David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), Kenneth Macleay (1802-1878), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process.
Kenneth Macleay was a Scottish painter who specialized in miniatures, seen here posing in full Highland dress. He is also known as the husband to Louisa Campbell (1817-1868).
David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), Thomas Duncan (1807-1845), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process
Thomas Duncan, RA RSA, was a Scottish portrait and historical painter.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired 8 early photographic portraits by the great Scottish painter David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848), a Scottish chemist and pioneer photographer.

“In the mid-1840s, the Scottish painter-photographer team of Hill and Adamson produced the first substantial body of self-consciously artistic work using the newly invented medium of photography. William Henry Fox Talbot’s patent restrictions on his “calotype” or “Talbotype” process did not apply in Scotland, and, in fact, Talbot encouraged its use there. Among the fellow scientists with whom he corresponded and to whom he sent examples of the new art, was the physicist Sir David Brewster, principal of the United Colleges of Saint Salvator and Saint Leonard at Saint Andrews University, just north of Edinburgh. By 1841, Brewster and his colleague John Adamson, curator of the College Museum and professor of chemistry, were experimenting with the calotype process, and the following year they instructed Adamson’s younger brother Robert in the techniques of paper photography. By May 1843, Robert Adamson, then just twenty-one years old, was prepared to move to Edinburgh and set up shop as the city’s first professional calotypist.” Selection from: Malclom Daniel. “David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) and Robert Adamson (1821–1848) (1840s)”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hlad/hd_hlad.htm (October 2004)

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), George Meikle Kemp (1795-1844), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process. The Scottish architect George Kemp [also seen below] is best known as the designer of the Scottish Monument in central Edinburgh.

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), George Meikle Kemp (1795-1844), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process..

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), William Etty (1787-1849), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process
The English artist William Etty later painted a self-portrait based on photographs taken by Hill and Adamson.

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), David Octavius Hill and two unknown ladies, ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), Sir William Allan (1782-1850), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process. Allan was a noted Scottish history painter, who traveled extensively painting in Russia, Italy, Spain, and Greece.

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), William Forrest (1805-1889), ca. 1845. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process.
The Scottish engraver William Forrest studied with Thomas Fry in London before moving to the United States, eventually settling in Hudson N.Y.

L. G. Mostrailles (pseudonym for Leo Trézenik and Georges Rall). Têtes de Pipes. Paris: Léon Vannier, 1885. 21 original photographs by Émile Cohl. Copy 11 of 100. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

               
The French poet and novelist Léon-Pierre-Marie Spruce (1855-1902) used a number of pseudonyms during his career including Leo Trézenik and the collective signature L.-G. Mostrailles when he worked together with Georges Rall. Both Trézenik and Rall were active member of the Hydropathes, a group of late nineteenth-century writers, artists, and musicians who worked and drank together, particularly connected with the Chat Noir cabaret after it opened.

Beginning in 1882, Tréenik and Rall acquired a small hand press and used it to print a weekly literary journal they called Lutèce, with Trézenik acting as publisher and Rall as editor. From time to time they printed humorous (bordering on cruel) descriptions of their friends.

In 1885, they used the same hand press to print and publish these text portraits under the title Têtes de Pipes in an edition of 100. At that time, the phrase “têtes de pipes” was pejorative since it only applied to a face with coarse features, in allusion to the rather crude heads carved on the stove of some pipes. The caricaturist and photographer Emile Cohl (pseudonym of Emile Eugene Jean Courtet 1857-1938) provided the photographs (2100 prints) to be pasted into the book.

The subjects include Fernand Icres, Maurice Rollinat, Laurent Tailhade, Emile Cohl, George Lorin, Edmond Haraucourt, Robert Caze, Francis Enne, Emile Peyrefort, Edouard Norès, E. Monin, Grenet-Dancourt, Georges Rall, Leo Trézenik, Emile Goudeau, Jean Rameau, Carolus Brio, Henri Beauclair, Jean Moréas, Paul Verlaine, and Léon Cladel.

Emile Cohl went on to have a career in cinema, credited with making some of the first animated films. Eventually, Cohl emigrated to the United States and worked at the Éclair film studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. His animation entitled Fantasmagorie was first projected on August 17, 1908 at the Théâtre de Gymnase in Paris.

William James Stillman (1828-1901). The Acropolis of Athens. Illustrated Picturesquely and Architecturally in Photography. London: Printed by the Autotype Company for F.S. Ellis. 1870. Graphic Arts Collection 2015- in process. Purchased with funds given by the Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund and matching funds provided by a gift of The Orpheus Trust to the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, in honor of the 35th anniversary of Hellenic Studies at Princeton. Additional funds provided by the Friends of the Princeton University Library and the Graphic Arts Collection.

In 2007, the Princeton University Library acquired (thanks to the help of the Friends of the Princeton University Library) a portfolio of photographs by the American painter, journalist, photographer, and US Consul in Crete William James Stillman (1828-1901). In an article for the Princeton University Library Chronicle, Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek at Wesleyan University, proved that our portfolio was an early model for Stillman’s projected book, The Acropolis of Athens, mocked-up in (relatively) quick albumen silver prints. The following year the book was published using carbon prints, both more expensive and time-consuming but also a permanent printing process.

At the time of this purchase, we hoped there would be a day when Princeton could also acquire Stillman’s 1870 published book, offering scholars the opportunity to compare the early composition and design side-by-side with the finished volume. That day has finally arrived.

Thanks to two generous gifts we have been able to acquire Stillman’s The Acropolis of Athens, published with original carbon prints. The first gift is from the Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund and matching funds provided by a gift of The Orpheus Trust to the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, in honor of the 35th anniversary of Hellenic Studies at Princeton.

The second gift came when the Friends of the Princeton University Library heard about the generosity of Hellenic Studies and The Orpheus Trust, inspiring them to join in the fun and also donated funds to make this acquisition possible. Our sincere thanks to these admirable organizations and congratulations to the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies on their anniversary.

Princeton’s new volume contains 53 unnumbered leaves. The printed title page has a mounted carbon print photograph vignette (Ancient Gate of the Acropolis), followed by a leaf with Stillman’s dedication to Miss Marie Spartall (1844-1927, soon to be his second wife), a leaf with Stillman’s “Notice,” and 25 carbon print photographs with accompanying descriptions. Many plates are numbered in the negative, several with Stillman’s signature and caption and date.

As Szegedy-Maszak has suggested, Stillman’s sequence subtly reveals a profound ideological program, in which the Acropolis is ultimately portrayed allegorically as an emblem of liberty. It is an agenda that ties convincingly with Stillman’s lifelong political idealism.

“His [Stillman’s] work is nominally in a straight-forward nineteenth-century topographical mode, fulfilling the brief of documenting the Parthenon and Erectheum, but it also functions as a conscious vehicle for the photographer’s artistic ambitions . . . Photographing the Acropolis was clearly a highly personal project, and it shows in the work. He needed to make money from the endeavor, but he also believed—quite rightly—that he could make better photographs of the monument than anyone else.” (Parr & Badger).

Dimitri Gondicas writes, “This very special acquisition adds to our Hellenic Collections at Princeton, complementing perfectly our unique holdings of early photography in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. These visual documents are frequently consulted by Princeton students in our classes. Through our Seeger fellowships, we make accessible these research collections to visiting scholars from around the world. On this happy occasion, we wish to thank the Trustees of the Orpheus Trust, in particular, Mr. Christopher Cone, President of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund, and Mr. Hubert Ashton.” –Dimitri Gondicas, H. Stanley J. Seeger Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Classics. Lecturer in Classics.

“[Stillman] embarked on a career as a diplomat, being posted as consul to Crete in 1865. Due to his support of a Cretan revolt against Ottoman rule, he had to flee in 1868 to Athens with his wife and children. Although his family was battered by a series of tragedies, Stillman undertook to photograph the monuments on the Acropolis. A selection of twenty-five photographs was published in London in 1870 as The Acropolis of Athens Illustrated Picturesquely and Architecturally in Photography.”–Szegedy-Maszak

The photographs themselves are at once documents of a civilization past and sublime elegies in light and shadow. They begin with distant views showing the imposing nature of the Acropolis within its city surroundings, and move closer with dramatic and picturesque studies of individual structures and sculptural details. The images include several figures, one of whom is thought to be Stillman himself.

See Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, “Athens. Photographed by W.J. Stillman,” Princeton University Library Chronicle, 70, no.3 (spring 2009): 399-432.