Category Archives: Medium

mediums

Ichikawa Danjuro IX (1838-1903) meets Adolfo Farsari (1841-1898)

Utagawa Yoshiiku 歌川芳幾 (1833-1904), [Meeting between the Kabuki actor Danjuro IX and the Italian photographer Adolfo Farsari], [Tokyo: Nichinichi Shinbun, 1874]. Color woodblock print. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process A vault

“Utagawa Yoshiiku was a Japanese printmaker and illustrator. As a printmaker, he designed a wide range of prints including those depicting bijin (beautiful women), musha (warriors), yakusha (actors), and the sensationalized pictures of blood-stained mayhem called chimidoro-e and muzan-e, among others. From 1874 to 1875 he designed nishiki-e shinbun for the Tokyo newspaper Nichinichi Shimbun, which he co-founded.”

“. . . The founders of Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun are: Johno Denpei (1832-1902, pseud. “Sansantei Arindo” as gesakusha: popular fiction writer), Nishida Densuke (1838-1910, former clerk of TSUJI Den’emon’s kashihon’ya: lending library), and Ochiai Ikujiro (1833-1904, pseud. “Utagawa Yoshiiku” as Ukiyoe print artist).” –See William Wetherall’s News Nishiki website; Amy Reigle Newland, The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints (Hotei Publishing Company, 2005), p. 505.

One of the prints Yoshiiku designed for his newspaper was this meeting of the renowned Kabuki actor, Ichikawa Danjuro IX (1838-1903) and the Italian-born photographer, Adolfo Farsari (1841-1898).

According to the Japanese text, in May 1872 an unidentified “yojin” (“ocean person”) visited Danjuro IX backstage and asked to photograph the actor in exchange for some European cigarettes.

The Westerner, not identified in the text, was almost certainly Adolfo Farsari, who took up residence in Japan in the early 1870s and became one of the most prominent photographers in the country.

To read the entire newspaper, see: Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun [microform] = 東京日日新聞 (Tōkyō: Nippōsha, 東京 : 日報社, Feb. 21, 1872- Dec. 31, 1942). East Asian Microfilms (HYGF): Forrestal Annex Microfilm J00057

For more on Farsari, read the catalog of an exhibition held at the Villa Contarini, Piazzola sul Brenta, Italy, Dec. 18, 2011-April 1, 2012: East Zone: Antonio Beato, Felice Beato e Adolfo Farsari : fotografi veneti attraverso l’Oriente dell’Ottocento / a cura di Magda Di Siena ; testi di Magda Di Siena, Rossella Menegazzo (Crocetta del Montello (Treviso): Antiga, 2011). Marquand Library use only DS508.2 .E27 2011

Comparing collections in Oslo, Glasgow, Oxford, and Princeton

We are offering a guest post today written by Larry J. Schaaf, Director, William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford with additional information from Tone Rasch, Curator, The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, Oslo, Norway. Our sincere thanks to them both.

“In 2009, Tone Rasch of the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology contacted me about a mysterious paper negative in their collection [left]. It depicts a man standing among the ruins of a once-grand urban building. In 1935 this museum had been one of the recipients of Miss Matilda Talbot’s distributions of her grandfather’s photographs but I knew straight away that it was not the work of Talbot.

This negative had come into the museum through the collection of the Swedish professor of photography, Helmer Bäckstöm. He had made some notes on the negative and elsewhere suggested that it was by the Edinburgh photographers Hill & Adamson.

Some years before I had catalogued Glasgow’s collection of their work and I was immediately reminded of two negatives taken during the 1848 demolition of the 15th-century Trinity College Church, then shamefully being demolished to make way for Waverly Station.
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/hillandadamson/search/detail.cfm?Haa_GUL_Number=HA0636 and
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/hillandadamson/search/detail.cfm?Haa_GUL_Number=HA0758
but the association was not convincing.”

Quite separately one of the entries that I contributed to the biographical dictionary in Roger Taylor’s Impressed by Light [(SAPH) Oversize TR395 .T39 2007q] a couple of years before was on John Sherrington, an English Catholic who had moved to Rotterdam in 1838 after a bank failure. http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/John__Sherrington/A/

We knew very little about Sherrington’s calotypes save for the fact that some prints from them were included in the fabulous Willats album at Princeton University. Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/k930bx11x [leaf 37, seen left ]

I have to freely confess that none of these disparate threads came together in my mind at the time. However, for whatever reason, last week when I was reviewing the online version of the album the memories all fell into place – it is clear that the Norwegian negative and the Willats print are from the same session.

Just when was this fire that destroyed the theatre? Surely it would have been mentioned in the accounts of the Great Fire of 1849 that destroyed the commercial heart of the city, but curiously, so far no mention of the destruction by fire of the Rotterdam theatre has been traced.

What little we know of Sherrington at this point is primarily through the fame of his daughter, the soprano Madame Lemmons-Sherrington. https://books.google.com/books?id=p8ocAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA452&lpg=PA452&dq=rotterdam+%22john+sherrington%22&source=bl&ots=7Vg510BcQY&sig=sB5xSFVN50QVY8bOn-G2ZxFKLp0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUvYPctajRAhWC7SYKHXykAnMQ6AEIKjAD#v=onepage&q=rotterdam%20%22john%20sherrington%22&f=false

Cropped and Photoshopped

This quest fits in well with the multiple intents of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, now being prepared for online publication by the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. http://foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/. We presently have item-level records on about 25,000 original negatives and prints done by Talbot and his close associates and distributed through collections worldwide. It had been common practice in the past for most any early paper photograph to be attributed to Talbot, mostly because of a lack of information on just how many photographers were experimenting on paper in the 1840s. I remember many years ago Dr David Thomas, then curator of photographs at the Science Museum, telling me that anytime somebody turned up an early paper photograph in one of their collections he simply placed it in one of the Talbot boxes because there was no other place to store it. Hence is history created. The Catalogue will recognise these historical associations and attempt to properly attribute them.”

Here Tone mentions “I contacted Martin Jürgens at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and he found another version of the Willats picture. http://collecties.stadsarchief.rotterdam.nl/publiek/detail.aspx?xmldescid=415896&tag=gebeurtenis;akten;archieven;algemeen&view=lijst&volgnummer=1&positie=7&beschrijvingssoort=157879244&doc_beschrijvingssoort=157879244&a_z=%5BARGS_PLACEHOLDER%5D This is a bit confusing because this text differs from the album text, telling that ruin is from the fire in Rotterdam in 1849 from the sugar refinery of Mr. Tromp. Not at all a theater fire.

This photograph is not attributed to Sherrington, as are 11 other photos in the city archive, among these the wheel boat that is in the Willats album as well. I have sent a mail to the archive to ask if they have any further information on Sherrington or the sugar refinery. I have also sent a mail to Copenhagen Museum that has the collection of Frederik Riise who once owned the paper negative. The text that tells about the gift of Frederik Riise is written on the back side of the negative, same thing with the unreadable words at the right side of the picture.

And just to clarify, “The paper negative was photographed in 2009 when it was mounted between two glasses with an exhibition text. As you will see, the picture is less distinctly than the newer positive print. You can see the 2009 picture here:https://digitaltmuseum.no/011024238926/fotografi?aq=owner%3A%22OMU%22+text%3A%22papirnegativ%22&i=0”

New information can be found at http://www.tekniskmuseum.no/nyheter-fra-samlingene/1318-fotografi-fra-1849-identifisert

The Willats album was purchased for Princeton by Gillett Griffin (1928-2016). Please save the date for the inaugural Gillett G. Griffin Memorial Lecture: “The London Circle: Early Explorations of Photography” delivered by Sara Stevenson on Sunday, 2 April 2017 at 3:00 p.m. in The Friends Center, Princeton University corner of William Street and Olden Street, Princeton, New Jersey. https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2016/11/11/the-inaugural-gillett-g-griffin-memorial-lecture/

Entertaining Knowledge here – Trump Trump Trumpery Trump

Charles Jameson Grant (active 1830-1852), The Penny Trumpeter!, September 20, 1832. Lithograph. Published by G.S.Tregear, 123 Cheapside. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

The subject of C. J. Grant’s print is Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), satirized as a newsboy blowing a small trumpet to publicize his Penny Magazine. Lord Brougham was responsible for establishing the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and through it, publishing numerous booklets and magazines with generic information for a mass audience. Complex histories or scientific theories were reduced to overly simplistic articles of little value except entertainment, a genre that became known as Trumpery.

The Penny Magazine appeared in March 1832 and by September, Grant was already satirizing its bland articles illustrated with black and white wood engravings printed from cheap stereoscopic plates. In his own work, Grant specialized in bright, hand colored lithographs, deliberately radical in their politics. Here he trumpets “Entertaining Knowledge here—Trump Trump Trumpery Trump—Just printed and published the Penny Magazine, All works not issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge are Illegal—Orders now taken for the forthcoming New Penny Cyclopaedia, Trump Trump.”

Grant’s Penny Trumpeter also appeared in one of his mock frontispieces for the magazine (the British Museum holds two versions of the broadsides), with multiple vignettes criticizing Brougham and his publication.

The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (London: Charles Knight, 1832-1845). Vol. 1, no. 1 (Mar. 31, 1832)-v. 14, no. 882 (Dec. 1845). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2006-0186Q

Richard Pound, editor, C.J. Grant’s Political Drama: A Radical Satirist Rediscovered (London: University College, 1998)

“Materials for the Penny Cyclopaedia to commence in 1833 & to end the Devil knows when…”

Mark Peters wrote about the history of the word Trumpery for Salon: http://www.salon.com/2016/03/05/trump_really_does_stand_for_b_s_trumpery_an_old_fashioned_word_thats_proving_useful_today/

Horizontorium, 3D views in 1832

John Jesse Barker after a design by William Mason (active 1822–1860), Horizontorium, 1832. Lithograph. Published by R. H. Hobson, 147 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process [photographed at an angle]

Before the advent of 3D glasses, print collectors enjoyed optical views like this one to experience the world in more dimension than the usual flat image. This print was to be laid on a flat table and each viewer meant to put their chin on the bottom center so as to see the building at an extreme angle. This is one version of anamorphosis, sometimes also designed to be viewed in a circular reflection.

Here are two other examples from the Graphic Arts Collection collection: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2015/03/25/anamorphic-images/ and https://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2008/02/anamorphic_self-portrait_by_ch.html .

Note the spot for your chin, if you want optimal 3D viewing.

The building seen here has been identified as the Gothic-style bank erected in 1808 after the designs of Benjamin Henry Latrobe at the southwest corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Bank or Bank of Philadelphia (predecessor of the Philadelphia National Bank), was formed in 1803 and incorporated in 1804 as the unofficial bank of the commonwealth. Unfortunately the building was lost in 1836, not long after this print was made.

Researchers believe this print is the only recognized American “Horizontorium” and I have not been able to prove them wrong. The Library Company of Philadelphia, which also owns a copy of this print, suggests that the probable printer was Childs & Inman. For more information, try Nicholas B. Wainwright, History of the Philadelphia National Bank; a century and a half of Philadelphia banking, 1803-1953 (Philadelphia, 1953). HG2613.P5P7 and Nicholas B. Wainwright, Philadelphia in the romantic age of lithography: an illustrated history of early lithography in Philadelphia, with a descriptive list of Philadelphia scenes made by Philadelphia lithographers before 1866 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1958 (1970 printing)) Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize 2008-0429Q

A letter in St. Nicholas magazine, v. 6 (October 1879) p.844, suggests that “a good way to look at this picture is to take a piece of card-board, about three inches long, and bend the bottom of it, in the manner shown in this diagram. Two holes should be made in the card, and the one in the lower bent portion should be so placed that the point of sight can be seen through it. The hole in the upright portion should be 2 inches from the bottom, or the angle formed by the bent part. Through this upper hole the picture should be viewed, when all its peculiar perspective—or, rather, want of perspective—will disappear.” Read the entire piece in GoogleBooks: https://books.google.com/books?id=jqYzAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA844&dq=horizontorium+philadelphia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfksD87abRAhUBVCYKHZj-B4UQ6AEINDAF#v=onepage&q=horizontorium%20philadelphia&f=false

Posted in honor of John Berger, 1926-2017, author of Ways of Seeing (London: British Broadcasting Corporation; Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1972). Firestone N7420 .W28 1972

Jesse Jackson at the Ebenezer Baptist Church

Franklin McMahon (1921-2012), Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga. 1988. Graphite, charcoal, and acrylic paint on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

ATLANTA, March 6— “The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to Ebenezer Baptist Church today to preach from the pulpit that once belonged to Martin Luther King Jr. and to cloak his Presidential campaign in the glory of the movement that Dr. King led. It was a rich mix of God, politics and history, of civil rights movement veterans, political leaders and average churchgoers, all crammed into the narrow wooden pews of Ebenezer Baptist, two days before the Super Tuesday primaries across the South.

Mr. Jackson, whose relations with Atlanta’s black establishment have often been prickly, seemed to revel in the day. The former lieutenant to Dr. King now stood in his mentor’s church on the brink of a political triumph unimaginable a quarter century ago. It was, undeniably, a religious service, with a pastor noting at one point, ‘It’s not Martin, nor is it Jesse, who’s going to get you to Heaven.’ But after the choir sang ‘God Give Us Faith’ and ‘I’m So Glad I Got My Religion in Time,’ after the reading from the Book of Ezekiel and the communion service, the church moved on to the matters of the world. ‘Bloody Sunday’ Anniversary The Rev. Joseph L. Roberts, senior pastor at Ebenezer, brought the congregation to its feet as he introduced Mr. Jackson ‘as one who hopes to break a barrier that’s never been broken before, but ought to be broken, a barrier that has stood for too long, depriving our people of their rightful due.’

Then Mr. Jackson took his place at the simple white pulpit. He noted that it was the 23d anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’ when civil rights demonstrators were beaten on a bridge in Selma, Ala., as they tried to march for the right to vote. He then paid tribute to John Lewis, now an Atlanta Congressman, who had led that march and been savagely beaten and on this Sunday morning was in a front pew. Mr. Jackson went on to present Super Tuesday as the outgrowth of the bloodletting on that Selma bridge. ‘Tuesday, 23 years later, we can transform the crucifixion,’ he said. ‘And on Tuesday roll the stone away, and on Wednesday morning have a resurrection: new hope, new life, new possibilities, new South, new America.’

‘I’m proud of the the New South,’ Mr. Jackson said. ‘No more governors standing in the school house door, no more dogs biting children.’ But, he continued, ‘It’s not enough to have kind governors and tame dogs. It’s not enough.’ He argued that ‘the fight for economic justice’ was the principle challenge before the South and the nation. It was a fight for the economic rights of garbagemen, Mr. Jackson noted, that drew Dr. King to Memphis, where he was assassinated in 1968. When Mr. Jackson had finished, the congregation sang him on his way with ‘I’m on the Battlefield for My Lord.’ And Mr. Roberts adlibbed, ‘And I promise not to serve him just ’till Super Tuesday but until I die.'”–Robin Toner, “Hosannas to God and Votes for Jackson,” Special to the New York Times, March 7, 1988.

This event was captured by Franklin McMahon, of whom the Times noted, “With sketch pads in hand, Mr. McMahon covered momentous events in the civil rights struggle, spacecraft launchings, national political conventions and the Vatican, turning out line drawings for major magazines and newspapers. Many were later colored by watercolor or acrylic paints, and most rendered scenes in a heightened, energetic style. ‘His goal,’ he said, ‘was to step beyond what he considered the limitations of photography to see around corners.’”–Douglas Martin, “Franklin McMahon, Who Drew the News, Dies at 90,” The New York Times, March 7, 2012.

The Impostor Unmasked; or The New Man of the People

Richard Brinsley Sheridan [above] says: “Gentlemen – I am proud on this occasion to pay you my respects – I will bring in a bill of rights – I will give your oppressors a ‘Check.”

The electors shout: “You know your Checks are worth nothing.”

Princeton is the only library in OCLC with a recorded copy of this thin volume with a folding frontispiece: The Imposter Unmasked; or, The New Man of the People; with anecdotes, never before published … inscribed, without permission, to that superlatively honest and disinterested man, R.B.S-R-D-N, esq. … (London: Tipper and Richards, 1806). Hand colored frontispiece by Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1806 Isaac

The scene is described by Dorothy George: “The Westminster election mob is seen from the hustings, where Sheridan, isolated from a group of supporters, is speaking. He tramples on a paper inscribed ‘Electors of Stafford’. From his pocket hangs a ‘List of Promisses’. A dog with a human head (Lord Percy), his collar inscribed ‘True Northumberland breed’, befouls his leg. A poll-clerk sits by an open poll-book but no one is voting.”

Thomas Rowlandson designed a satirical print a year or two earlier entitled “Ride to Rumford. Let the Gall’d Jade winch,” which may have inspired the title page quote here.

The Pioneers of Photography

The Princeton University Library is extremely fortunate to receive donations from an international family of friends and supporters throughout the year and in particular during the winter holidays. One such offering arrived today from Patrick Montgomery and The History of Photography Archive, where they have created a very clever deck of cards featuring the men and women who established photography as an art form. It will be a good addition to our small but growing collection of playing cards.

It must have been great fun deciding who was going to be a king or a queen or a joker in this deck. They seem to have made all the right choices, given the extent of their archive. Here is a short piece on Montgomery: http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2014/05/19/a-past-preserved-on-coecles-harbor/, and a look at their website: http://www.photohistorytimeline.com/

See also: Mercedes Grundy, An image of Jamaica : examining photographs by Valentine & Sons at the World’s Columbian Exposition, text by Mercedes Grundy; photo selection by Patrick Montgomery (Shelter Island, N.Y.: Archive Farms, 2011). Marquand Library (SAPH) Oversize TR33.J26 G78 2011q

Travel safe

Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/fb494b97t

“Just as you are going off with only one other person on your side of the coach, who you flatter yourself is the last- seeing the door suddenly opened and the L and lady coachman / guard [illegible] craning shoving buttressing up an overgrown puffing, greazy human Hog of the bucher or grazier breed. the whole machine straining and groaning under its cargo from / the box to the basket- by dint of incredible efforts and contrivances the Carcase is at length weighed up to the door where it has next to struggle with various / obstructions in the passage.”–James Beresford

The scene above, taking place outside the Maidenhead Inn, was drawn during the height of popularity for the satirical book, “The Miseries of Human Life” by Rev. James Beresford. Rowlandson’s earliest drawing are dated 1806, the same year as the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth editions of Beresford’s book. When the artist completed 50 plates, Rudolph Ackermann released the set in a luxury edition. Rowlandson used many of the same images in his next pictorial narrative The Tours of Doctor Syntax.

James Beresford (1764-1840), The Miseries of Human Life, or, The groans of Samuel Sensitive, and Timothy Testy : with a few supplementary sighs from Mrs. Testy …. New and improved ed. (London: Printed for W. Miller, Albemarle-Street, by W. Bulmer and Co. Cleveland-Row, 1806). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1806.31.11

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Miseries of Traveling. Pubd. Febry. 15th, 1807 by R. Ackermann, N. 101 Strand. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GC112

Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/02870z45r

Clément Pierre Marillier

“The Juggler,” from Émile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

“For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others do not attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue more extraordinary still, — that of attracting at a distance, and without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and floating on a bowl of water. Much surprised, we did not however say, “He is a conjurer,” for we knew nothing about conjurers. Continually struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out of it.

When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that we thought we would endeavor to copy it. Taking a perfect needle, well magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck’s bill. We placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece of bread. We saw that some time or other we might observe the direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water. But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a suite of proofs (before lettering) for engravings designed by Clément Pierre Marillier (1740-1808) as illustrations for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s books, Émile and La Nouvelle Heloise. The volume includes twenty-seven engraved plates, including a portrait of Rousseau, along with a letter from Marillier to “Monsieur le Préfet” at Boissie la Bertrand, dated February 17, 1808, concerning Marillier’s nomination as mayor of the town.

Here are a few more examples of Marillier’s designs.

Charlotte Berend-Corinth

An oversize portfolio of lithographs depicting the comic actor Max Pallenberg (1877-1934) recently turned up and was sent over to the Graphic Arts Collection, where it will remain. The artist is Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880-1967).

When she was twenty-one, Charlotte Berend married her painting professor, Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), an early member of the Berlin Secession. Charlotte sacrificed her own career to support her husband and children, finally joining the Secession in 1912.

The two artists were also serious patrons of German Theater and beginning in 1919, Charlotte drew character studies of various Berlin actors and actresses, including Valeska Gert (1892-1978); Anita Berber (1899-1928); and Fritzi Massary (1882-1969). An undated portfolio of nine characters played by Massary’s husband Max Pallenberg (1877-1934) was probably completed in the early 1920s.

Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880-1967), Max Pallenberg. Lithographien von Charlotte Berend (Berlin: Oesterheld, no date [ca. 1920]). 9 lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Fritzi Massari and her husband, Max Pallenberg, sing a duet written by Leo Fall.

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