Posted for everyone who is feeling a lack of time these days.
George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Re-issue of Scraps and sketches … In monthly parts … Part 1st. Illustrations of time … (London: W. Kent & Co. [1860?]). 7 col. pl. on which are designs by G. Cruikshank, all of which originally appeared in 1827. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize 2015-0070F
Time Badly Employed
No More Time
Term Time
Time Gone, Past Recalling
Too Much Time
While showing the scrapbook of early photography collected by Richard Willats today, the class noticed a loose photograph slipped into the very back of the album. The albumen silver print is a studio portrait of the Lord Chief Baron Frederick Pollock (1783-1870). Although it is not dated, we know that Pollock was an active member of the London Photographical Society and would have been interested in the new albumen process, which was invented around 1850. Compare it to the two formal portrait paintings done around the same time.
Unidentified artist, Jonathan Frederick Pollock (1783–1870), Lord Chief Baron Pollock, Fellow and Judge, no date. Oil on canvas. (c) Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
According to the Oxford DNB, Sir (Jonathan) Frederick Pollock, first baronet (1783–1870) “attended, and quitted in dissatisfaction, three suburban schools before entering St Paul’s School in January 1800. At Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1802, he obtained a scholarship in 1804, but was nevertheless so poor that, but for the help of his tutor George Frederick Tavel, the ‘unlucky Tavel’ of Byron’s ‘Hints from Horace’, he would have left the university without a degree.”
“…Pollock entered the Middle Temple on 5 October 1802 and was called to the bar on 27 November 1807. Uniting a retentive memory, great natural acumen, and tact in the management of juries with a profound knowledge of the common law, Pollock rapidly acquired an extensive practice both at Westminster and on the northern circuit, which he went regularly from 1816, contending with Brougham and Scarlett.”
Francis Grant, The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Pollock (1783–1870), Lord Chief Baron of Her Majesty’s Exchequer, 1849. Oil on canvas. (c) Huntingdon Town Council; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
“…In 1830 Pollock declined a judgeship in the common pleas and turned his attention to politics. . . He was knighted on 29 December 1834 on accepting the office of attorney-general in Sir Robert Peel’s first administration, which terminated on 9 April 1835. . . But his aspirations were judicial, not political, and he readily agreed to become lord chief baron of the exchequer in succession to Lord Abinger on 15 April 1844; he was made a serjeant on 18 April.”
“…On his retirement on 12 July 1866 Pollock received a baronetcy on 24 July. In the then rural surroundings of Hatton, Middlesex, he resumed the studies of his youth. To the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1816, he communicated three mathematical papers, the last on the theory of numbers and Fermat’s theorem. He was also FSA and FGS and a keen member of the council of the London Photographical Society.”
To view the entire Willats album, use the permanent link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/k930bx11x
James Gillray (1757-1815), Blowing up the Pic Nic’s; – or – Harlequin Quixotte attacking the puppets. Vide Tottenham Street Pantomime, 1802. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.01079.
Jim Sherry writes, “Now that I am retired from AT&T, I am returning to my interest in caricature, but using the skills and knowledge I acquired in my work life to reach what I hope will be a more general audience.” In honor of the anniversary of the British caricaturist James Gillray, Sherry has mounted an online catalogue raisonne, with an index to many of the leading institutional collections of these prints. Several collections will be a surprise to those who only use the British Museum’s collection. http://www.james-gillray.org/index.html
“So the site you see before you is solely designed, produced, and written by me,” Sherry continues. “Its mistakes, limitations, and omissions are likewise my responsibility. But in the spirit of Bell Labs, I hope that it inspires and facilitates further research on an amazing and under-rated artist, James Gillray. . . . The following catalogue is an attempt to address that problem. Here you can find a listing of all the prints attributed to James Gillray, satiric or otherwise, in what I believe is their proper chronological order.
Launched on June 1st, 2015, the 200th anniversary of Gillray’s death, Sherry asks other enthusiasts to help proof and enhance his site. He requests that anyone interested “feel free to contact me with corrections or suggestions.” Congratulations on his good work.
Jim Sherry
http://www.jim-sherry.com
Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1813-1884), [Sad Career of a Poor Girl in a Great City] published in Brother Jonathan, Christmas 1850/New Years 1851. Wood engraving. Sinclair Hamilton Collection.
Edward Harington (1754-1807), A Schizzo on the Genius of Man: In which, among various Subjects, the Merits of Mr. Thomas Barker, the Celebrated Young Painter of Bath, is particularly Considered, and his Pictures Reviewed, by the Author of An Excursion from Paris to Fontainbleau. For the Benefit of the Bath Casualty Hospital. Two etched plates by G. Steart. First Edition. Bath: printed by R. Cruttwell; and sold by G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London, and all the Booksellers in Bath, 1793. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process
“D—e, Sir, if tis not as fine a Moon as ever shone from Heaven to lighten this villainous world, and all true judges of Painting will say so, you never saw, nor never had, or ever will have, such a glorious moon in Wales! No, Sir, you must come to England to be enlightened. Vide note to pages 59, &e.”
Edward Harington (1754-1807) of Harington-Place, Bath, was the son of Dr. Henry Harington, noted musician, physician to the Mineral Water Hospital, and Mayor of Bath.
An Excursion from Paris to Fontainbleau was published in 1786 and Harington was fearful of the French Revolution along with the “rude, ragged rabble.” A Schizzo on the Genius of Man was intended to prove that genius is conferred not by nurture but by nature, not by a process of evolution but through the agency of divine providence.
Harington took the Bath artist Thomas Barker (1769-1847) [see yesterday’s post] as an example of an individual whose talents were born within him, not acquired. Unlike some painters “who basely prostitute their talents to despicable face-painting,” Barker had “a too generous disdain for the love of money to pervert the talents which Heaven had given him.” Even Gainsborough, he averred, “never possessed a genius so strong and so universal.”
The Graphic Arts Collection has acquired George Cruikshank’s copy of this book with his bold signature and the date 1850 at the head of the title. Cruikshank also added a manuscript note, in ink, in the margin of p. 225.
Discussing Raphael’s cartoon of the The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, he writes: “The boats in the carton [sic] are so small in proportion to the figures that they look ridiculous. The two fishermen who are draging [sic] the net are also bad, both being in the same attitude nearly. The other parts of the picture are beautiful – G.C.”
1850 was a pivotal year in the life of George Cruikshank (1792-1878). His first wife, Mary Anne, died in May 1849 and he collapsed, both emotionally and financially. In March 1850 he married Eliza Widdison, and they moved to 48 Mornington Place.
Cruikshank slowly returned to his art, and turned to oil-paintings, though without the success of his smaller-scale etchings. His studio also became home to his maid, Adelaide Attree, who bore him 11 children between 1854 and 1875. His other passion was temperance and he came to be regarded as “the St. George of water drinkers”.
Bookseller’s label of H. M. Gilbert of Southampton (established 1859). The half-title has the ink signature of the potter William Henry Goss (1833-1906), and a note “See in my library “Barker’s Landscape Scenery” and my remarks therein about pictures in my collection by J. Barker the son of Thomas Barker” with his signature and date 6th December 1887.
Thomas Barker (1769-1847), Forty Lithographic Impressions from Drawings of Landscape Scenery by Thomas Barker, Selected from His Studies of Rustic Figures after Nature (Bath, printed by D.J. Redman, 1813). Lithographs printed on different color paper with added sepia wash. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process
“Until 1812 there seems to have been only one set of lithographic equipment in England, for the press set up by Senefelder passed successively from André to Vollweiler and then to the quarter-Master-General’s Office. But at the close of 1812 or the beginning of 1813 Redman decided to branch out on his own and set up the first English lithographic press outside London at the fashionable city of Bath.
No doubt the work he had been doing at the Horse guards was thoroughly menial compared with the printing he had previously done with André and Vollweiler, and at Bath he directed his attention principally to the printing of artists’ drawings. While there he came into contact with Bankes, who wrote and published the first English treatise on lithography at Bath in 1813.
It is reasonable to suppose that it was Redman who instructed Bankes in the technical side of the process, for he is described in the text as being ‘under the patronage of the artists there, and at the service of the public, to provide the necessary materials, viz. the ink and pencil, and to prepare the stone, and take the impressions from drawings made on it’. Moreover, it was provably through Redman that Bankes obtained some of the original stones of the Specimens of Polyautography, for once again there is a suggestion that these should be reissued.
With the removal of Redman from London, Bath was now the centre of lithography in England—at least for the printing of artists’ drawings—and all the important productions for the next three years were printed by Redman there.”–Michael Twyman Lithography 1800-1850, pp.34-35.
As we are preparing this portrait of former English professor Francis C. MacDonald to be hung on the 2nd floor, it is a good time to remember how well loved he was by his students. Here is a section from his obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
“By the death of Frances [sic] Charles MacDonald on March 26, 1952, Princeton lost one of her most devoted sons and the Faculty a teacher of exceptional gifts. He was born on Sept. 24, 1874, in Bangkok, where his father was at once a missionary and the representative of the United States at the Siamese court. At the age of ten he was brought to this country to prepare for college, but he never lost his command of the tongues he first learned and proved his mastery of it in middle life by using the language at least on one occasion when he delivered a public address in Siam.”
Daniel Garber (1880-1958), Portrait of Francis Charles MacDonald, no date. Oil on canvas. Princeton Portraits, Graphic Arts Collection.
After his graduation from Princeton in 1896 he held a position for a time in the University library; then, from 1902 to 1905 he was an instructor of English in Lake Forest College. President Wilson recognized his outstanding merits by recalling him to Princeton in the latter year as one of the original preceptors, and he continued to serve on the Faculty until 1936 when he retired because of ill health. From 1917 until 1929 he was on leave in Japan as assistant to his classmate Ambassador Morris and with him took an important part on the momentous negotiations in Siberia which followed the First World War
Following his return to this country he was in 1921 made an Associate Professor of English and had much to do in shaping the work of his department, notably by advocating and arranging opportunities for serious practice in writing. He had a phenomenal capacity to inspire students to read the best literature and to write up to their highest abilities. Countless men look back upon him as the professor who gave them most. He himself published in 1919 a novel of considerable distinction entitled Sorcery and in 1922 a volume of verse Devices and Desires, of which the poet La Gallienne said in a review: “It is long since I read a book so full of the avid spirit of youth,” that spirit never failed him. Those who knew him from his early days spoke constantly of his infections gaiety and ready wit. . . .
The books he cherished and taught them to enjoy he left to the university and it is singularly appropriate that the poetry room in the new library given by one of his many admiring students should henceforth bear his name.” –“Memorials: Francis Charles MacDonald, class of 1896,”
Princeton Alumni Weekly May 30, 1952
Visit Prof. MacDonald on the 2nd floor along with William Seymour (1855-1933), Arnold Henry Guyot (1807-1884); and Mathew Carey (1760-1839).
The last of sixty-six oil portraits made of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) during his lifetime was a half-length pose painted by the French society painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1684-1745). The artist enjoyed considerable success in London between 1738 and 1742, and this work was painted at the end of that period. Several copies were commissioned directly from Van Loo and many others were painted or engraved by other artists, making this image the best known of all his portraits. Although he looks quite elegant, disease had left Pope’s body deformed with a severe hunchback.
Unidentified artist, after a painting by Jean-Baptiste van Loo (French, 1684–1745), Portrait of Alexander Pope (British, 1688–1744), 1800s. Oil on canvas, original ca. 1742, author’s age fifty-four. Robert H. Taylor Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections
Ode to Solitude by Alexander Pope
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was an avid naturalist, dedicated to protecting both wildlife and natural resources. In keeping with the time, he liked to decorate his homes with mounted specimens of the animals he hunted and killed.
When Roosevelt was elected president and moved into the White House, he hired the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White to oversee the modernization and redecorating of the residence. Many changes were made, including the removal of two small fireplaces the State Dining Room. In their place, a massive stone fireplace was added with an enormous moose head over the mantel. This trophy and the other changes Roosevelt made became the subject of many editorials and cartoons.
When Roosevelt decided not to run in 1908, he gave his full support to William Howard Taft (1857-1930) who easily won the election. This cartoon shows Taft entering the White House and standing in shock at the additional renovations that he found.
Albert Levering (1869-1929), The Teddyfication of the White House, 1909. Pen and ink drawing. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02605.
White House State Dining Room after renovation.
Albert Levering’s cartoon “The Teddyfication of the White House,” published as the centerfold in Puck v. 65, no. 1669 (February 24, 1909).
Part One: Searching
Dorothy Day (1897-1980), founder and director of the Catholic Worker, met the Quaker artist Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990) in 1949 at a conference on religion and publishing. Day asked the artist if he would donate some images to her publication and he agreed without hesitation.
In fact, over the next thirty years, Eichenberg allowed her to use anything he had drawn or printed anytime she pleased. And she did. His most famous wood engraving “The Peaceable Kingdom” (1950) was reprinted in The Catholic Worker ten times between 1953 and 1989.
When Day wrote an autobiography, The Long Loneliness, she asked Eichenberg to provide the illustrations. The wood engravings posted here serve as frontispieces to each of the book’s three sections.
In his oral history for the Archives of American Art, recorded between May 14 and December 7, 1979, Eichenberg spoke about his friend:
Part Two: Natural Happiness
“Dorothy Day was, from a personal point of view, perhaps the most important influence in my life. But, let’s say from an artistic point of view or from the point of view of an illustrator, she was not of any great influence. Because what I did for her was more or less addressed, as she often said, to those people who could not read—to the illiterate. She said she had seen clippings of my work in the hovels of coal miners and so on, people in all parts of the world; people who could not read the Catholic Worker but they understood my very simple images of saints and portraits of people important in the Catholic Worker movement.”
“I met her at a conference on religious publishing in Pendle Hill which is a Quaker study center in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia – Wallingford. . . . That was around 1940, I would say. I was sitting next to her and I just fell in love with her as a person. She’s really great. She makes you feel at ease and I could talk to her like to an old friend. In the course of the round table there, we talked about the Catholic Worker – publishing, you know. She knew I had illustrated books and she said, “You know, I have trouble finding Catholic artists to work for me because we have no money.” That didn’t sound so good to me! She should find a lot of artists to work for her but she can’t. So she said, “Would you work for me?” And I said immediately, “Yes.” And so the next week she called me up and we got together. I gave talks there very often.”
Part Three: Love is the Measure
“And I told Dorothy from the very beginning, whenever she wants the use of my work, she can use [it]. She doesn’t even have to ask me. But she does ask me. And now . . . with copyright you have to be a little more careful. I just threw my bread upon the water and see it coming back to me somehow in the form of real satisfaction that my work touched people. Sometimes she asked me to illustrate a certain event that happened in the life of the Catholic Worker.”
Dorothy Day (1897-1980), The Long Loneliness; the Autobiography of Dorothy Day, illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Harper, [1952]). Firestone Library (F) BX4668.D3 A33 1952