Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

The first emblem book written by a woman

[left] 2nd edition 1584 Zurich; [center] 3rd edition 1619 Frankfurt; [right] 4th edition 1620 Rochelle

Thanks to a recent acquisition, made jointly by the rare book division and the graphic arts collection, Princeton researchers now have the opportunity to study Georgette de Montenay’s rare emblem book through three consecutive editions, three publishers, and three unique physical volumes. In addition, we can follow the transfer of the one hundred copper plates by the French goldsmith, painter, and sculptor Pierre Woeiriot (1532-1599) as they moved from Switzerland to Germany to France for more than fifty years, reprinted with no visible damage or deterioration and outliving both the artist and the author.

On zealous affection and intelligence
Spirit, heart, speech and voice
All in agreement; instrument, books, fingers
I sing to my God’s excellence
O’ quill in my hand, not in vain,
From which I write
The praises of Christ
The promise of financial reward is not what leads you on [an anagram for the author’s name:]

“Georgette de Montenay has been the object of enduring scholarly interest, not only as the first woman author of an emblem book, but also as the creator of a new literary and artistic genre: the religious emblem. Most probably converted to Protestantism under the influence of Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre (to whose court she was attached after her marriage to Guyon de Gout, c. 1562), de Montenay composed a series of one hundred militant Christian octets in the mid-1560s and closely supervised their illustration by a gifted Lyonnaise etcher, Pierre Woeiriot, who was also of the reformed persuasion.

The Emblesmes ou devises chrestiennes were finally published in 1571 by a brother in religion, Jean Marcorelle, and were to have an immediate success.”—Sara F. Matthews Grieco, “Georgette de Montenay” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no.4 (Winter 1994). Since this article, a copy found in the Royal Library in Copenhagen suggests that Montenay’s book may have appeared even earlier.
Note that the words “Vera effigies Reginae Navarrae” have been added to the first engraved emblem in our newly acquired 1619 edition.

Georgette de Montenay (1540-approximately 1581), Georgiae Montaneae, nobilis Gallae, Emblematum Christianorum centuria / cum eorundem Latina interpretatione = Cent emblemes chrestiens (Tigvri: Apud Christophorum Froschouerum, 1584). Translation of Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes; text in Latin and French. Engravings by Pierre Woeiriot (1532-1599). These plates were used for the first French ed., 1571.-cf.Landwehr. Rare Books: Miriam Y. Holden Collection (ExHolden) N7710 .M66 1584

Georgette de Montenay (1540-approximately 1581), Monumenta Emblematum Christianorum (Frankfurt am Main: Jean Charles Unckel, 1619). Illustrations printed from plates engraved by Pierre Woeiriot (1532-1599). Polyglot edition with engraved title page by Peter Rollas and added engraved portrait of Jeanne d’Albret. Purchased with funds from Rare Book Division and Graphic Arts Collection

Georgette de Montenay (1540-approximately 1581), Emblèmes, ou devises chrestiennes (Rochelle: Par Iean Dinet, 1620). Illustrations printed from plates engraved by Pierre Woeiriot (1532-1599). “The sheets are those of the 1571 edition, with a new title page.” Cf. Praz. Rare Books (Ex) N7710 .M66 1620

The Lady of the Lake Photographed

Same author, same publisher, same photographer, and only three years apart but very different books. A recent acquisition helps to demonstrate how many photographically illustrated publications vary enormously from one to another. The negatives were created and hundreds of positive prints pasted into the volumes with little or no consistency. In the case of this book, the negatives may have been discarded or worn out and so, new photographs were taken of the same landmark views.

Wilson employed thirty assistants who were constantly printing, tinting, mounting and filling orders while Wilson traveled throughout Great Britain capturing picturesque views. His business flourished for more than twenty years, leaving dozens, if not hundreds, of variant editions of his books.

Walter Scott (1771-1832), The Lady of the Lake; with all his introductions, various readings, and the editor’s notes ; illustrated by numerous engravings on wood from drawings by Birket Foster and John Gilbert. Author’s ed. (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1869). Ten albumen silver prints by George Washington Wilson (1825-1893). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) TR647.W546 S36

Walter Scott (1771-1832), The Lady of the Lake (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, [1866]). Eleven albumen prints by George Washington Wilson (1825-1893). Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

“Perhaps there is not another name among the galaxy of bright stars in the photographic firmament that shines more brightly than that of George Washington Wilson, of Aberdeen, Scotland. Like the wise men of the East, have the photographic fraternity watched the brilliant effects which radiate from this photographic star. . . Mr. Wilson commenced his photographic career some twenty years ago. His first experience in connection with the art was in painting or coloring miniatures on ivory and paper. While engaged in this class of artistic labor he became greatly enamored with the photographic art. It dawned upon him one day that he must either advance with the tide or get drowned in the flood of photography, which was swelling up in the distance.”

“Another season he concluded to try his skill in the production of instantaneous views, and with this purport in view he lodged for a month or two, near one of those beautiful small lakes, which abound in Scotland, watching and waiting for a favorable opportunity, and whenever a prominent sunset view made its appearance, photographed it to the best of his ability. It was these sunset and cloud views that brought his name prominently before the photographic world. Although it has been nearly thirteen years since these cloud and sunset views were secured, the popular demand for them has not abated in the least. Only the day before Mr. Wilson sent us the negatives from which our illustration is printed, did he complete the filling of an order for forty-six dozen of those views. Since he made those cloud and sunset views, he has visited many famous places, and in many instances the same places have been visited over and over again, making new negatives and for the purpose of renewing old ones. –Richard Walzl, The Photographer’s Friend: A Practical, Independent Magazine, Devoted to the Photographic Art 2 (1872): 48-50.

Sidney Marsh Chase, author and illustrator

Sidney Marsh Chase (1877-1957), The Lobster Men, 1909. Oil on canvas. Reproduced in Scribner’s Magazine 46 (July 1909): 9. Graphic Arts Collection framed paintings

Both an artist and a writer, Chase lived most of his life in Haverhill, Massachussets. His summers were spent in Maine painting his three favorite subjects: the fishermen, their boats, and the sea. Illustrations and short stories by Chase appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Illustrated Sunday Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, Scribner’s Magazine, and Youth’s Companion among other publications. This is one of several canvases that came to Princeton University thanks to generosity of the Scribner family.

See also: Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838-1915), Forty minutes late: and other stories (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909). Illustrated by Sidney M. Chase. RECAP 3935.1.335

Ut Scribat Non Feriat = May it write, not strike

A single leaf was discovered in our collection, which was removed from a copy of Vincentezo Vittoria (Vincente Victoria, 1658-1712), Osservazioni Sopra Il Libro Della Felsina Pittrice Per Difesa Di Raffaello Da Urbino (Roma: Nella Stamperia di Gaetano Zenobj, della Santità di N.S. Clemente XI. Intagliatore, nella Gran Curia Innocenziana, 1703).
Getty Research Institute’s book above and below

Graphic Art’s plate shows a man sharpening a quill dangerously close to a copy of Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Felsina Pittrice (Lives of the Bolognese painters), captioned above Ut Scribat Non Feriat (May it write, not strike, as a wish, referring to the sharpened quill). The motto was used in Vittoria’s other books with a simplified image.

The Spanish painter and printmaker Vicente Victoria y Gastaldo (1658-1712) was born in Valencia but spent much of his working life in Rome. See E. Páez, Repertorio de Grabados Españoles (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1981). Marquand NE699 .P34 1981

Besides writing in defense of Raphael in the above volume, Vittoria also wrote a sonnet in praise of painting:

Emula del criador, arte excelente
Misteriosa deidad, muda canora
Sin voz sirena y sabia encantadora
Verdad fingida, engafio permanente,
Del alma suspension, sombra viviente
Erudita y no garrula oradora,
Libro abierto, que mas ensefia y ora
Que el vohimen mas docto y eloqiiente:
Quanto el juicio comprehcnde, ama el anhelo
Si advierte en ti ; y en tu matiz fecunda
Otra naturaleza halla el desvelo.
Admiro en ti casi un criador segundo,
Pues Dios crio de nada tierra y cielo,
De casi nada ti’t haces cielo y mundo.

Great Art, that emulates the Maker’s hand,
Mute speech, that holds man’s spirit in suspense,
Sweet voiceless Siren, charming every sense,
Fiction, that firm, as truth herself, shall stand,
Shadow, full fraught with life and meanings grand,
That more in briefest compass can condense
And speak, of lore and lofty eloquence
Than any tome, or teacher of the land!
Whate’er the mind can grasp, whate’er the soul
Embraces in its love, whate’er the earth
Brings forth of beauty, in thy tints we see.
In thee creations, new and bright, unroll
Their goodly stores, and nature’s second birth
From formless nothing springs to light in thee !

Eckels’ Anatomical Aid

Howard Samuel Eckels (born 1865), Eckel’s Anatomical Aid. First edition (Philadelphia: H. S. Eckels & Co., no date [ca. 1903]). Oblong folio wallet with leaves mounted on guards, chromolithographic flaps. The signature of ‘Owen L Walker’ is at head of the front pastedown.

Eckel’s anatomical aid with moveable flaps was produced specifically for the use of embalmers. Beginning with “The Body” (ten flaps), the user is then introduced to “The Head” (three flaps), the “Eye and Ear” (eight flaps in all), the “Skeleton,” the “Transverse section of the neck in region where the carotid arteries are raised,” the “Muscles, Veins Arteries and Nerves,” the “Transverse section of the leg in region where the femoral artery is usually raised,” a “Diagram of the Nervous System,” the “Organs of the Thoracic and Abdominal Cavities,” “Blood Formation, Absorption and Circulation,” “Reproduction of Original Arterial System,” concluding with “Sections of Upper and Lower Extremities” (ten flaps in all).

Eckel’s first published his anatomical aid in conjunction with an accompanying volume of text, The Practical Embalmer, though both stand alone and are rarely found together in contemporary collections. The format was possibly inspired by, and may even have obtained the plates for, David Graham and James Knox’s Embalmers’ Anatomical Aid (1884), or from Ira E. Bunn & Company’s Physicians’ Anatomical Aid (ca. 1890).

Giving away your collection with the collection catalogue

“I started buying snapshots and vernacular photos, almost twenty-five years ago,” writes New York collector Peter Cohen. “Since then I’ve amassed a substantial collection. I always bought what I liked . . . I hope that the images on this site will be enjoyed by yet a larger group of people.” http://www.pjcohencollection.com/

Three years ago, Cohen went even further, publishing an unassuming volume of snapshots entitled Dangerous Women (Pittsburgh: Spaces Corners, 2013. Marquand Library N7433.4.C375 C64 2013). Not only can you enjoy images from his personal collection but slipped into the middle of each book, in a tiny glassine envelope, is an individual photograph. Buy the book and you get part of the actual collection.

Next month, the eclectic journal Esopus (Marquand NX460.E86Q) will include over 100 anonymous and vernacular photographs from Cohen’s collection. We are all welcome at the issue’s launch party on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at the Museum of Modern Art or simply cross the plaza to Marquand Library to enjoy it. http://www.esopus.org/

Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), The Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African: from an Account Written by Himself to which are Added Some Remarks on the Slave Trade, etc. abridged by A. Mott (New York: Samuel Wood & Sons, 1829). Wood engravings by Alexander Anderson (1775-1870) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 286.

In 1789, a forty-four year old African living in London, Olaudah Equiano, wrote and published his biography: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Later that year, it was also being sold by Mr. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church-Yard; Mr. Buckland, Paternoster-Row; Messrs. Robson and Clark, Bond-Street; Mr. Davis, opposite Gray’s-Inn, Holborn; Mr. Matthews, Strand; Mr Stockdale, Piccadilly; Mr. Richardson, Royal Exchange; Mr. Kearsley, Fleet-Street and the booksellers in Oxford and Cambridge.

By 1790, there was a Dutch edition sold in Rotterdam by Bij Pieter Holsteyn and in 1791 an Irish edition sold by W. Sleater, and the other Booksellers in Dublin.

It wasn’t until 1829, forty years after it was written, that the first illustrated edition was printed and sold by Samuel Wood & Sons in New York City. The illustrator of this edition was Alexander Anderson (1775-1870).

Anderson included a version of a diagram for housing slaves aboard a ship, also found as a broadside, Remarks on the slave trade, extracted from the American Museum, for May, 1789 (Philadelphia: Printed by Mathew Carey, 1789). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 1083.323f

“Visualising the transatlantic slave trade”: http://www.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated/exhibitions/museums/brookes.html

As dainty an edition of Marmion as any lady can desire.

Walter Scott (1717-1832), Marmion, a Tale of Flodden Field (London: A. W. Bennett, 1866). 15 albumen silver prints by Thomas Annan (1829-1887). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

An 1865 article in the London Examiner entitled “Gift Books” noted:

“Mr Alfred W Bennett stands foremost among the London publishers as a producer of beautiful Christmas books illustrated by photography. He chooses for illustration books that are worth having and keeping, and that admit of the best and most legitimate sort of sun-painting for adornment of the text.

Printing his text and binding it with luxurious good taste, he enriches it with so liberal a supply of mounted photographs of the best quality, that the pictures alone are almost if not altogether worth the price of the book they illustrate. . . Mr Bennett’s other photographic book is a gay and luxurious edition of Scott’s Marmion, illustrated with smaller photographic views by Mr Thomas Annan, of Norham, Warkworth, Bamborough, Crichtoun, and Bothwell Castles, Holyrood Palace, Tantallon Hold, Durham Cathedral, Lindisfarne Priory, and Whitby and Dunfermline Abbeys, Linlithgow Palace, and Twizel Bridge; a photograph of Scott’s monument at Edinburgh, serving as frontispiece.

The book is richly bound in gold and scarlet, has initial letters to each canto illustrated in woodcut, and is as dainty an edition of Marmion as any lady can desire. Its images of the scenery that lay in Scott’s own mind as that of the poem suggest the right background of local colour to the fancy of the reader.”–The Examiner, No. 3017, 25 November 1865, p. 746.

We recently acquired the first edition of Sir Walter Scott’s book with photographic illustrations by Thomas Annan, including his view of Linlithgow Palace, reflected in the Loch. A notebook of Thomas Annan’s at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow shows a drawing of Linlithgow Palace dated 24th May 1862.

“The sketch at Linlithgow shows the composition proposed and the time of day to make the desired image is indicated. . . . Below the sketch is a note which indicates Annan’s concern about perspective and distance and the problem of relating foreground to middle and background, confirming his awareness of compositional rules in painting.”

This approach suggests that Annan was visiting at least some locations prior to photographing to get an impression of the aspect and light, before addressing the logistics of arriving at the desired time with his bulky photographic equipment.–Roddy Simpson, The Photography of Victorian Scotland, 2012. Firestone TR61 .S467 2012.

The quote on the cover comes from this stanza:

Well was he armed from head to heel
In mail and plate of Milan steel;
But his strong helm, of mighty cost
Was all with burnished gold embossed;
Amid the plumage of the crest
A falcon hovered on her nest
With wings outspread, and forward breast;
E’en such a falcon, on his shiel
Soared sable in an azure field:
The golden legion bore aright
Who checks at me to death is dight.
Blue was the charger’s broidered rein;
Blue ribbons decked his arching mane;
The knightly housing’s ample fold,
Was velvet blue, and trapped with gold.

Portraits of George Cruikshank

Charles Gillot (1853-1903), People of the Period. –George Cruickshank. [sic] (The Champion of Temperance.) in The Period: An Illustrated Quizzical, Satirical, & Critical Review of What Is Going On, Sept. 17, 1870. Hand colored relief etching. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Daniel John Pound (active 1850-1860) after a photograph by John Watkins (1823-1874) and Charles Watkins (1836-1882), George Cruikshank, Esq., between 1858 and 1870. “The Drawing Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages Presented with the Illustrated News of the World.”
Graphic Arts collection GC022

R. Taylor & Company, A broadsheet “In memoriam” of George Cruikshank with a large central portrait of the artist. Wood engraving. London: Curtice & Co, 1878. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Unidentified artist after a photograph by Ernest Edwards & Cyril Mangin Bult, George Cruikshank AEtat 76, ca. 1868. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Alfred Croquis (pseudonym for Daniel Maclise 1806-1870), Geo Cruikshank. Author of ‘Illustrations of Time'” (London: James Fraser, [ca. 1832]). Note: British Museum incorrectly attributes this to Alfred Crowquill (pseudonym for Alfred Henry Forrester). Etching. Graphic arts Collection GC022

Unidentified artist, The Venerable George. He painted in oils the virtues of Water from The Hornet, December 6, 1871. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Cruikshank’s self-portrait in the frontispiece “Interior View of the House of God” published in The Scourge or Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly (London: W. Jones, November 1, 1811). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1811.2.

George Cruikshank can be seen at the bottom left as a young, debonair gentleman talking to M. Jones, the publisher of the magazine. Note: Cruikshank is holding one of his drawings. Graphic Arts Collection GC022

Another Thomas Cross identified

T.Cross sculp

Although many title pages designed and engraved by Thomas Cross (active 1632-1682) are signed by the artist, such as the one above, others are not making attribution difficult. A new print has been identified. Note the name Cross in the bottom right: Johannes Praetorius (1630-1680), Anthropodemvs Plvtonicvs: das ist eine neue Welt-Beschreibung von allerley wunderbahren Menschen ... (Magdeburg: In Verlegung Johann Lüderwalds, 1666). 2 pts. in 1 v. Title page designed and engraved by Thomas Cross (active 1632-1682). Columbia University.

Cross has been discounted over the years as a minor 17th-century engraver. The DNB states, “His style shows no attempt at artistic refinement, but merely an endeavour to render faithfully the lineaments of the persons or objects portrayed; this he executed in a dry and stiff manner.” In fact, his designs are filled with fancy and imagination. The multiple compartments used above were repeated in several other books, such as The Rich Cabinet, seen below. Both volumes are very worn, leaving one image very dark and the other very brown.John White, A rich cabinet (London: printed for William Whitwood at the sign of the Golden Lion in Duck-Lane near Smith-field, 1668). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) N-000210

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