Category Archives: Books

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Vellucent bindings


Vellucent binding: “A method of decorating (and protecting) a bookbinding utilizing transparent vellum. The technique was developed by Cedric Chivers sometime around 1903, and is designed not only for the protection of leather bindings, but also to protect covers bearing colored designs (usually pictorial in nature) painted on paper, attached to the boards, and then covered with the vellum. The vellucent covering is also suitable for highly decorative designs because it is possible to further embellish the design by means of mother-of-pearl, iridescent shell, and the like, all of which may be covered and permanently protected by the vellum. The surface of the vellum itself can he tooled in gold, thus further enhancing the entire effect. See also: EDWARDS OF HALIFAX . (94 , 236 )”—CoOL URL: http://cool.conservation-us.org/don/dt/dt3692.html

 

Thanks to Stephen J Gertz for the following: http://www.booktryst.com/2010/07/cedric-chivers-art-vs-library-bindings.html

“In his large bindery at Portway, Bath, Chivers employed about forty women for folding, sewing, mending, and collating work, and in addition, five more women worked in a separate department, to design, illuminate, and colour vellum for book decoration, and to work on embossed leather. These five were Dorothy Carleton Smyth, Alice Shepherd, Miss J.D. Dunn, Muriel Taylor, and Agatha Gales. Most Vellucent bindings were designed by H. Granville Fell, but the woman most frequently employed for this kind of work was probably Dorothy Carleton Smyth” (Marianne Tidcombe, Women Bookbinders 1880-1920, p. 86).

“Smyth [1880-1933] was born in Glasgow, the daughter of a jute manufacturer. She studied art in Manchester and then attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1895 until 1905. Her stained glass piece Tristan and Iseult was exhibited at the International Exhibition in 1901, and in 1903 an anonymous female patron paid for Smyth to study in Europe. At first Smyth was best known as a portraitist, particularly for her sketches of theatre personalities. Later she specialised in theatre costume working in London, Paris and Sweden. She designed costumes for several of the Shakespearean Festivals held in Stratford-upon-Avon, beginning in 1906. Smyth was appointed Principal of Commercial Art at Glasgow School of Art in 1914, and began to concentrate more on teaching than costume design. However, in 1916 she designed costume and decoration for the Quinlan Opera Company’s world tour. In 1933 Smyth was appointed as the first woman director of the School of Art, but died before she could take up the post” (The Glasgow Story).

Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay), Evelina or The History of A Young Lady’s Entrance Into The World; With an Introduction by Austin Dobson and Illustrations by Hugh Thomson. Bound by Cedric Chivers (London: Macmillan & Co Limited, 1903). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

Our new acquisition is completed in a “vellucent” binding by Cedric Chivers of Bath, stamp-signed on the back turn-in, of transparent vellum over paper. Front cover with a multi-color painted architecturally frame with three mother of pearl inlays enclosing an original painting of Evelina after Hugh Thomson frontispiece, with the title and author hand-lettered. Spine with matching decoration, lettering and mother of pearl ring around Burney’s name. Back panel painted plus another mother of pearl ring and painted multi-color floral gatherings in the corners. Vellum and paper doublures ruled in gilt.

The British Library printed this biography of the author:

“Burney’s entry into the world of letters was elaborately strategised and much anguished over, much like the debuts into society through which she put the heroines of her most celebrated novels. After a childhood spent writing stories and plays, Burney anonymously published her first novel, Evelina, in 1778. Wary of the public eye and uncertain how her family would react to her writing for a mass audience, Burney sought to keep her authorship secret for as long as possible. But, after months of public speculation and the praise of literary figures such as Hester Thrale and Samuel Johnson, Burney owned the novel as her own.

…Burney’s father introduced her to important writers, actors and artists – David Garrick and Joshua Reynolds socialised at the Burney household – but was conservative in his estimation of what literary genres were suitable for women writers. Burney was discouraged by her father and close family friend Samuel Crisp from writing comedy and satire, particularly for the stage. Instead, she put her sharp insight into the foibles and mannerisms of society to good use in her next novel, Cecilia (1782), which sold widely and cemented Burney’s literary reputation and her status as a literary celebrity in London.”– https://www.bl.uk/people/frances-burney

Princeton University Library also owns this half vellucent binding in the Cotsen Children’s Library:  Geoffroy de La Tour Landry (active 14th century), The booke of thenseygnementes and techynge that the Knyght of the Towre made to his doughters (London: George Newnes, 1902) (London & Edinburgh : Ballantyne Press) Cotsen Children’s Library Press 40742.

 

Thanks to Edward Levin for sharing his copy of Eleanor Vere Boyle, Days and Hours in a Garden (London: Elliot Stock, 1898) Chivers catalogue no. lxxxvi, with a similar binding.

 

Oak Tree Press First Chapters



The Graphic Arts Collection acquired a nearly complete deluxe set of Oak Tree Press’s First Chapter Series of Booker Prize-winning novels and prints [8 of 10]. Not only are the individual numbered copies signed by the author on the title page and hand bound in cloth, but many include a signed print within the slipcase. The series began in 2006 with J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K, with a lithograph by the South African artist Colbert Mashile [above].

“Colbert Mashile was born in 1972 in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga and currently lives and works in Johannesburg. Mashile received his Diploma in Fine Arts from the Johannesburg Art Foundation in 1994 and later continued his studies at the University of Witwatersrand where he obtained a BA in Fine Arts in 2000 and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Heritage Studies in 2002. Since then Mashile has presented ten solo exhibitions, with the most recent being Messages from our Ancestors in 2013 at the Art Eye Gallery in Sandton, Johannesburg.” — Read more: https://smacgallery.com/exhibition/colbert-mashile-2015/

 

“Ezequiel Mabote [his work above] is a self-taught artist who grew up in an arts neighborhood in Maputo. He was influenced by the old masters of sculptures, paintings and batiks at the age of 10. He then took art lessons at Noroestel High School in Maputo. In 1998, Ezequiel moved to South Africa to fulfill his dreams in art. He stayed in Durban KwaZulu Natal with his cousin brother, Isaac Sithole. Isaac introduced him to the Bat Centre where he networked with local artists. In 1999, he attended a printmaking workshop at the Bat Centre with Samuel N Mbingilo from the John Muafangejo Art Centre in Namibia.

He held his first exhibition in 1999 at the Intensive Care Café at the Bat Centre and two years later attended printmaking workshops at the Caversham Press in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands under well-known artists such as Malcolm Christian, Dr David Koloane, the late Gabi Nkosi, Kevin Sipp, Xolile Mtakatya and many more. Ezequiel now specializes in printmaking, woodcut colour reduction, oil pastels, paintings, sculptures, murals and bookbinding.”–https://www.maboteart.com/

 

Also part of this series is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie with a lithograph by Thomas Howard; Holiday by Stanley Middleton with a watercolor by the author [above]; The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer with an etching by Cyril Coetzee; Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth with a woodcut by Ezequiel Mabote; The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood with an ink drawing by Yoko Ono; The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst with a lithograph by Gilbert and George [at the top of the page]; and Possession A Romance by A.S. Byatt with a lithograph by David Royle.

Oak Tree Fine Press is a privately owned publishing company based in Oxfordshire, England. “We specialize in exceptionally high quality books featuring work by the world’s greatest authors and artists. All profits from the sales of all our books go to organisations assisting children living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.” http://www.oaktreefinepress.com/site/about.asp

Additional information from the press states, “The support of Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee has been vital to the success of the series, and its second volume featured his Booker Prize winning novel of 1999, “Disgrace.” Since then, a wide range of authors have collaborated on the series, linked by their shared status as Booker Prize winners, and their mutual interest in contributing to a worthwhile cause through the creation of beautiful and thought provoking book. Each book is comprised of the first chapter of the title, accompanied by an illustration made especially for the series.”

Esta noche he pasado

Luis Palés Matos, Esta Noche He Pasado; xilografías Raquel Noemi Quijano Feliciano (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Taller El Polvorín, 2003). Copy: No. 6. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0076E

 

 

One of the items pulled for a visit by the students in “Arts & Activism in Puerto Rico,” an intersession immersion trip organized through Princeton’s Pace Center for Civic Engagement, was Esta Noche He Pasado (2003), a three-dimensional artists’ book designed, printed, and constructed by Raquel Quijano Feliciano with poetry by Luis Palés Matos (Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0076E).

We tried translating the text (Tonight I Have Passed) as we turned the pop-up pages but the poetry is rich and lyrical, with multiple layers and serious word play, such as “He Pasado” meaning he both passes through the black town and “passes for” black.


A translation was attempted by Julio Marzan in The Numinous Site: The Poetry of Luis Palés Matos (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995). Here are a few lines:

No! La pompa jocunda de estas tribus ha muerto.
Les queda una remota tristeza cuadrumana,
Una pasión ardiente por los brazos alcohols,
El odio milenario del blanco, y la insaciable
Lujuria de las toscas urgencias primitivas.

No! The cheerful pomp of those tribes has died.
All that remains is a remote four-hooved sadness,
A sweltering passion for strong liquor,
An ancient hatred of whites, and the unsated
Indulgence of raw, primitive drives.

Ante este pueblo negro y estas casas de podre
Y esta raza ya hundido para siempre, yo tengo
La vision de espantosos combustibles; la brea,
El diamante, el carbon, el odio y la montaña…

Before this black town and these houses of pus
And this race now sunken forever, I visualize
Spontaneous combustibles; tar,
Diamond, carbon, hatred and the mountain.

 

 

Printmaker Raquel Quijano began her studies in 1993 at the workshops of Liga de Estudiantes de Arte de San Juan and received a B.A. in Graphic Arts at Escuela de Artes Plásticas de San Juan in 2003. Quijano is now a professor at the Liga de Estudiantes de Arte, while also teaching at the Centro para el Grabado y las Artes del Libro de Puerto Rico http://www.puertadetierra.info/noticias/biblio/centro_grabado.htm.

Founded by Consuelo Gotay in June 218, the Center for Engraving and Book Arts of Puerto Rico is located in the renovated Carnegie Library (Biblioteca Carnegie) in San Juan. https://www.facebook.com/GrabadoPR/. It will be one of the spaces you will visit if you are lucky enough to attend Puertográfico 2020 the first week of April, under the auspice of the Southern Graphics Conference https://www.sgcinternational.org/puertografico-2020/

 

 
“El libro … fue impreso en el Taller El Povorín de la Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico en Mayo del 2003. La encuadernación tipo acordeón de este libro ‘pop up’, fue confeccionada en cartón ‘acid free’. Las ilustraciones son Xilografías originales impresas en papel Rive BFK y Classic Linen. El texto fue realizado con tipografía digital Hoefler text transferida a fotoserigrafía.”–Colophon
 

 

Pairing Herbert Granville Fell with Annie S. MacDonald

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquire a copy of The Song of Solomon designed and illustrated by Herbert Granville Fell (1872-1951) with a binding by Annie S. MacDonald (1849-1924) (London: Guild of Women Binders, Chapman and Hall, printed by William Clowes and Sons, 1897). “Of this special edition on Japanese paper only 100 copies have been printed, for the Guild of Women Binders.”–Page 1. This is copy 8 of 100.

 

The binding is signed in embossed leather with an ‘M M’ at the lower edge of the front cover, with the date ‘1898’ in embossed leather at the opposite edge. ‘M M’ refers to ‘Mrs. MacDonald,’ a member of the Guild of Women-Binders.

The founding of the Guild of Women-Binders and Annie MacDonald’s part in the organization has been repeated on many webpages and catalogues. Here it is from the American Bookbinders Museum post “The Bindings of To-morrow”:

The Guild of Women Binders was founded by Frank Karslake, a London bookseller and also founder of the Hampstead Bindery. Karslake was a bit of a rogue, who dabbled in multiple professions ranging from acting to ranch management, before trying his hand at bookselling and bookbinding. His interest in women binders emerged from his admiration of bindings exhibited at the Victorian Era Exhibition in 1897. Soon after seeing these examples, he invited several of the women binders to exhibit in his shop.

This exhibit, Exhibition of Artistic Bookbinding by Women, confirmed to Karslake that maybe women really could distinguish themselves in this industry. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to profit from the novelty of women binders, but soon after, Karslake acted as agent to prominent binders like Constance Karslake, Edith de Rheims, Florence de Rheims, Mrs. Macdonald, Helen Schofield, Frances Knight, and Lilian Overton (to name a few). In 1899, Karslake’s vision evolved into the workshop and business venture that became the Guild of Women Binders. Women involved in the guild were typically middle class and had a background in artistic education.

When Karslake first conceived of the idea to compile a book, publishers refused it because books on bindings were said to be unprofitable. A warning which Karslake ignored when he published The Bindings of To-morrow himself in 1902, with the assistance of W. Griggs who printed an edition of 500 copies. [Graphic Arts Collection 2008-2402N] This book provides a unique historical insight into the binding process and a glimpse into the under-represented work of women binders. A year after publication, Karslake was forced to offer the remaining 150 copies of the book to booksellers at a fraction of the original price.

In the catalog, The Bindings of To-morrow, Annie MacDonald’s entry includes autobiographical text: “Mrs. Macdonald writing in 1897, when her work was shewn at the “First exhibition of Bookbinding by Women”, said: ‘It began about six years ago, with myself and the late John M. Gray, curator of the Scottish National Portrait gallery. We took great pleasure in searching out and enjoying old bindings in libraries, both at home and abroad and felt that it was a beautiful art, but now fallen to be only a trade. Then we wishes to try it ourselves. . . . The embossed leather in which most of the work is done is an idea of my own. It is not cut, or raised by padding, but is quite solid leather, and is worked on the book after it is covered, with one small tool. It allows of great freedom of design, no two people work it alike.’”
—https://archive.org/details/bindingsmorrow00Guil/page/n89/mode/2up

Thanks to Sarah Hovde, not only for the Folger Shakespeare Library post on MacDonald but the Wikipedia page she wrote to introduce MacDonald to the contemporary world. Read: https://collation.folger.edu/2017/03/guild-women-binders/

https://doi.org/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00062735
The Oxford Art Online describes Herbert Granville Fell as a painter first, then illustrator and stained glass painters. “Fell studied in London at Heatherley’s, in Brussels and in towns in Germany. He produced drawings for the Pall Mall Magazine, The Ludgate Monthly, The Windmill, the English Illustrated, the Ladies Field (of which he was artistic director) and other magazines.” The Song of Solomon is only one of many elaborately illustrated books by Fell.

 

Analogy and harmony of colours

Princeton University Library owns the 1845, new augmented edition of George Field’s essay on harmony and color but not the original 1817 edition, so the two were compared to see what we were missing. The 1817 edition has 57 pages with 5 plates, the later is 263 pages with 11 plates – quite a difference.


George Field (1777?-1854), Chromatics, or, an essay on the analogy and harmony of colours (London: Printed for the Author by A.J. Valpy, 1817). viii, 57, [2] p., [5] leaves of plates). Full text online

George Field (1777?-1854), Chromatics, or, the analogy, harmony, and philosophy of colours, New ed., augm. (London: Bogue, 1845). xviii, 263 p., 11 leaves of plates. Rare Books 2008-0260

In Field’s preface to the 1845 edition he writes:

“This work, as printed twenty-eight years ago [1817], was part of a general treatise on colours, and an abstract of the first principles of chromatic science, constituting one division of a universal system of “Analogical Philosophy.” As it was well received by the artists, and the truth and practicability of its theory continue to be acknowledged, and as we hold the science to be that which, from its middle station, the simplicity, breadth, and perspicuity of its relations, the beauty of its representations, and its easy reference to nature, is best adapted to illustrate the universal analogy of science, we have been induced to republish the work under a wider development, extending the sphere of its application throughout art.”


In fact the revised edition is substantially rewritten (not always for the better) and the color plates much improved. For instance, in the first edition the author concludes: “the principal distinction of the two systems is, that the notes of sound are separated by intervals or spaces, while the notes of colour are the spaces themselves; for colour, as expansible quantity, bears the same relation to space that musical sound, as quantity successive, does to time: the Chromatist has therefore not only his melody and harmony, but he has also, if the variety of expanded quantities may be so expressed, his semibreves [whole notes] and minims [half notes], quavers [8th notes], and semiquavers [16th notes]. And this relation of colours answers to that which, in their music, the ancients called harmonica and rhytlimica theoretically; or practically to their Melopoeia and rhythmopoeia.

In the 1845 edition, Field expands on his theories, not ready to conclude at this point: “In such case there will arise this distinction of the two systems, that the notes of sound being separated by intervals or spaces, while the notes of colour (we beg the term) will be the spaces themselves; but in this diagram the distances on the scales from one sound to another, and those from colour to colour, are equally intervals. Thus from the particular hue and shade of Red to that of Orange on the scale, and from E to F, the corresponding sounds of these colours, are both intervals in which a series of intermediate hues and smaller intervals of sound have place. . . .”

The 1818 edition, Field writes “It is evident also that colours have a science as distinct from any association with figure or forms, as that of musical sounds is from figurative language or poetry. Hence the field in which the Chromatist may exercise his genius, is as extensive as that of the musician : to teach the science in all its bearings, is, however, beyond the purpose of an essay designed principally to illustrate the analogy of colours.”

1845 edition: “We may therefore terminate the present head with the remark, that, although colours have a science as distinct from any necessary connection with that of figures, or plastic, or pictorial forms in painting, as that of musical sounds is from figurative language, or the images of poetry, and are similarly associated; nevertheless, each of these sciences has its highest office under such figurative conjunction, as we shall further shew; whence the field in which the chromatist may exercise his genius is as diversified and extensive as that of the musician. To disclose the subtleties of the science is, however, beyond the purpose of an essay, designed principally to illustrate the analogy of colours.”

While having both is preferable, having the 1845 plates is a treat not fully appreciated with the digital surrogate. The 1817 can be read online until one is gifted. *note, the picture in our database is from the 21st century reprinting, although the record is for the 1845.

27 tableaux vivants


The Graphic Arts Collection has two new book projects with covers designed by Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), along with her original painted designs. Our expert rare book conservator, Mick LeTourneaux, solved the problem of how to store each painting with the published book by constructing custom clamshell boxes with two compartments.

The first book is Delaunay’s 27 tableaux vivants published in Milan by Edizioni del Naviglio in 1969. Pochoir designs on leporello or accordion pages stretch out to form a small exhibition of 27 costume designs created over the 84 year old artist’s lifetime. Princeton’s book is no. 457 of 500 copies on velin Aussedat, from a total edition of 650.

Sonia attracted wealthy clients: a woollen embroidered coat was made in 1925 for the movie star Gloria Swanson, in geometric shades of rich spicy reds, browns and creams. In these fashion creations, straight lines predominate as diamonds and stripes and straight-edged lines turn at right angles. It’s as if the excitement of the whirling ballroom has been supplanted by the glamour of the road. But not for long: in the 1930s the curves and wheels and arcs were very much back.

For four more decades Sonia designed fabrics for the Amsterdam luxury store Metz and Co, and latterly for Liberty. She didn’t abandon the poets, it must be said. A “poem-curtain” of the time has verses by the surrealist Philippe Soupault embroidered in wool. She made “poem-dresses” – words that walked – and lectured at the Sorbonne on “the influence of painting on clothing design”.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/27/sonia-delaunay-avant-garde-queen-art-fashion-vibrant-tate-modern


The book is accompanied by two trial designs for the cover along with the painted binding. Inside the covers, Delaunay’s work is illustrated with an introductory text from publisher Jacques Damase (1930-2014, who was also the former owner of this volume), extracts from Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), and a poem from Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961), with whom Delaunay had earlier worked on Prose du Transsibérien (1913).

 

The second book, also from the estate of Jacques Damase and with a painted cover design by Delaunay is André Salmon’s Propos d’atelier, published in France 1938–1967. It is also accompanied by a serigraph poster for a 1967 exhibition in Arras, in which the same design from Delaunay re-appears in inverted fashion.

…practical examples of mensuration: of singular use for work-men, artificers, and other ingenious persons delighting therein

Besides information on carpentry and logarithms, this book contains a frontispiece by the wonderful, under appreciated printmaker Thomas Cross, the elder (1632?–1682), who is credited with over 200 portraits.

The National Portrait Gallery, London, lists 165 prints, http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp10604/thomas-cross?role=art and Johnson’s A Catalogue of Engraved and etched English title-pages lists only 26. When someone recognizes his worth, a complete study will list more.

Samuel Foster (died 1652), The art of measuring: containing the description and explanation of the carpenters new rule. Furnished with a variety of scales, fitted for the more speedy mensuration of superficies and solids. Written by Sam. Foster, sometime Professor of Astronomy in Gresham Colledge. Also, certain geometrical problems, a table of logarithms to 10000, and some uses of the same exemplified in arithmetick and geometry ; but more particularly applied to the mensuration of superficies and solids, as board, glass, pavement, wainscot, plaistering, tyling, timber, stone, brick-work and gauging of cask. The second edition with additions by W. Leybourn. To which is added, A supplement, being the description of the line of numbers, with its use in divers practical examples of mensuration: of singular use for work-men, artificers, and other ingenious persons delighting therein By John Wiblin, carpenter. (London: Williamson, 1677). Rare Books 2007-3537N

Here are a few other Cross title pages and frontispieces:

https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2016/03/13/another-thomas-cross-identified/

https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2015/12/07/frontispieces-by-thomas-cross-the-elder-active-1632-1685/

https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2019/09/24/when-did-people-start-coloring-their-nails-and-making-other-body-transformations-answered-in-1650/

The Dictionary of National Biography notes rudely:

CROSS, THOMAS (fl. 1632-1682), engraver, was employed in engraving numerous portraits of authors and other celebrities as frontispieces to books published in the middle of the seventeenth century. 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. His portraits are, however, a valuable contribution to the history of the period, and some of them are the only likenesses we possess—e.g. that of Philip Massinger, prefixed to an edition of his plays in 1655. Among the persons of note whose portraits were engraved by him were Thomas Bastwick, Richard Brownlowe, Jeremiah Burroughes, …, and many others, including a portrait of Richard III in Sir G. Buck’s ‘ Life and Reign’ of that monarch (1646).

Foster’s book ends with an advertisement!

Definition of artificer
1 a skilled or artistic worker or craftsman
2 one that makes or contrives

Collection of Decorated and Watermarked Papers Assembled by Ingeborg M. Hartmann


The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the collection of decorated and watermarked papers assembled by Ingeborg M. Hartmann (later owned by Jelle Samshuijzen). A description prepared by Sidney Berger is sampled here.

For over 40 years the German bookbinder Ingeborg M. Hartmann saved the endsheets and, in some cases, cover papers of the books she worked on, along with unprinted leaves (almost certainly flyleaves) containing watermarks. Today, her collection is housed in three custom boxes as follows: Box 1 contains 104 samples of decorated papers, mounted on 23 stiff archival board substrates; Box 2 contains 148 samples of mostly marbled papers, mounted on 42 stiff archival board substrates; Box 3 contains 142 unprinted leaves, each with a watermark.

This post highlights the watermark collection, which also includes two bound volumes that show the actual watermarks using beta radiography and drawings of these marks by Hartmann. No provenance information on the watermarked papers are given and the dates only generally listed 16th century to 19th century. The collection is not inclusive or definitive of any one place or time, but instead a gathering of fascinating, often beautiful examples. As with the printed and marbled papers, Hartmann has gathered hundreds of items to study and enjoy.

Here is a digital copy of one volume: hartmanncollectionofwatermarks

read more:

Ingeborg M. Hartmann and Eva-Maria Hanebutt-Benz, Das Gesicht der Bücher : Ingeborg M. Hartmann, Buchbinderin : Museum für Kunsthandwerk Frankfurt am Main, Ausstellung vom 26. Februar 1987 bis 8. Juni 1987 (Frankfurt am Main (Germany): Dezernat Kultur und Freizeit. ; Museum für Kunsthandwerk Frankfurt am Main, 1987). Graphic Arts Collection » Z269.2 .H37 1987

Ingeborg M. Hartmann, Buchbindermeisterin: [Ausstellung] Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 28. August bis 10. Oktober 1985 ([Hamburg] : [Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe], 1985).

Here are a few more samples:

 

 

Who attended the trial of Queen Caroline?

George Hayter (1792-1871), The Great Historical Picture of the Queen’s Trial, 1823. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London

A Descriptive catalogue of the Great Historical Picture, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Great Historical Picture, painted by George Hayter, member of The Academy of St. Luke, &c. &c. &c., representing the trial of Her Late Majesty Queen Caroline of England: with a faithful interior view of the House of Lords, and one hundred and eight-nine portraits ; amongst which are included those princes of the royal family, with most of the peers and distinguished personages who were in the House on that memorable occasion, and who did the artist the honor to sit : containing in the whole upwards of three hundred figures : now exhibiting at Mr. Cauty’s great rooms, No. 80½, Pall Mall. London: Printed by W. Hersee, White Lion Court, Cornhill. 1823. Graphic Arts Collection 2020- in process.

[Together with:] The Great Historical Picture of the Queen’s Trial by Mr. George Hayter… [London]: Hersee, Printer, 1, White Lion Court, Cornhill. [1823]. Broadside. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process.


On August 17, 1820, 260 prominent citizens of London gathered in the House of Lords to hear the introduction of the bill of pains and penalties aimed to “deprive Her Majesty Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of the Title, Prerogatives, Rights, Privileges and Pretensions of Queen Consort of this Realm, and to dissolve the Marriage between his Majesty and the said Queen.” — J. B. Priestley, The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency (1971). The Pains and Penalties Bill passed by a narrow margin.

London artist George Hayter received the prestigious commission to paint the scene, asking dozens to sit for him in his studio so their portraits would be accurate. Three years later, he capitalized on the excitement still surrounding the trial by staging an exhibition of his painting in Pall Mall with a catalogue [seen here] identifying each person attending the trial. This guaranteed the sale of his catalogue to at least the 189 people in the scene.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired both the illustrated catalogue for Hayter’s exhibition and a handbill handed out to potential patrons passing in the street.

Affixed to the end of the catalogue is a note: “* The Asterisks are placed to the names of those gentlemen who, though present at the Trial, are so situated in the Picture, that the Artist did not find it necessary to trouble them to sit [pose for their portrait].”

The 8 stanza poem on the handbill is fittingly dramatic, equal to the excitement felt throughout London: “There sat the anxious Caroline / within the lofty Hall / Before the searching eyes of men / Who waited for her fall.”

 

Ned Buntline: shot and revived, hung and survived, abstained and died



Edward Zane Carroll Judson served with the U.S. Navy from 1839 to 1842 during the Second Seminole War in Florida. While still in service, he began publishing short fiction under the pen name Ned Buntline (a buntline is one of the ropes attached to the foot of a square sail).

Although he is best-known for stories about the American West, many of Buntline’s early pieces relied on his personal experiences in Florida, including Matanzas, or, A Brother’s Revenge: a Tale of Florida (1848); The Red Revenger, or, The Pirate King of the Floridas. A Tale of the Gulf and its Islands (1848); and most notably, The White Wizard. Or, The Great Prophet of the Seminoles. A Tale of Strange Mystery in the South and North (Graphic Arts Collection. Oversize Hamilton 657q).

White Wizard originally appeared in the New York Mercury in 1858, later published as Beadle’s Sixpenny Tales in 1862 and American Talks in 1869.

Not only did Judson have a spectacular life but he was the best paid of all 19th-century American authors, reportedly earning ~$20,000/year in the 1860s. His stories number at least 400, but only 7 are held in the Sinclair Hamilton Collection of American Illustrated Books.

Of the many anecdotes told about Judson, perhaps the most sensational is the factual account of his hanging, from which he survived. As reported in the Washington Post, July 25, 1886, here is a section:

“Acting Mayor S.V.D. Stout and John D. Gass, who were Jail Commissioners, went to consult Louis Horn, jailer. When the mob rushed into the jail, they knocked Horn out of a rocking chair and secured the keys, when he said, “For God’s sake, don’t let all the prisoners out.” Three of the mob entered Buntline’s cell. While one caught him by a leg, another seized him by the collar. A third, placing his foot on Buntline’s neck, was about to fire, when the jailer pleaded with them not to kill him there.

Buntline was then dragged pell-mell into the street. He was then permitted to say his prayers and on finishing pulled a ring from his finger, handed it to a minister to be sent to his father at Pittsburgh, Pa. The crowd then hallooed, “Take him on,” and they did so.

They first attempted to hang him to a sign, but the rope having been too short, he was dragged to a lamp-post. When they began to pull him up, acting Mayor Stout cut the rope and the form of Buntline dropped to the earth. The utmost silence prevailed at this critical moment, when a man named Ashbrook cried out: “It’s a d—n shame to treat a human being in such a brutal manner and if John Porterfield is a gentleman, he will have the wretch turned loose!” At this Porterfield came out and said: “Take him back to jail” and Buntline was returned to his cell.

Dr. Stout said he had received severe internal injuries and that while attending him Buntline boasted that if he saw that a man was going to shoot him he could dodge the bullet. When Buntline had recovered and was about to be sent down the river, still another mob gathered at the upper wharf to lynch him; but the crowd was left standing when the boat started with no Buntline on board. The sheriff alluded the angry assemblage by taking Buntline to the lower wharf where he was put on a steamer and that was the last seen of Buntline in Nashville. “

In one obituary, possibly written by Judson himself before his actual death in 1886, it is noted that “Ned Buntline probably carried more wounds on this body than any other living American.”

Ned Buntline (pseudonym for E.Z.C. Judson, 1822 or 1823-1886), The White Wizard. Or, The great prophet of the Seminoles. A tale of strange mystery in the South and North; illustrations by Darley. Original, chromoxylographed paper wrappers (New York: F.A. Brady [1862]). Graphic Arts Collection. Oversize Hamilton 657q

Buntline’s heroes were not always the white men.

“…Coocoochee, a Mohawk prophetess. Though she was not a member of any of the tribes—Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware—that predominated numerically at the Glaize, Coocoochee nevertheless was treated as a revered member of the intertribal village community. Her respected position was based on her reputation as a medicine woman who conversed with numerous spirits and accurately forecast the results of raids.”

Also see Helen Hombeck Tanner, “Coocoochee: Mohawk Medicine Woman,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 3(3) (1979): 24-25, 28. The Ohio Iroquois, known as Mmgoes, began migrating into Ohio in the 1740s and 1750s; Coocoochee’s family relocated to Ohio sometime after 1768, the year in which the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix supposedly made the Ohio River a permanent boundary and acknowledged that the country north of the River belonged solely to the Indians.

Another good read:

Read more: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1992-01-12-9201030022-story.html