L’Amour parmi les jeux, le Souvenir du bon temps, Dédié aux Belles [=Love Among the Games, the Memory of the Good Times, Dedicated to the Beautiful] (Paris: Boulanger, [1785]) with paintings by François Marie Isidore Queverdo (1748-1797). Provenance: bookplate of Robert de Beauvillain. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process.
The complete description that came with the volume: “24mo (binding size 98 x 57 mm). Entirely engraved. 44 leaves = 22 bifolia, a “nested” construction, irregularly paginated: engraved title, Remarques pour la présente année 1785on verso, conjugate with advertisement leaf at end, 6-leaf engraved calendar for 1785 enclosing central quire, paginated 3-62, containing: 12 leaves engraved text, each text leaf alternating with one of 12 full-page engraved “plates” (printed on 6 conjugate bifolia), the printed sides included in the pagination; at center a separate quire of tables of gains and losses, with separate imprint, but included in the pagination (pp. 21-44).”
The Graphic Arts Collection has a new, quietly erotic almanac in an embroidered binding set with painted miniatures by or after François Marie Isidore Queverdo (1748-1797). The interior engravings are described elsewhere as by Jean Dambrun (1741-1808) after Queverdo. If you look closely, each print displays various amorous encounters while the poetry describes seduction involving both men and women, husbands and wives, humans and angels.
The games mentioned in the title are both actual sports: in January there is bowling, in February is hide and seek, and so on. But they are also the adult games played by men and women throughout the year.
Benezit lists Queverdo as born 2 February 1748, in Josselin (Morbihan) and died 24 December 1797, in Paris. “The father of Louis Marie Yves Queverdo, François Queverdo appears on the register of pupils of the Académie Royale as being the protégé of the duchess of Rohan-Chabot and living in her house. He was a pupil of Pierre and Longueil. He collaborated as a draughtsman and engraver on the plates for the Abbé de St-Non’s Picturesque Journey Through Italy ( Voyage pittoresque d’Italie). He also made many engravings from his own drawings of fêtes galantes. His works are not without talent although the forms are heavy and often inaccurate and some of his pieces are highly prized. He imitated the style of Baudouin.”
Engraved allegorical title page by Adamo Scultori (1530–1585) with a medallion scene of the Virgin and Child, flanked by Saint Dominic and Saint Vincent. Note the close trimmed print.
When the information on this new acquisition is loaded into our online catalogue in a few weeks, the link to this physical book will probably disappear, superseded by one for the Hathi Trust digital copy. During this odd year, it is one or the other. This is too bad, given the unique material properties of our copy.
First published in 1573, compiled by the Dominican Andrea Gianetti da Salò (d. 1575) from the writings of Luis de Granada (1504–1588), the book offers a guide to the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. Scultori’s engravings caught the attention of the book’s many reader, leading to its reprinting over twenty times in the following thirty years. When Scultori’s plates became worn, they were sometimes re-engraved in later editions. This 1578 Varisco edition holds a number of prints beginning to show wear.
What is most interesting in this individual book are the rich, dark prints someone pasted on top of seven original engravings, a conservation procedure not yet found in any other copy. Our dealer notes “The lack of other similarly ‘improved’ copies seems to indicate a later intervention rather than something made at the time of printing, although the skill with which the new engravings have been pasted suggests a professional, maybe a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century binder or bookseller, rather than a former owner. See: Mortimer 218 (for the 1573 edition).”
Other owners might want to check their copies.
Luis de Granada. (Andrea GIANETTI, editor.) Rosario figurato della Sacratissima Vergine Maria Madre di Dio nostra avocata... (Venice, Giovanni Varisco, 1578). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process
Here are some biographical details on Adamo Scultori (1530–1585) from Brown University:
Son of the Mantuan sculptor Giovanni Battista Mantovano (Mantuano) and brother of the engraver Diana Mantovana (Mantuana, Scultori), Adamo, like his sister, was taught to engrave as a child by his father. His earliest known work, done when still a youngster, was a series of figures from Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel. His made many engravings after the Roman court artist in Mantua, Giulio Romano, and also after the antique. He also engraved frontispieces for book illustration, and in the case of the phlebotomy manual Discorsi di Pietro Paolo Magni Piacentino sopra il modo di sanguinar… he not only designed and engraved the frontispiece of Magni’s first, 1584 edition, but also engraved–and most likely designed-the other illustrations in the book. He was active as a print dealer and publisher in Rome between ca. 1577-80.
The Graphic Arts Collection recently added an album of 259 original cartoons, watercolors, and pen-&-ink sketches on 170 pp., along with a few printed cartoons, including one “sent to Punch January 1868.”
George Boileau Willock (born 1832), Gore Wynyard Willock (1861-1910), et al., Scraps by Many Hands, [ca. 1855-1885]. Embossed cover “G.B.W.”
Some work has already been done on the albums provenance, which is repeated here:
A collection of original art work by G.B.W. (George Boileau Willock, born 1832) and his artistic friends. The album was passed to his son, G.W.W. (Gore Wynyard Willock, 1861-1910). George came from an Imperial family that included Alexander Willock, London merchant and slave owner in the West Indies, his son Francis (1785-1834), naval officer and brother of Sir Henry Willock (1790-1858) chairman of the East India Company, and Captain Frank Gore Willock (1829-1857) who died at Delhi.
The son of Sir Henry Willock and Elizabeth Davis, George married Georgina C.M Willoughby in 1857 and together they had three children, Beatrice, Gore and Frank. Gore was born at Mussoorie, (a hill station pictured in the album) in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, north of New Delhi, and served in the Indian army before retiring to London. The Boileau connection was through Mary Elizabeth Boileau (1838-1919), who married Henry Davis Willock in 1859.
It is assumed that Gore compiled his father’s drawings into this album, including 124 cartoons signed G.B.W. or G.B. Willock; and about 80 others unsigned but probably by Willock. George was clearly an accomplished artist but many of the drawings present racist views of Asian, African, and Indian people, both in the image and the text. They are not included here. A portrait [at the top] presumed to be George Willock is included with a photograph of his face pasted to a sketch of a man on horseback
There are 20 non-humorous watercolors or pen-&-ink drawings of landscapes in England, Scotland, and India.. Eighteen cartoons are signed with the initials of other artists: 8 by C.A.R., 4 by J.L., 2 each by H.M.J. and W.T., one each by W.F.L. and M.E.
The two printed items laid into the album are: Legend of Broadstairs. For Private Circulation only (Broadstairs: Printed by E. Cantwell, ca. 1875). Signed G.B.W. at end. Inscribed to “Gore from the Author,” [ca.1875]. A True Tale told by Mariah Hanne to Sarah Jane. 3pp. on a single folded sheet [ca.1880], inscribed to “Gore from the Author.”
“The entire Ragamuffin Parade Committee is heartbroken,” wrote the 2020 committee, “that we will be disappointing so many children and, of course, their parents by not having this big, fun event along Third Avenue this year.”
Don Freeman (1908-1978), Dress Up Day, ca. 1936. Lithograph.
First held on Thanksgiving in 1870, American children would dress as beggars or street urchins and go door to door asking for candy and pennies. Eventually, uncontrolled begging was replaced with an annual costume parade. Last held in Manhattan around 1956, the parade was revived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and continues along Ragamuffin Way each year (except during the present Covid 19 epidemic).
James Greenwood (1832-1929), The True History of a Little Ragamuffin (London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1867). Not yet at Princeton University Library. See David Croal Thomson , Life and labours of Hablôt Knight Browne, “Phiz” (London, Chapman and Hall, 1884). Graphic Arts Collection oversize 2008-0463Q. 20-volume set, extra-illustrated with tipped-in works by Browne, including: etchings (some hand-colored); engravings; aquatints; lithographs; wood engravings; pencil drawings (some with added gouache); pen and ink washes; watercolors; one albumen photograph of a drawing; illustrated letters; and book covers.
Eugène Héros (1860-1925) editor, Le gueux. January 1891-October 1892. Monthly. [Paris, 35, rue d’Hauteville: Gueux, 1891-92]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process
The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired 16 individual fascicles, a complete run, of the short lived satirical monthly Le gueux (The Beggar), edited and printed by the lyricist Eugène Héros. A trained lawyer and member of Le chat noir, Héros later became managing director of the Théâtre du Palais Royal (1907-1910) and manager of La Scala (1914-1918). In between writing popular songs, he published the pamphlet Suppression de l’assistance publique (Paris: P. Andreol, 1890), followed by La partie de baccara: comédie-vaudeville en un acte, the first of many plays.
Each issue of Gueux has a singular color lithograph on its cover designed by H. Gray (Henri Boulanger 1858–1924), Jules-Alexandre Grün (1868–1938), Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923), Victor Sorel, Lilé, Jasmin, and Tzar. Number 9 has the a center fold by Steinlen, also seen on sheet music, titled Mon petit salé (My salted pork).
Also included in one issue is a subscription card and receipt card designed by H. Gray (Henri Boulanger 1858–1924).
Given the success of The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis (New York: Random House, 1983) [HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access ReCAP PS3570.E95 Q4 1983] and the Netflix series, we thought it might be interesting to see what chess games were in our collection, played by all genders. Princeton owns one of the earliest calotypes of two men playing chess, attributed to the unknown British amateur named Brodie and undated [above: Richard Willats ark:/88435/k930bx11x, Treasures of the Graphic Arts Collection]. This rivals the calotype attributed to Antoine Claudet showing two men playing chess around 1845. https://talbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/2018/09/07/claudets-talbotype-or-calotype-portraits/
On the left is the death mask for the French chess master Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1795–1840, box 25), who Wikipedia calls “possibly the strongest player in the early 19th century.” Unfortunately there is no picture of him actually playing.
Princeton University Library’s Eugene Beauharnais Cook chess collection https://library.princeton.edu/special-collections/topics/chess, includes over 2000 volumes, separately arranged, classed and catalogued. The complete list of the collection is published in Princeton University Library Classified List VI (1920) pp. 3585-3608 [(ExB) 0639.7373.5 vol. 6]. [full text] .
Within the Cook collection is a portfolio holding nineteen prints and photographs (Cook Oversize GV1447 .C665e). Two are particularly interesting as they are both the French and German edition of the lithograph after Johann Peter Hasenclever (1810-1853) from the series Le musee des rieurs. The German print is titled Die Schachspieler (Berlin) and in Paris the print is called Les Joueurs d’echecs.
Other chess themes appear in Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Check mate. n.d. [1790]. Pen and ink. Graphic Arts Collection Rothrock GA 2014.00739. Below James Bretherton (active 1770-1781), A game at chess [before and after lettering]. London: [s.n.], 1780/03/01. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize GA 2011.01368 and at the bottom George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Game of chess. London: [s.n.], 1819/08/01. Graphic Arts Collection GC022
Proof before lettering above. Note the changes in the final print below, including a second dog.
There is much more, of course, but this is a taste.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner’s 1925). Beach 3740.8.341.11 c.4
Answering a reference question this morning, this charming sketch appeared. It is well-known in the Fitzgerald circles but makes for a nice ending to the week.
La Flaca, La Madeja Politica, La Carcajada, El Lio (Barcelona, March 1869 – March 1876). Complete with 256 weekly issues bound in 3 volumes, sophisticated copy. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process
Latin American Studies and the Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a scarce complete run of this remarkably well-illustrated satirical weekly, which began life as La Flaca. Each issue is typically comprised of one bifolium with a full-page color lithograph in volume 1 and in volume 2 ans 3, a double-page lithograph. More digital images have been posted at: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Flaca&prev=search&pto=aue
Published in Barcelona, the Republican magazine faced intense government censorship and so, frequently changed its name, switching from La Flaca to La Carcajada, then La Madeja, La Madeja Política, and finally El Lio to avoid the censors. Biting criticism of the Spanish government and church was a staple while promoting freedom of the press.
The magazine’s chief illustrator was Tomás Padró y Pedret (1840-1877), who should be listed among the great caricaturist of the period. Born in Barcelona to a family of artists, he studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. It has been noted that another student, Mariano Fortuny, introduced him to the drawings by Paul Gavarni, an obvious influence in his satirical work. it is interesting that many plates use the iconography of drawing or writing or printmaking in their satirical message.
“The title was an ironic allusion to the plight of the Spanish people: the rickety woman with a shield bearing the country’s coat of arms and laurel wreath, accompanied by an equally starving lion on the cover of the magazine was a satire allegory of the woman and the lion fomented by the authorities in the 19th century and supposed to embody the alliance between the monarchy and the people.”
The contents are as follows:
Volume 1: La Flaca, nos. 1-100 (3rd of April 1869-3rd of September 1871). NB: no. 1 not dated.
Volume 2: La Carcajada, nos. 1-37 (17th of January 1872-31st of October 1872); La Flaca, nos. 38-84 (7th of November 1872-4th of October 1873).
Volume 3: La Madeja Politica, nos. 1-14 (1st of November 1873 – 31st of January 1873); El Lio, nos. 1-7 (7th of February 1874-18th of April 1874); La Madeja, nos. 22-50 (2nd of May 1874-19th of December 1874); La Madeja, nos. 1-22 (2nd of January 1875-3rd of March 1876).
Jennie, Sophie, and Irene Worrell. University of Nevada, Reno, Library. UNRS-P1348
Tom Taylor (1817-1880), Our Clerks, or, No. 3, Fig Tree Court, Temple: an original farce, in one act … (London (89 Strand): T.H. Lacy, [186-?]). Theatre collection TC23, 156a. Rehearsal script owned by Jennie Worrell (1850-1899), who played the character of Edward Sharpus, dated [August? 9th?] 1867 New York.
Buried in box 156a of the American playbill collection at Princeton is the script for Tom Taylor’s Our Clerks, or, No. 3, Fig Tree Court, Temple used by Jennie Worrell (1850-1899) during a 1867 production, in which she played the role of Edward Sharpus. Given this was a farce performed at the height of Victorian burlesque theater—think Saturday Night Live with more music—a female actress playing a male character is not surprising. The revelation comes with the personal story of this celebrated actress, director, producer, who died penniless, sleeping in the weeds on the outskirts of Coney Island.
Born in Cincinnati, the youngest of three sister, Jennie began performing at the age of eight. Her father was William Worrell (1823-1897), a successful circus clown, who developed a stage act with his daughters, first performed in San Francisco and then, toured throughout the United States.
They brought the act to New York City in 1866 when Jennie was 16 years old (recording her age as 14), Irene was around 18, and Sophie approximately 20. Given their notoriety and extensive background in the theater, the sisters leased the Church of the Messiah building at Broadway and Waverly Place, recently converted to a legitimate theater and renamed it the Worrell Sister’s New York Theater. Together the women managed the space and produced the plays, while also directing and acting in many of the productions.
It was at the Worrell’s theater that Augustin Daly (1838-1899) first presented Under the Gaslight, which included the now famous scene where a man is tied to the railroad tracks, only to be saved by the heroine. The play’s success led to a return engagement with the Worrell sisters playing the major roles and featuring Jennie, who stole the show when she grabbed an ax and saved the young man from an oncoming train.
Later versions switch the gender roles.
Performances at the Worrell Sister’s theater sold-out as their admirers multiplied. One review in the New-York Tribune, May 18, 1867, said:
“At the New-York Theater the Three Graces of Burlesque, Sophie, Jennie, and Irene Worrell, are attracting larger and still larger audiences as the season wears on. On Thursday evening the attendance was particularly good, and the performance particularly vivacious and pleasant. …These lively and talented young ladies—who originally made their appearance in this city last season … have grown steadily in favor with that portion of the public which craves dramatic merriment, until at last they have secured what, in religious parlance, may be termed a considerable following. They are pretty, and lively, and innocently mischievous; and they sing, and dance, and pleasantly prattle through the lightest of plays….”
Later that season, Jennie played the shrewdly hilarious role of Edward Sharpus in Tom Taylor’s Our Clerks, in which two barristers share an office and the love of the same woman, while always being outwitted by their clerks. Writing under a pseudonym, Tayler (1817-1880) penned many of the most successful plays of the period, including Our American Cousin (attended by Abraham Lincoln), and went on to edit Punch magazine.
Highlights of the 1868 season included The Grand Duchess of Gérolstein with Sophie as the Grand Duchess, Irene as Wanda and Jennie as Prince Paul, followed by a stage version of Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, adapted by Augustin Daly. To advertise the production, the sisters circulated dollar bills that looked real until you read the fine print, announcing their play.
After a number of years, the sister gave up management of the theater and chiefly toured the most successful of their productions. One reviewer noted: “The beautiful and accomplished Worrell sisters in the early seventies created a veritable furor throughout the country. The “Johnnies” went fairly wild over their grace, their beauty and their symmetry of form. The younger of the three pretty burlesquers was Jennie, who had hazel eyes and rich brown hair. Jennie was the especial favorite of the trio.” Another commented, “The beautiful voluptuous Jennie Worrell supped late, drank champagne, owned fast horses, wore diamonds, squandered money to right and left [until] the public grew weary of burlesque art and another group of performers began to attract attention.”
Each of the sisters married. Jennie’s first husband was Mike Murray, an infamous gambling proprietor and friend to Boss Tweed, with whom she had a daughter in 1872 named Jennie (also called Laura). The 1880 census lists the entire Worrell family living on Union Street in Brooklyn, husbands included, although Jennie is listed as a border (probably staying there in between fights with her husband). Eventually Mike and Jennie divorced, at which time she married John Alexander Chatfield (also listed as Hatfield) and moved to Surrey, England, until his death.
When she returned, Mike turned their daughter against her mother, disappearing with the girl and leaving Jennie heart-broken (See “Daughter… Forsake Her Mother,” New York Tribune March 10, 1888). This was the beginning of her down-turn, intensified by her lack of funds as these and other husbands or lovers left her with diminishing finances.
By the 1890s, Jennie had lost her home and her family disowned her, due to her drinking and disreputable behavior. The New York Times reported one arrest and conviction in 1896, during which she told one reporter:
“I thought how joyfully I would welcome death for myself. Then I determined to end my life by poison. I was not strong enough to carry out my intention, however I stopped at a druggist’s on my way to the boat and had a drink of brandy. I had not been accustomed to drinking and in my weak state it immediately affected my head. I welcomed anything that would make me forget that would bring me release form my dreadful thoughts. I took two more drinks. Then I came to New York. This was Sunday night. I had no home to which to go. All night I wandered around the streets. When daylight was approaching I entered the police station on west forty seventh street and asked for lodging and care. Perhaps I was boisterous I don’t know.”
The Actors Fund of America was notified of her plight but took no action. When the same story was reported in her hometown Cincinnati newspaper, Jennie is described as spiteful and vindictive, grinning at the magistrate when he asked her name. “Jennie Worrell!” she said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it Judge?”
On August 10, 1899, Jennie was wandering in the marshes outside Coney Island, in the area where Luna Park would be built a few years later. Exhausted, she laid down to sleep. It is presumed that she lit a cigarette and threw the still-lit match into the weeds, which caught fire. Although several heard her screaming, she wasn’t found until much later when the fire department was called and extinguished the blaze. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported, “Jennie Worrell, the most famous stage beauty of a quarter of a century ago, is to-day battling for life in the King’s County Hospital. The face and form, which were once the admiration of thousands, are misshapen and blistered. She was all but burned to death in a fire, which swept the flats at the west section of Coney Island. The doctors say she cannot live.” Jennie Worrell died in the hospital the following day, never having recovered consciousness.
Herb Bruce, I Am Somebody! ([Chicago]: Gráfica Studios / Charisma Chain Inc., 1970). Poster printed with fluorescent inks on coated paper. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process
Herb Bruce
The African American artist and illustrator Herbert “Herb” Bruce designed this Day-Glo poster, as well as “Free Angela [Davis]” and “Cosmic Lady [Janis Joplin]” for Grafica studio, a division of Charisma Chain inc., Chicago, Illinois. He was also a contributing artist at the Johnson Publishing Company, founded by the African-American businessman John H. Johnson, whose Chicago headquartered published Ebony and BlackWorld magazines, with drawings by Bruce in both.
The text is by Reverend Dr. William Holmes Borders (1905-1993), who served as pastor at Wheat Street Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, for over 50-years. Thanks to his radio addresses, he became a nationally known orator, writer, political activist, and preacher.
“Rev. Border utilized his platform to help African-Americans wherever he best could. For example, when four African-Americans were cruelly lynched in Monroe, Ga, he raised over $11,000 in community fundraising to go to cover their funeral expenses. Most notably, on January 10, 1957, near the beginning of Civil Rights era, Borders and five other protesters were arrested for violating bus segregation. Their protest directly led to the desegregation of buses in Atlanta.”
In 1970, a documentary film was released titled “I Am Somebody,” by Madeline Anderson, following black female hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina who went on strike for union recognition and a wage increase. Andrew Young, Charles Abernathy, and Coretta Scott King are included in the film, which was recently inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Archive and preserved by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. While the poster is not directly related to the film, Borders’ poem from the 1940s was revived in these several ways in 1970.