Nguta (active 2000s). [Hippopotamus, Tropical Birds ] and [Three Gazelles, Tropical Birds ]. [ca. 2006]. Enamel paint on muslin cloth. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02320, Gift of John Delaney
The Graphic Arts Collection holds two examples from the Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) School of Painting, originally found in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) but later spread to most of East Africa. These are signed by the artist Nguta.
Sometimes relegated to the category of “tourist art” sold in markets and airports in Tanzania, Kenya and neighboring countries, the style was derived from Tanzanian painter Edward Said Tingatinga (active 1970s) who often used Masonite and commercial enamel paints for his work.
Today the Tingatinga Arts Cooperative Society (TACS) is a recognized collective but only represents a small number of the artists working in this style, see: www.tingatingaArt.com
Samuel Frost (1765-1793), The Confession and Dying Words of Samuel Frost, Who is to be Executed This Day, October 31, 1793, for the Horrid Crime of Murder (Worcester, Mass.: Printed by Isaiah Thomas, 1793). Signed in plate, lower right: “Printed and sold at Mr. Thomas’s Printing office, in Worcester.” Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.02795
“Executions were pubic events in Worcester’s early days, attracting huge crowds and creating a carnival-like atmosphere. The hanging of Samuel Frost on November 5, 1793, was said to have drawn two thousand spectators. Frost had been tried for murdering his father in April 1784 but was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Records don’t show whether he spent any time in confinement, but on July 16, 1793, he murdered his employer, Captain Elisha Allen of Princeton [Massachusetts], during an argument in a field on Allen’s farm. Frost struck him more than fifteen times with the blade of a hoe and left his body lying on the ground. This time there was no acquittal. At the trial, he was found sane and sentenced to death.” —Rachel Faugno, Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts (2016).
sheet 52.5 x 43.7 cm.
“The first cemetery in Princeton [above] was the old burying ground on Meeting-House Hill across the road from the first church building, near 58 Mountain Road. In those early days the burying-ground (God’s Acre) was invariably an adjunct to God’s house. …Here is the grave Capt. Elisha Allen “foully murdered by Samuel Frost” in July, 1793, ten years after Frost had killed his own father. Formerly acquitted on the plea of insanity, the murderer this time paid the penalty for his crime, being hanged in Worcester on October 31, 1793.” —http://www.princetonmahistory.org/did-you-know-2/first-cemetery/
In honor of Ben Primer, and thanks to the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a photography album owned by George Frederick Norton (1876-1917) documenting a hunting expedition in the American West and Alaska, ca. 1910. The album contains 117 mounted gelatin silver prints (slightly photoshopped here) and a few letters. Born in Kentucky, Norton attended the Lawrenceville School and served as a partner at the brokerage Ex Norton & Co. Our dealer continues:
However, his life’s passion was travel, adventure and big game. Norton made numerous trips to the west and Alaska on private hunting expeditions, including the one depicted in the present album, and collected and donated specimens (with a particular emphasis on bear skulls) to the American Museum of Natural History the Smithsonian and other institutions. Indeed in 1910, the Department of Agriculture granted him a permit to capture and ship Alaskan brown bears in excess of the bag limit.
In 1901, he journeyed around the world and in 1908 he helped finance the final Peary expedition to the North Pole, accompanying him aboard the ship Eric as far north as Etah, Greenland. During World War I, Norton would serve in the American Field Service, and would be killed in action in France.
Given the terrain and the fauna (moose, mountain lion, pronghorn antelope, elk), the expedition(s) seen in the album were likely to Montana, Idaho or Wyoming. However, given Norton’s many expeditions farther north, some of the images may also be from Alaska.
On May 23, 1846, a crowd gathered in the Prater, a large public park in Vienna’s 2nd district. They watched as an enormous hot air balloon, known as The Eagle of Vienna, was launched carrying the director of Lehmann’s Aviation, Christian Lehmann, his daughter Carolina, and the Austrian explorer/naturalist Johann Natterer (1787-1843).
Variant prints are held in the collection of the Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. [see below]
Andreas Geiger (1765-1856), Lehmann’s Luftfahrt mit seinem Riesen Ballon ‘der Adler von Wien’ in Gesellschaft seiner Tochter Carolina und des Herrn Dr. Natterer im Prater am 23. Mai 1846,” [Lehmann’s aviation with its giant balloon ‘the eagle of Vienna’ in the company of his daughter Carolina and Dr. Natterer in the Prater on May 23, 1846]. Etching. A special pictures supplement to the Theaterzeitung (Vienna Theater Newspaper). Harold Fowler McCormick Collection of Aeronautica, Princeton University Library
Pull my daisy [videorecording] / a G-String Enterprise, Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie present ; written and narrated by Jack Kerouac (Göttingen : Steidl, c2012). 2 videodiscs (28 min. each) : sd., b&w ; 4 3/4 in. + 2 booklets. Directed and produced by Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank ; story and idea by Jack Kerouac ; edited by Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, and Leon Prochnik ; music by David Amram. Participant(s)/Performer(s): Mooney Peebles (Richard Bellamy), Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Larry Rivers, Beltiane (Delphine Seyrig), David Amram, Alice Neel, Sally Gross.
Based on a scene from Jack Kerouac’s play, “Beat Generation,” with his improvised voice-over narration. The story centers around a brakeman and his wife, their friends, and a bishop who is invited over for dinner. Videodisc release of the 1959 short film. Includes two booklets that contain some of the content from the book about the film published originally by Grove Press in 1961, and reissued in 2008 by Steidl. The first booklet ([27] p. : ill. ; 18 cm.) contains lyrics to the song, an essay by Jerry Tallmer, and the text of Kerouac’s narration. The second booklet ([52] p. : ill. ; 18 cm.) contains photographs taken by John Cohen during the production of the film.
One of the many artists to reinterpret Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 portrait of George Washington [above] was Peter Frederick Rothermel (1817-1895) who painted a variant oil on canvas in the 1800s. Engraver Alexander Hay Ritchie (1822-1895) turned Rothermel’s portrait into a rich mezzotint [top right], published in 1852 by R.A. Bachia and Company in New York City and elsewhere. Rather than a gesturing right hand, Washington rests his hand on a generic book.
Book and print seller John Dainty had a shop at 15 S. 6th Street in Philadelphia where he sold decorative oval engravings and portraits of well-known Americans. Dainty published a variation on Ritchie’s mezzotint entitled Washington as a Mason, dressing him in a masonic collar, jewel, and apron. His right hand now holds a book titled Ancient Masonic Constitutions, and his left hand holds a gavel upon a pedestal. The print is not dated but ca. 1860.
A.H. Ritchie after Peter F. Rothermel after Gilbert Stuart, Washington as a Mason, ca.1860. Mezzotint with engraving. George Washington Collection box 3, Graphic Arts
Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Paul Revere were also Masons. Washington entered the Fraternity of Freemasons in 1752 at the age of twenty:
“On Saturday evening, November the fourth, 1752, in the little village of Fredericksburg, in England’s ancient and loyal Colony and Dominion of Virginia, at a regular stated meeting of “the Lodge at Fredericksburg,” held in its Lodge-room, in the second story of the Market-House, Major George Washington was made an Entered Apprentice Mason.” — Proceedings of the right worshipful Grand lodge of the most Ancient and honorable fraternity of free and accepted masons of Pennsylvania: and masonic jurisdiction thereunto belonging, at its celebration of the sesqui-centennial anniversary of the initiation of Brother George Washington into the fraternity of freemasons (Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 1902).
Isaac Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), The Air Balloon or the Ascension of Drury, April 1821. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection
When actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833) broke a contract with the Drury Lane Theatre and sailed to America in October 1820, actor/manager Robert Elliston (1774-1831) had to come up with an equally charismatic performer or the theater would go bankrupt.
He signed a contract with an unknown nineteen-year-old soprano named Mary Ann Wilson (1802-1867) who made her debut at the Drury Lane on January 18, 1821, as Mandane in Thomas Augustine Arne’s Artaxerxes. She was an immediate sensation and remained there until July 5, singing for about 65 nights. The Morning Post declared that “the unparalleled and highly merited success of the incomparable fair warbler of Drury, has already obtained for her the distinguishing appellation of ‘The Wilson’.”
In advertising her upcoming performance Elliston used red lettering for the first time at a major theater. The Times‘s reviewer wrote “Miss Wilson, who has made her debut at Drury Lane, has not shamed the prologue which announced her. We were sadly afraid, we confess, that Mr. Elliston’s red letters would amount to little or nothing, but we have been agreeably disappointed. The lady is a powerful singer. . .”
No less than King George IV (peeking out on the right) came to see her perform on February 6, 1821 along with his royal brothers, the Dukes of York and Clarence. By April, the theater’s success was so great that Isaac Robert Cruikshank drew this print showing the Drury Lane being lifted out of dependency and the weight of debt by the aria “The Soldier Tir’d of War’s Alarms,” which was Wilson’s climactic song in the third act.
In the print, Elliston is seen waving his hat from the basket and Kean, labeled “the deserter,” performs Richard III far away in America, exclaiming, ‘Twas but a Dream [‘I did but dream’, Richard III, v. iii].
Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), The Soldier Tired of War’s Alarms, Sung in Artaxerxes, Composed by Dr. Arne (New York: J.A. & W. Geib at their Piano Forte Warehouse and Wholesale & Retail Music Store, between 1818-1821).
162 figures have been counted in this monumental engraving composed by Charles LeClerc I and dedicated to Louis XIV. The print has been revised and reused many times, this impression for the 1788 New Royal Encyclopædia. It found its way to Princeton in the Harold Fowler McCormick Collection of Aeronautica assembled by Harold Fowler McCormick, Class of 1896, and given to the library by Alexander Stillman. See more: Maurice H. Smith, “Travel by Air before 1900,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 27 (1966), pp. 143-147 [ full text],
Charles Grignion (1721-1810) after Sébastien LeClerc (1637-1714), A General Display of the Arts and Sciences, no date. Engraved frontispiece to volume one of William Henry Hall (died 1807), The New Royal Encyclopædia; or, Complete Modern Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, on an improved plan. Containing a new, universal, accurate, and copious display of the whole theory and practice of the liberal and mechanical arts, and all the respective sciences, ... In three volumes…. assisted by other learned and ingenious gentlemen (London: printed for C. Cooke, [1788]).
This was a revision of Le Clerc’s earlier engraving:
Sébastien Leclerc I (1637–1714), L’Académie des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts, 1698. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1962 (62.598.300). http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/387878
After the original pen and ink study:
Sébastien Leclerc I (1637-1714), The Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts, pen and black and grey ink, with grey wash, over red chalk, on two joined pieces of paper, with many smaller pieces inlaid and overlaid, ca. 1698. British Museum
The Graphic Arts Collection is the fortunate new owner of eight 18th-century optical views from The Netherlands, meant to be viewed with a zograscope. These are early hand colored etchings on heavy wove paper without any title printed either above or below the view. Thanks to our donor Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986. Several have a hand-written note taped to the back and others can be identified online. Any additional information would be appreciated.
Can you figure out the reason for the second story hut?
These are not “hold to light” prints, there are no holes or treatment to light up the windows or stars when placed in front of a light. It is possible they were meant to be but never finished, just as the titles have not been printed.
Vue du coté du Port pres la Tour Abbaije à Middelbourg
Gezicht van de Oude Waalse-Kerk (Face of the Old Walloon Church), Amsterdam, ca. 1783.
John Syme, John James Audubon, 1826, oil on canvas. White House Historical Association.
Within the first six months of John James Audubon’s arrival in Great Britain, he was immortalized with two portraits: an oil painting by John Syme and a life mask cast under the supervision of George Combe. James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans was taking Europe by storm and Audubon was everyone’s image of an American woodsman.
For the oil painting, he was instructed to wear his wolf-skin coat and later wrote, “if the head is not a strong likeness, perhaps the coat may be. …It is a strange-looking figure, with gun, strap, and buckles, and eyes that to me are more those of an enraged Eagle than mine.”
Still the portrait had lasting effect:Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans, released September 25, 1992.
N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), Last of the Mohicans, 1919. Oil painting reproduced as the endpapers of James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919).
November 27, 1826: …at nine was again with Mr. Lizars, who was to accompany me to Mr. Combe’s, and reaching Brower Square we entered the dwelling of Phrenology! Mr. Scot, the president of that society, Mr. D. Stewart, Mr. McNalahan, and many others were there, and also a German named Charles N. Weiss, a great musician. Mr. George Combe immediately asked this gentleman and myself if we had any objection to have our heads looked at by the president, who had not yet arrived. We both signified our willingness, and were seated side by side on a sofa. When the president entered Mr. Combe said: “I have here two gentlemen of talent; will you please tell us in what their natural powers consist?” Mr. Scot came up, bowed, looked at Mr. Weiss, felt his head carefully all over, and pronounced him possessed of musical faculty in a great degree; I then underwent the same process, and he said: “There cannot exist a moment of doubt that this gentleman is a painter, colorist, and compositor, and I would add an amiable, though quick-tempered man.”
Monday, December 18: At five I dined with George Combe, the conversation chiefly phrenology. George Combe is a delightful host, and had gathered a most agreeable company. . . . Mr. Combe has been to see me, and says my poor skull is a greater exemplification of the evidences of the truth of his system than any he has seen, except those of one or two whose great names only are familiar to me; and positively I have been so tormented about the shape of my head that my brains are quite out of sorts. Nor is this all; my eyes will have to be closed for about one hour, my face and hair oiled over, and plaster of Paris poured over my nose (a greased quill in each nostril), and a bust will be made.
Wednesday, December 20: Phrenology was the order of the morning. I was at Brown Square, at the house of George Combe by nine o’clock, and breakfasted most heartily on mutton, ham, and good coffee, after which we walked upstairs to his sanctum sanctorum. A beautiful silver box containing the instruments for measuring the cranium, was now opened … and I was seated fronting the light. Dr. Combe acted as secretary and George Combe, thrusting his fingers under my hair, began searching for miraculous bumps. My skull was measured as minutely and accurately as I measure the bill or legs of a new bird, and all was duly noted by the scribe. Then with most exquisite touch each protuberance was found as numbered by phrenologists, and also put down according to the respective size. I was astounded when they both gave me the results of their labors in writing, and agreed in saying I was a strong and constant lover, an affectionate father, had great veneration for talent, would have made a brave general, that music did not equal painting in my estimation, that I was generous, quick-tempered, forgiving, and much else which I know to be true, though how they discovered these facts is quite a puzzle to me.
January 14, 1826: After receiving many callers I went to Mr. O’Neill’s to have a cast taken of my head. My coat and neckcloth were taken off, my shirt collar turned down, I was told to close my eyes; Mr. O’Neill took a large brush and oiled my whole face, the almost liquid plaster of Paris was poured over it, as I sat uprightly till the whole was covered; my nostrils only were exempt. In a few moments the plaster had acquired the needful consistency, when it was taken off by pulling it down gently. The whole operation lasted hardly five minutes; the only inconvenience felt was the weight of the material pulling downward over my sinews and flesh. On my return from the Antiquarian Society that evening, I found my face on the table, an excellent cast.–https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Audubon_and_His_Journals/The_European_Journals
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), Last of the Mohicans (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, [February 1826]).
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), Last of the Mohicans (London: John Miller, [March] 1826).
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), Last of the Mohicans (Paris: L. Baudry, [April] 1826).
Nguta (active 2000s). [Hippopotamus, Tropical Birds ] and [Three Gazelles, Tropical Birds ]. [ca. 2006]. Enamel paint on muslin cloth. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02320, Gift of John Delaney
The Graphic Arts Collection holds two examples from the Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) School of Painting, originally found in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) but later spread to most of East Africa. These are signed by the artist Nguta.
