans who have fed and clothed monks with whatever goods and valuables they wish for. In the left image a family plucks valuables from such a tree with a pole, while at the right people walk in the predicted harmony, free from worries and sickness. Even the level of water will be just right, “so that a crow can drink just by tilting its head… and so clear that you can see the fish.”

85. These last illustrations usually come earlier. At the left Indra (traditionally in green) is seen conversing with Phra Malai, in front of the Culamani cetiya. To the right the Buddha of the Future, Metteyya, arrives, heralded by his retinue.

New chapbooks

Here is a small taste of the over one hundred volumes that showed up at our door this week, thanks to the generosity of Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986. The collection of early 19th-century chapbooks includes Jewish history, international fiction, education, and much more. It is a beautiful complement to the Sinclair Hamilton Collection of Early American Book Illustrators and Wood Engravers. [scale is centimeters]

 

A man and his goat: “There was once a poor lame old man that lived in the midst of a wide uncultivated moor, in the north of England. He had formerly been a soldier, and had almost lost the use of one leg by a wound he had received in battle, when he was fighting against the enemies of his country. This poor man when he found himself thus disabled, built a hut of clay, which he covered with turf dug from the common. …In his walks over the common, he one day found a little kid that had lost its mother, and was almost famished with hunger: he took it home to his cottage, fed it with the produce of his garden, and nursed it till it grew strong and vigorous. Little Nan (for that was the name he gave it) returned his cares with gratitude, and became as much attached to him as a dog. All day she browzed upon the herbage that grew around his hut, and at night reposed upon the same bed of straw with her master. Frequently did she divert him with her innocent tricks, and gambols. She would nestle her little head in his bosom, and eat out of his hand part of his scanty allowance of bread, which he never failed to divide with his favourite. The old man often beheld her with silent joy, and, in the innocent feelings of his heart, would lift his hands to heaven, and thank the Deity, that, even in the midst of poverty and distress, had raised him up one faithful friend.”

The story of Naaman, a general in the Syrian army whose leprosy is cured by bathing in the Jordan river under instruction of the prophet Elisha, as told by a young slave girl. Price One Penny.

Back cover.

Of the four trades described is the making of paper for books.

The first picture in the book is not described. What is this?
This is a very pessimistic book, see below:

Documenting Poverty Across America in 1968

Guest post by Jessica Terekhov, Department of English


The work of 16 known photographers is represented in a series of 73 photographs documenting poverty across America in April/May 1968, recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection. The images, which were presumably commissioned for a Time Magazine issue on “Poverty in America: Its Cause and Extent” (May 17, 1968), illustrate rural and urban life in migrant camps, immigrant communities, and low-income areas from California to New York. Featured states include Texas, Kentucky, Florida, Alaska, Michigan, and Missouri, with a number of pictures taken in Greenville, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee.

Five photographs of African-American residents of Detroit and nearby New Haven were taken by J. Edward Bailey III (1923-1982), one of the few African-American photojournalists active nationwide at the time. Another African-American photographer, Robert W. Cottrol (active 1970s), contributed five images of Harlem, and the work of William Sartor (active 1970s) is most heavily represented in the set. Julian Wasser’s shot of migrant farmworkers near Fresno, California was the only one that actually appeared in Time, although a total of 18 images accompanied the feature article and Wasser (active 1970s) also photographed Mexican-American families in East Los Angeles. Gilbert Barrera (1932-2007), Walter E. Bennett (1921-1995), Lee Spence (active 1970s), and Fran Ortiz (1931-2007) were among the other photographers involved in the project.

Some images are captioned with the names of pictured individuals, while others, such as the ones shown here, are only identified by city or state. A shot of “Mexican-American slum housing in Laredo, Texas” appears above, followed by images of Martin Luther Jr. ephemera peddled in Harlem, children in Mississippi and St. Louis, and labor in Maine and Alaska. All photographs are gelatin silver prints measuring 8 x 10 inches and uniformly printed on double-weight fiber paper. A full inventory is available through the library catalog record or here: Time Poverty in America inventory.