Buried below this pastel design is the inscription, “To Ridgely from Bobby, 1917.” Bobby refers to Robert Edmond Jones (1887-1954), who was making a gift of his drawing to playwright Ridgely Torrence (1874-1950), The design is for their production of Simon the Cyrenian, one of three short plays that opened April 5, 1917 at New York’s Garden Theater under the heading Three Plays for a Negro Theater. Jones not only designed but directed the three productions, which each featured all Black casts. As one of the first straight plays to feature Black actors exclusively, without melodrama or burlesque, this production is often cited as the beginning of the period we call the Harlem renaissance.

In anticipation of opening, Robert Benchley (1889-1945) published an article The New York Tribune, entitled “Can This Be the Native American Drama?” He went on to describe how Jones “heard of the three plays which Mrs. Emile Hapgood is to present, written for negroes and to be acted by negroes, he offered to design the scenery and costumes and to attend personally to the production. This will indicate the plane on which this new movement of the theatre is to be handled.”

Following the April 5 opening, drama critic Heywood Broun (1888-1939) announced, “The performances were a triumph for the actors, for Mrs. Hapgood, the producer, and for Robert E. Jones, director and designer of sets and costumes.”

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) transcribed the outpouring of critical review in The Crisis, beginning with poet Percy MacKaye’s comment, “It is indeed an historic happening. Probably for the first time, in any comparable degree, both races are here brought together upon a plane utterly devoid of all racial antagonisms—a plane of art in which audiences and actors are happily peers, mutually cordial to each others’ gifts of appreciation and interpretation.”

Ridgely Torrence (1874-1950), Granny Maumee, The Rider of Dreams, Simon the Cyrenian; Plays for a Negro Theater (New York: Macmillan company, 1917). Rare Books (Ex) 3963.57.335

We also hold Jones’ set design for the 1947 production of A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), one of many Jones designed for the Theater Guild of New York City.

In 1852, Marcus and Rebecca Buffum Spring bought 268 acres of land on Raritan Bay in New Jersey, about one mile outside Perth Amboy. Thirty families joined the Springs to establish the Raritan Bay Union, a utopian community based on the principles of Charles Fourier. When the Union dissolved in 1860, the Springs built the Eagleswood Military Academy in its place.

William Gertz noted that Spring, “recognized the need to include a cultural component to his self-sustaining colony and, to that end, he invited artists to join him there, providing them with studios in which to work.” (Art Across America, Two Centuries of Regional Painting Marquand Oversize ND212 .G47 1990q).

The Raritan Bay Union art program was run by James Steele Mackaye (1842-1894) who was only a teenager when he studied painting with William Morris Hunt. George Inness (1825-1894) was invited to join the faculty of the Eagleswood Military Academy in 1863, in yet another attempt to form a progressive community of artists and intellectuals. According to the New Jersey Historical Society, while “he never paid rent, Inness did present Spring with his famous painting Peace and Plenty as compensation.”

One of Inness’s Eagleswood students and then, member of the Eagleswood community was the American painter William McEwan (active 1859-1880). When the community finally closed, McEwan moved into New York City, exhibiting landscapes and sporting scenes at the National Academy of Art. One example is Princeton’s painting, Caught in the act or Stick to your last, 1869. Oil paint on canvas. Gift of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, Class of 1906. Graphic Arts Collection.

For more information, see Princeton Professor Rachael DeLue’s study George Inness and the Science of Landscape (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008) and Maud Honeyman Greene, “Raritan Bay Union, Eagleswood, New Jersey,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society Vol. 68, No. 1 (January 1950).

Richard Jones (1767-1840), Angler in Eton Playing Fields on the Thames, ca. 1820. Oil on canvas. GC164 Kienbusch Angling Collection. Gift of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, Class of 1906.

Born in Reading, the sporting painter Richard Jones was sought after for his depiction of horses, dogs, and fish. Yet, very little is known about the artist’s life besides a small list of paintings and exhibitions from the early 1800s. Our Angler dates from a similar period as The Anglers at the Brooklyn Museum: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4795/The_Anglers#

Fishing is more expensive than ever for Eton gentlemen, young and old, according to Angling News (March 15, 2011). In an article entitled, “Eton College hands over fishing rights to new group,” we learn that “Eton College has handed over the fishing rights to a four-mile stretch of river between Romney Island at Windsor and Dorney Rowing Lake to a syndicate that will charge £100 a year.”

“The college had let local angling clubs have the rights in the past. Eton Fisheries–a group consisting of Newbury-based chartered surveyor Patrick Todd and two colleagues–are now in charge. Mr. Todd said that he had met representatives from all the fishing clubs and that reaction had been mixed. …He said that although there would be an £100 annual charge, keen fishermen or women would also be able to obtain a day licence for just £6 and that he had no intention of pricing ordinary people out.”

Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri (1782–1868), Untitled drawing in sepia and brown ink with traces of graphite, ca. 1830. Albert Mathias Friend Collection of Set Designs. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) TC020

Pierre Cicéri held one of the most prestigious design positions in France: chief designer at the Paris Opera. Beginning in 1805, Cicéri was hired as a staff painter, specialized in landscapes, and in 1816, replaced his father-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767–1855) as head painter.

This set design has excellent provenance: Marcel Jambon (1848-1908); Alexandre Bailly (1866-1947); Madame Guigue, Paris; and Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. (1894-1956).

Albert M. Friend, Jr., Class of 1915, studied art and archaeology with Allan Marquand and Charles Rufus Morey. After serving in WWI, Friend returned to Princeton as a lecturer in the art department, was made professor in 1943, and three years later, succeeded Morey as Marquand Professor at Princeton University. One of his many generous gifts to the university was a collection of set designs, now housed in the graphic arts collection.