Category Archives: Medium

mediums

Archibald Lewis Cocke (1824-1896)

Possible self-portrait by Archibald Lewis Cocke (1824-1896).

Of many highlights in Princeton’s album of early photography compiled by Richard Willats (ca.1820-after 1881), the calotypes by Archibald Lewis Cocke (1824-1896) are among the most important. Fourteen positive and one negative calotypes have been identified along with fourteen additional salted paper prints attributed to Cocke, the majority exterior architectural views.

Although Cocke is not a familiar name in the canon of art history, he was among the earliest British photographers to make a living from his art. Like Willats, Cocke was both a talented artist and a commercial supplier of photographic equipment and chemistry prepared in his personal laboratory.

One of the few biographical notes on Cocke is found in Bernard Heathcote’s A Faithful Likeness (2002). The catalogue reveals that Archibald and his brother Arthur John Cocke managed a daguerreotype studio between 1847 and 1850 on lower Regent Street, opposite the fashionable shop, Swan & Edgar. Arthur appears to have “relinquished his interest in the business” around 1850, leaving Archibald to continue alone.

Like many daguerreotypists, Cocke transitioned to paper prints and submitted fifteen calotypes to the Exhibition of Recent Specimens of Photography, regarded as the first exhibition in the world dedicated solely to photography. The show ran from December 22, 1852 to January 29, 1853, under the primary organization of Joseph Cundall (1818-1895) and Philip Henry Delamotte (1821-1891), who are also represented in Willats’s album.

By October 1854, Cocke was back on Regent Street, this time in partnership with photographer Thomas Nashum Kirkham, who form Cocke and Company. Their ground floor rooms held a studio, a classroom, and a shop, which they called the “Institute of Photography.” Unfortunately, the partnership dissolved “by mutual consent” in July 1855 and the Institute is taken over by Herbert Watkins (1828-after 1901), who kept the name but moved the operation up the road to 215 Regent Street.

Art Journal (October 1854): 315

During his brief time with Kirkham, Cocke was able to offer a number of specialties, including the photography of oil paintings, as noted in the October 1854 Art Journal, “At the establishment of Mr. Cooke, 179, Regent Street, there are some of the most perfect photographs after pictures we have yet seen. Two are from landscapes by [Thomas] Creswick, one of “Margaret and Faust in the Garden.” by [Henry Nelson] O’Neil, and others of pictures lately exhibited, together with very perfect pictures of bas reliefs. Mr. Cooke is, we believe, one of the oldest photographers, and his landscape subjects on paper are unsurpassed for truth and beautiful detail.”

Cocke published a pair of advertisements in The Athenaeum and other papers between 1854 and 1855, one for the commercial business and one for himself. The first reads: “Institute of Photography, 179, Regent Street—Messrs. Cocke & Co. respectfully solicit the attention of amateurs to the Collodion, manufactured only by them form the formula of Mr. W. [Adrian] Delferier. This Collodion is superior to any other and will not injure by keeping. Waxed, Iodized and Albumenized papers of the First quality; also photographic chemicals of every kind from their own laboratory.” As the son of a surgeon, Cocke may have benefited from early training in scientific practices.

“From The Times of 1844.” Times [London, England] 6 Dec. 1944: 8.

The second advertisement was for Cocke’s personal work and reads: “Portraits, Copies of Pictures, Sculpture &c. taken and Instruction in the Art given daily, by Mr. Archibald Lewis Cocke. Photographic Apparatus of all kinds consistently on Sale.”

Writing in Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives (2007). Roger Taylor calls Cocke “one of the most prolific exhibitors of calotypes.” He continues, “In 1853 his work mostly reflected the natural world, but starting with the 1855 exhibition at the Photographic Institution in London, Cocke took an increasing interest in historic buildings. In 1855 his waxed-paper views ‘elicited considerable admiration’ from the Liverpool Photographic Society; they were, according to their journal, ‘exceedingly sharp and presented a peculiar softness of tone, with a completeness of detail seldom accomplished.’”

By the 1860s, Cocke has relocated to Hammersmith, where he continued to exhibit and sell his photographs. In particular, the artist was included in the 1861 Architectural Photographic Association’s 4th annual exhibition, contributing a series on Exeter Cathedral. Curiously, in 1863, The Jurist records that “the photographic artist Archibald Lewis Cocke, born East Wonford, Devonshire, carried on his profession under the name of Archibald Lewis Coke.” This may explain why there are a many images in Willats’s album depicting Devonshire locations, where Cocke went to visit family.

More reproductions of Cocke’s photography can be found at: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/k930bx11x

On Leaf 5, verso: Center, at top: “Devonshire / Calotype Paper Process”. Center, at bottom: “Query Archibald [] L. / Taken by Mr. A. Cocke and Regent Circus Piccadilly / 32 Horoland Street Fibrisoy ? Square”.

Leaf 7 (five photographs): Top left: “Cambridge church / by Mr. A. Cock[e]”. Top right: “Mr. Archibald Cocke – Cambridge”. Bottom left: “Jersey”.

Leaf 10 (six photographs): Top middle: “Cambridge / Mr. A. Cocke”. Center right: “Jersey”.

Leaf 19 (three photographs): Top left: “Brodie Esq. / Jersey”. Bottom center: “Calotype / Hampstead / by Mr. A. Cocke”.

Leaf 20 (nine photographs): Top left (image gone, completely grey): “Catalissotype”. Top middle: “Mr. A. Cocke”. Top right: “Field Birmingham”. Center middle: “Cambridge”. Bottom left: “Brodie Esq. Bottom middle: Cambridge / church”.

Leaf 35 (two photographs): Bottom: “Calotype / Nr. Windsor / by Mr. A. Cocke / and Mr. Golls / London”.

Leaf 50: “In Devonshire / By Mr. A. Cocke / Howland St FitzRoy Square”.

Roger Taylor and Larry J. Schaaf, Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007). Marquand TR395.T39 2007Q

Bernard Heathcote, A Faithful Likeness (Lowdham: the author, 2002). Marquand TR680.H427 2002Q

A Seven Ages of Man Fan

George Wilson (active 1795-1801), Shakespeare’s Seven Ages. Stipple engraving. London: Ashton & Co., 1796. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

untitled_41985, 11/14/11, 10:48 AM, 8C, 7744x10967 (254+479), 108%, Final Repro Cu, 1/120 s, R61.2, G50.9, B68.1

George Wilson (active 1795-1801), Shakespeare’s Seven Ages (London, 1796). Beinecke Library, Yale University

George Wilson (active 1795-1801), The Female Seven Ages. Stipple engraving. London: Ashton & Co., 1797. Folger’s Shakespeare Library

This unmounted print by George Wilson turned up recently. It was meant to be folded and attached to a lady’s fan. The Beinecke Library has a completed version and the Folger’s Library has the complement showing the female Ages of Man.

Thanks to Rosanna Lucy Doris C Harrison, who posted A Scholarly Catalogue Raisonné: George Wilson and the Engraved Fan Leaf Design, 1795-1801, online we now know more about Wilson and his publisher Sarah Ashton.

“Wilson himself was part of a now largely obscure collective of eighteenth-century London-based fan makers. His business was located at 108, St. Martin’s Lane, in the centre of the city. Meanwhile, his works were entered and exhibited regularly at Stationers’ Hall, an ancient Livery Hall of the Old Company of London Stationers. Wilson can also be assumed to have been a member of the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers, which was integrated in 1709 and located at 70 Fann Street.”

“Wilson collaborated with other engravers and printers who specialised in printing fan leaf designs, figures such as the fan maker Cock, Joseph Read, and Sarah Ashton . Ashton, in particular, worked closely with Wilson in the publishing of many of his fan leaf designs—pointed up by the inclusion of the humorous line ‘… by S.A Professor of Physiognomy & Corrector of the Heart’ in the lyrical verses placed in the centre of The Quiz Club fan leaf . . . that allude to the initials of Sarah Ashton—and was a very prominent female publisher of fan leaves in the mid to late eighteenth century.”

“She was admitted in 1770 into The Worshipful Company of Fan Makers as she carried on the printing business in Little Britain, near St. Paul’s Churchyard, after her husband died. Ashton published at least 13 engraved fan designs . . . .”

A Scholarly Catalogue Raisonné: George Wilson and the Engraved Fan Leaf Design, 1795-1801 by Rosanna Lucy Doris C Harrison (M.A.,Uuniversity of York, 2012).
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2672/1/m.a_by_research__thesis_-_Copy.pdf

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Jaques, As You Like It, Act II Scene VII.

Rethinking Early Photography

Larry J. Schaaf, director of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné under the Bodleian Library, spoke at the recent conference Rethinkng Early Photography held at the University of Lincoln. That talk has been posted on YouTube and focuses on the authorship of a particular photogenic drawing much in the news lately. http://www.rethinkingphotography.com/

The abstract for Schaaf’s talk entitled “The Damned Leaf: Musings on History, Hysteria, and Historiography,” reads in part

“In 1984, a Victorian family album was broken up, dividing its contents among specialist departments at Sotheby’s in London. It had belonged to Henry Bright, initially confused with a watercolourist by the same name, but soon identified as an East India Merchant. A related group of six early photographs was split into individual lots acquired by several purchasers. In 2008, Sotheby’s in New York prepared one of these photographs for sale. Traditionally identified as being by the inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot, it was an enigmatic contact negative (photogram) of a single leaf. I knew right away it was not by Talbot—sadly—for it was gorgeous, but this news came as a shock to the owner and to the auctioneers. ‘If not Talbot, then who could it possibly be?’ came back the question, and I volunteered a one-page essay suggesting possible dating and authorships. One bookend was Henry Bright himself in the 1860s, with several figures in between, finally ranging back to Thomas Wedgwood around 1800.”

More about Talbot and Schaaf can be found on his blog http://foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/. The video, also posted at British Photographic History, is thanks to Dr. Owen Clayton, the conference organizer, and Adam O’Meara, videographer.See similar photogenic drawings in an album compiled by Richard Willats, held at Princeton University: Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/k930bx11x

Étienne Delaune Grotesque

Étienne Delaune (ca. 1519-1583), [Ornamental grotesque with Diana holding a spear], about 1572-73. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

This ornamental grotesque with Diana holding a spear and moon crescent is plate 2 from a set of six works representing Roman deities. Stephanvs was a name used by the Milan-born goldsmith and medallion engraver Étienne Delaune (ca. 1519-1583). The British Museum speculates that the set was engraved before Delaune’s departure from France around 1572 or 1573.

The Graphic Arts Collection has only one print from the set, with Diana, accompanied by two dogs, standing in the middle of a decorative structure inhabited by various creatures and trophies. Others from the series are reproduced below thanks to the British Museum.

Grotesque is a French term derived from the Italian grottesco. In art the term is often used to describe a type of ornamental print, designed around a central axis with various motifs, including scrollwork, architectural elements, whimsical human figures and fantastic beasts. The closer you look, the more objects you will uncover.

Boston Public Library’s Print Collection

“Today, the Boston Public Library announced the results of the Print Department Report, a BPL commissioned year-long external review of the BPL Print Collection. Launched in June 2014 and conducted by Simmons College Professor Dr. Martha Mahard, the four-volume report evaluates inventory control and the current physical arrangement of the collection’s 320,000 items, and makes recommendations on how to improve intellectual control and organization of the Print Department assets moving forward.”

“The report covers the need for improved record keeping, primarily from artwork acquired in the latter half of the last century, when new acquisitions outpaced proper documentation and organization. https://www.bpl.org/press/2015/06/23/boston-public-library-commissioned-report-is-first-phase-of-improved-print-collection-inventory-control/

Boston Public Library president Amy Ryan (right) spoke to the media after the discovery of the Dürer and Rembrandt prints

“The Print and Special Collections play an essential role in the library fulfilling its mission as a center of knowledge,” said Michael Colford, BPL Director of Library Services. “This Print Department Report gives BPL a detailed look into how the library can be the best steward of these 320,000 works going forward. BPL is already taking steps to act on these recommendations, and will continue to use the report as the blueprint for additional improvements in the Print Department.”

Print Department Report Cover Letter

Print Department Report Volume 1

Print Department Report Volume 2

Print Department Report Volume 3

Print Department Report Volume 4

St. John of Capistrano

The Catholic Encyclopedia of Saints lists St. John of Capistrano (1386-1456) as the patron of jurists. He also earned the nickname the soldier saint, leading thousands of soldiers into battle against the invading Ottoman empire. When the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, the Franciscan priest was commissioned to preach a crusade for the defense of Europe. Gaining little response in Bavaria and Austria, he decided to concentrate his efforts in Hungary and “led the army to Belgrade. Under the great General John Hunyadi, they gained an overwhelming victory, and the siege of Belgrade was lifted.”

The Jewish Encyclopedia gives a somewhat different spin on Saint John. “In Silesia the Franciscan was most zealous in his work. When Capistrano arrived at Breslau, a report was circulated that one Meyer, a wealthy Jew, had bought a host from a peasant and desecrated it. Thereupon the local authorities arrested the representatives of the Breslau Jewish community and confiscated their houses and property for the benefit of the city. The investigation of the so-called blasphemy was conducted by Capistrano himself. By means of tortures he managed to wring from a few of the victims false confessions of the crimes ascribed to them. As a result, more than forty Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau June 2, 1453. Others, fearing torture, committed suicide, a rabbi, Pinheas, hanged himself. The remainder of the Jews were driven out of the city, while their children of tender age were taken from them and baptized by force.” http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4004-capistrano-john-of

Johann Gottlieb Boettger (1763-1825), Kapistran, zu Breslau im Jahr 1453, 1808. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA2015 in process

The artist of this print, Johann Gottlieb Boettger (1763-1825), was a German engraver who is credited with a number of frontispieces and book illustrations. He also engraved fine art prints after Angelica Kaufmann, among others.

Grandma’s Kitchen

Wanda Gag (1893-1946), Grandma’s Kitchen, 1931. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00407.

Minnesota-born Wanda Gág was a struggling young artist when Carl Zigrosser gave her a one-woman-show in his Weyhe Gallery in 1926. The Greenwich Village feminist was also outspoken about women’s rights and published an article stating her views in Nation magazine on June 22, 1927. “These Modern Women: A Hotbed of Feminists” began with an editorial note, “We print herewith the seventeenth and last of a series of anonymous articles giving the personal backgrounds of a group of distinguished women with a modern point of view.”

Ernestine Evans at Coward-McCann Books saw the article and liked both her politics and her art. She offered Gág the possibility of doing a children’s book with their firm and Gág delivered Millions of Cats in 1928 (which is still in print today). The book won a Newbery honor award the following year and led to a series of lithographs, loosely based on the premise. One of them made its way into Elmer Adler’s collection and was circulated at Princeton University as part of our Princeton Print Club exchange in the 1940s.

Wanda Gág (1893-1946), Millions of cats (New York: Coward-McCann, inc., 1938, c1928). Gift of Frank J. Mather, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-0111N.

Wanda Gág (1893-1946), Millions of cats (New York, Coward-McCann, 1928). Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Eng 20 94934

Jonathan Sturges

Jonathan Sturges (1864-1911), a member of the Princeton Class of 1885, began writing for the Nassau Literary Magazine during his junior year. He later boasted that it was “a journal whose Addisonian simplicity & ponderous traditions I endeavoured to relieve by the publication of several stories of my own begetting.”

Four years after graduation, Sturges published The Odd Number, a translation of thirteen stories by Guy dc Maupassant (1850-1893). The Princetonian saluted the achievement, describing the book as having “a very rapid sale. The first edition of 1500 appeared the last of October and sold out almost immediately. The second edition of 1,000 is exhausted and the third edition is in press.” (9 December 1889).

Settling in London, Sturges wrote travel letters for The New York Times and short stories for Harper’s and Cosmopolitan. He joined a circle of friends that included Henry James (1843-1916), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), and James Whistler (1834-1903), with whom he collaborated on The Baronet and The Butterfly magazines.

After Sturges death in 1911, his sister commissioned a pastel sketch from Harper’s illustrator Albert Sterner (1863-1946), which was completed after a portrait owned by Mary Fuller Sturges (Mrs. Andrew Chalmers) Wilson (1870-1962). The pastel was photographed and one copy hung over Henry James’s desk until his own death four years later.

Albert Edward Sterner (1863-1946), Jonathan Sturges, 1912. Pastel and charcoal on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02652.

Gwathmey

Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988), Portrait of a farmer’s wife, 1954. Screen print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00416.

Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988) created colorful paintings and screen prints depicting rural life in the American south. When the artist had his first important New York show in 1946. Paul Robeson (1898-1976) wrote an essay for the catalog, commenting “In the coming years, when as we all hope, true equality and the brotherhood of man will be a reality, Gwathmey’s paintings will have earned him the right to feel that he has shared in the shaping of a better world.” (Annex A ND237.G98 A5)

Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988), Watching the Parade, 1947. Screen print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00417.

In his Gwathmey biography, Michael Kammen writes,

Robert and Rosalie returned from Philadelphia to her family home in Charlotte during the last stage of her pregnancy, and Charles was born there in June 1938. Coming back to the South for a spell had immense consequences for Robert’s sense of place and its implications for his art. He later recalled the initial shock of returning to Richmond following his first year at the academy: “Suddenly, I saw with terrible clarity how it was, especially how it was for the Negro in the South. Things I had always taken for granted. That’s when my politics changed, long before the Depression came along.” Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer (The University of North Carolina Press)

Georges Gremillet

Georges Gremillet (1893-1971), Montmartre. Descriptive notes by H. de Labruyere (Paris: Edmond Chognard, 1928?). 13 etchings variously signed, dated and titled in the plate; lettered with publication detail and address of artist on cover: Au singe qui lit, 4 Place du tertre, 12 & 14 rue Lamarck, Paris 18e. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process. Gift of David McAlpin, Jr., Class of 1950.

In the 19th century, the inexpensive working class neighborhood of Montmartre became the home for artists, actors, and writers. By the 1920s, when Georges Gremillet moved in, the bohemian 18th arrondissement was the destination for wealthy art collectors and tourists.

Gremillet specialized in etchings offering charming views of Paris, which he hung in his Montmartre shop, known as Au singe qui lit (The Monkey that Reads). Located at 4 Place du Tertre, Gremillet was in the exact center of Montmartre’s central square, in the area where artists spent their days in the sidewalk cafes and their nights in the cabarets, dance halls, theaters, and bars.

Today, Gremillet’s shop is still open, filled with postcards and posters for visiting art historians. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have received a gift of two Gremillet portfolios from the 1920s, holding dozens of the artist’s drypoints and etchings. Thanks to David H. McAlpin, Jr., Class of 1950 for these wonderful new acquisitions.