Category Archives: prints and drawings

prints and drawings

Need a project no.3? Women’s history final list.


Over the last five weeks of posting projects for those of us at home, by far the most responses have been to a request for women’s history: Who was the first women to graduate from your school, college, or university? What began with the identification of a 1640 (III/IV (Hollstein Dutch and Flemish, v.26, p.113)  engraving of the artist and scholar Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678), often identified as the first female student at a European university, led to a survey of other notable women who are recorded as being the first to graduate from universities across the United States (and a few outside the US, although that would be a much longer list. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_education)

https://drive.google.com/a/princeton.edu/file/d/1Gx_g_fKBkQ_Ija-Ps4k_Dza0QPXJEMe2/view?usp=sharing  Here is a six-page PDF list of women who were the first graduates from various colleges. The stories are wonderful.

 

Before Ruth Bader Ginsburg there was Bettisia Gozzadini, who studied law at the Studium of Bologna, dressed as a man, graduating from the university in 1237 and teaching law at her home. There is a bust of Gozzadini at the Museum of the History of Bologna, sculpted by Casa Fibbia sometime between 1680 and 1690. An inscription on its base reads: “Loving daughter, in both rights highly eminent/ Public laws explained and in Bishop’s funeral prayed. Flourished 1242. Died 1261.”  Thanks to Janna Brancolini for the image.

From Ohio, there were the “Oberlin Four.” http://www.womenhistoryblog.com notes “Oberlin College was founded in 1833 in Oberlin, Ohio, and became the first college in the United States to admit women as well as men. There were four courses of study: the Female, Teachers, Collegiate and Theological Departments. Women were allowed to study in the Female or Teachers Department. However, in 1837 four women – Mary Kellogg, Mary Caroline Rudd, Mary Hosford and Elizabeth Prall – entered the college degree program, the Collegiate Department. All but Kellogg graduated in 1841 and received the first Bachelor of Arts degrees earned by women in the United States. Kellogg, who had left school for lack of funds, later returned to Oberlin after marrying James Harris Fairchild, a future president of Oberlin College. Mary Caroline Rudd (later Allen) pictured below.

Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) was the first woman admitted to MIT, receiving her S.B. degree in 1873 (the first graduating class of MIT was 1868). The title of her thesis [PDF file] was “Notes on Some Sulpharsenites and Sulphantimonites from Colorado.” In 1875 she appealed to the Women’s Education Association of Boston for help in establishing a laboratory at MIT for the instruction of women in chemistry. The Women’s Laboratory opened in 1876 with Professor John M. Ordway in charge, assisted by Richards. She held the position of instructor in chemistry and mineralogy in the Women’s Laboratory until it closed in 1883. From 1884 to her death in 1911, Richards was instructor in sanitary chemistry at MIT.–https://libraries.mit.edu/mithistory/community/notable-persons/ellen-swallow-richards/

Many schools closely followed the decisions made elsewhere, which influenced their own progress (or lack of). Here is The Harvard Crimson reporting on the decision at Dartmouth College to admit women beginning in the fall of 1972. : https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1971/11/22/dartmouth-to-admit-women-in-fall/

Dartmouth, like Harvard and others, has a complicated history that is not easy to record, given that women were allowed to study at the school long before they were given degrees. The attached PDF is a casual document and if you find mistakes, it can easily be corrected and updated.

The University of Pennsylvania archives posted this image of the first women to matriculate at UPenn, working in the chemistry laboratory, 1878 (L to R: Gertrude K. Peirce, Anna L. Flanigen, and Mary T. Lewis). “Gertrude Klein Peirce and Anna Lockhart Flanigen met at Women’s Medical College. The two women were the first female students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania. Miss Peirce earned a certificate of proficiency in Chemistry in 1878. She continued her studies in a post-graduate course in 1878 and 1879….”–https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-people/notables/women

Of course, they are not all success stories.  On May 21, 1897, men and women, young and old, gathered to protest the admission of women to Cambridge University, as seen in Thomas Stearn’s photograph above. Here’s more: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2018/02/22/cambridge-boys-celebrate-when-women-are-refused-degrees/.

If your story is missing, you can still send notes to jmellby@princeton.edu and I will add them. Thank you to everyone who participated.

 

Puerto Rican visual and performing arts


The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña or ICP) is the department of the Puerto Rican government “responsible for the establishment of the cultural policies required in order to study, preserve, promote, enrich, and diffuse the cultural values of Puerto Rico.” The ICP began operating in November 1955 under its first executive director Dr. Ricardo Alegría and continues to promote all aspects of Puerto Rican culture, including archeology, museums, parks, monuments, historic zones, music, visual arts, and dance, as well as maintaining the Archives and the National Library of Puerto Rico. Their site is here: Instituto de Cultura Puertoriqueña

ICP’s first logo was designed by Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), who also established the Institute’s Graphic Arts Workshop (Taller de Artes Gráficas). During the 960s, Homar designed and screen printed a number of posters for the ICP, many of which are now represented in Princeton’s Graphic Arts Collection thanks to the generosity of Alma Concepción and Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones. Not only are they beautiful works of graphic art but they document important events in Puerto Rican history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2b5R0L7HVQ

This 2015 video was recorded in conjunction with the exhibition HOMAR: A Tribute to an Artist of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, organized by the Hunter College Center for Puerto Rican Studies. It features a conversation among artists to share their memories, personal experiences and the ways they have been influenced by the renowned artist and graphic designer Lorenzo Homar and his peers in the Puerto Rican art scene both on the island and among the Puerto Rican stateside communities: Rodríguez-Calero and Nitza Tufiño, with moderator: Néstor Otero.

 


Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Festival de Teatro Puertorriquena, Teatro Tapia, 1962. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.03985.
In 1956, barely into its second year, the ICP created the Theater Arts Promotion and Dissemination Program and in 1958 launched an annual Puerto Rican Theater Festival to promote the work of Puerto Rican playwrights. Lorenzo Homar designed and printed several of the festival posters, including this one in 1962 for the 5th annual festival held at the Teatro Tapia, the oldest permanent theater in Puerto Rico.

Located in Old San Juan on Fortaleza Street in front of Plaza Colón, the Tapia Theater was given its name during its reconstruction of 1948, honoring Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (1826–1882) one of the fathers of Puerto Rican literature.

https://enciclopediapr.org/en/encyclopedia/tapia-y-rivera-alejandro/. “As a playwright, Tapia is particularly known for the 1867 play La cuarterona, in which he denounced racial prejudice.”

Full text available: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.a0000253484&view=thumb&seq=11 or in a bilingual edition: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/691871

Homar also designed the poster [left] for ICP’s 8th annual theater festival: Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Festival de Teatro Puertorriqueno en el Teatro Tapia, 1965. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.03989

 

 

 


Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Feria de artesanias en Barranquitas, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena, 1966. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.03947


The National Artisan or Crafts Fair (Feria Nacional de Artisanas de Barranquitas) takes place every July in Barranquitas, a small mountain town in the center of Puerto Rico. This annual event brings together local artisans from around the island and last year nearly 200 local artisans took part; making this the largest craft festival in Puerto Rico.

The fair dates back to 1959 when the first event was held to mark the centenary of the birth of local barranquiteno hero Luis Muñoz Rivera (1859-1916). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Mu%C3%B1oz_Rivera

“At that time there was only a single kiosks where local craftsman displayed their creations. The following years fair saw even more artisans taking part and in 1961 the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture announced the first National Fair of Handicrafts in Barranquitas. Since then the fair has grown in popularity, not only with local artisans, but in the variety of cultural activities that occur during the event.”

 

 


Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), 1871-1971 Centenario del tenor Antonio Paoli, 1971. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.03999

For the centenary of the tenor Antonio Paoli (1871-1946), this poster celebrates the first Puerto Rican to gain international recognition in the performing arts. His Wikipedia page lists 1,725 performances between 1888 and 1942, including 575 performances of Verdi’s Otello. To his credit, Paoli was also the first opera singer in the world to record an entire opera; he was part of a recorded performance of Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo in Italy in 1907.

 

The ICP organized a celebration in 1971 and commissioned a screen printed poster from Homar, who depicts Paoli in his most famous role of Otello. See more: https://historyofthetenor.com/antonio-paoli/

Archie Pen Co. “It thinks for you.”

 

One hundred years ago this month, Katherine Dreier (1877-1952), Man Ray (1890-1976), and Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) established the Société Anonyme, Inc. in two rented rooms (gallery and library) at 19 East 47th Street in New York. Dreier wrote that she “places at the disposal of visitors a complete carefully selected Reference Library on Modern Art, including books and magazines from various European countries. [We do] not sell any works exhibited under its direction, but gladly brings any prospective buyer directly in touch with the artist.”

The location was deliberate. J & S Goldschmidt Fine Art [above] was at Fifth Avenue and 47th, while M. Knoedler and Co. [below] operated around the corner at 556 Fifth Avenue. More important, Man Ray’s dealer Charles Daniel’s gallery was just across 5th Avenue at 2 West 47th Street.

With the end of WWI, travel reopened and the development of international exhibitions on the rise. In February of 1921, Dreier and Daniel joined forces to celebrate the Russian artist Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964), exhibiting drawings and watercolors with Daniel and sculpture at the Société Anonyme.

To publicize the exhibitions, Duchamp published a tongue-in-cheek advertisement in The Arts magazine for the “Archie Pen Co.” [at the top]  Beside an illustration of Archipenko’s relief sculpture Woman Standing (1920) is the text:

“For having invented the circle, Columbus, as everyone knows, was tried and sentenced to death. Today an Archie Pen draws automatically a line of accurate length such as, for instance, the hypothenuse of a possible triangle in which the length of the two other sides is given arithmetically. It thinks for you. To use it reveals new experiences, even to the most blasé.

A distinct achievement of the Archie Pen is its ability to bring delicacy of line and graceful poise to a hard dry mechanical drawing. It has already found great favor among architects, draughtsmen, because it covers a third more space than the old-fashioned Fountain Pen and complies with the exigencies of what the French Scientists call: les inhibitions imbibées.

It does away with blotter. For artistic design, quality and value Archie Pens are without equal. Presented for your approval at the Société Anonyme, 19 East 47th Street, New York City. Write us if you are unable to secure genuine Archie Pens at your favorite stationer. The name will be found at the bottom as an assurance. [This brilliant caricature of a modern magazine advertisement is the work of an artist well-known in many fields who, unfortunately, objects to having his identity revealed—Editor]”



The Princeton University Art Museum “Flat Torso” by Archipenko [left] and his Saks Fifth Avenue advertisement, designed by Raymond Loewy. Marquand Library offers:

Société Anonyme, Inc. (Museum of Modern Art) presents the first exhibition in New York of the works of Alexandre Archipenko (Russian sculptor) : at its 7th exhibition, Feb. 1st-March 15th 1921, 19 East 47th Street, New York (New York: Société Anonyme, Inc., 1921). 1 folded sheet. Marquand Library NB689.A6 S624 1921. “The Société Anonyme Inc. has issued a special pamphlet on Archipenko with five full-page illustrations, and an excellent dissertation by Ivan Goll (translated into English by Mary Knoblauch).”

Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964)—Oxford Art Online:

Ukrainian sculptor, active in Paris and in the USA. He began studying painting and sculpture at the School of Art in Kiev in 1902 but was forced to leave in 1905 after criticizing the academicism of his instructors. … In 1908 he established himself in Paris, where he rejected the most favoured contemporary sculptural styles, including the work of Rodin. . . . Archipenko was represented in the New York Armory Show of 1913 and in many international Cubist exhibitions. In 1921 he moved to Berlin and opened an art school. In 1923 he settled in the USA and established a school in New York City. He initiated a summer programme in Woodstock, New York, in 1924, which continued until his death. In 1927 he was granted a patent for his invention of the ‘peinture changeante’ (or Archipentura), a motorized mechanism for the production of variable images in sequence. This machine (which in his view combined the scientific with the emotional), as well as his incorporation of electric light and actual movement into his work, revealed his continued attraction to the Futurist urge to represent the dynamism of the modern era.

European Culture in a Changing World: Between Nationalism and Globalism (International Society for the Study of European Ideas. Conference, 2004)

 

 

The legall proceeding in Man-shire against sinne

Richard Bernard (bap. 1568, d. 1642) by Wenceslaus Hollar, pubd 1644 © National Portrait Gallery, London

 

Reading 17th-century English books online can be difficult, even when they are available on a 21st-century tablet. A good example is Richard Bernard’s best-selling allegory The isle of man: or, The legall proceeding in Man-shire against sinne. Wherein, by way of a continued allegorie, the chiefe malefactors disturbing both church and commonwealth, are detected and attached; with their arraignement, and iudiciall tryall, according to the laws of England. A necessarie direction for waifaring Christians, not acquainted with those perillous wayes they must passe, before they happily arriue at their wished hauen (London: Printed for Edw. Blackmore, at the great South doore of Pauls., 1626).

The English Puritan clergyman and writer Richard Bernard (1568–1641) was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, receiving MA in 1598. His most popular book, The Isle of Man (1626) reached its sixteenth edition in 1683. According to the DNB, some commentators have suggested that this allegory influenced John Bunyan, particularly his trial scene in The Holy War.

Written in two parts, Bernard first describes the searching, the attaching, and imprisoning of Sin (and its relationship with witches). The second part is the trial of Sin. Google books and Hathi Trust have both loaded copies of Isle of Man, and the University of Michigan offers a transcribed plain text version here:

“THE AVTHORS earnest requests. FIRST, to the Worthy Reader, whosoeuer, to whom let me but say thus much of this Discourse and allegorical narration; that in it sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala nulla: Yet if any thing may seeme distastfull, let thy minde be to take it well, as Caesars was, to interpret well the seeming offensiue carriage of one Accius the Poet towards him, and thou wilt not be displeased. Thy good minde will preuent the taking of an offence, where none is intended to be giuen. In discouery, attaching, arraigning and condemning of finne, I tax the Vice, and not any mans person: so as I may say with one,
Hunc seruare modum no∣stri nouere libelli,
Parcere personis, discere de vitijs.
Thou hast heere towards the end of this discourse, the tryall and iudgement vpon foure no∣torious Malefactors. Two of them the very prime Authors of all the open rebellion, or se∣cret * Conspiracies, which at any time euer were in that land: The other two were the principall Abettours and the chiefest Supporters of them. Their names, their natures, and their mischieuous practices, thou mayest find at large in the narration.”
Note: Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala nulla = Some are good, some but middling, and a decided majority bad.

Some online books can be converted to plain text but that can be even more difficult, as in this 1628 is in google books:
Plain text:

 

Although most sources list 1626 or 1627 as the date of the first edition, this google book shows an early, possibly misprinted copy dated 1617

 

James Franklin (1697-1735), older brother of Benjamin Franklin and founder of the New England Courant; the second newspaper in America, chose Bernard’s text to reprint in 1719. He used a small format, approximately 5 inches high, that could easily be carried in your pocket and read throughout the day. We have digitized this Boston edition:

Richard Bernard (1568-1641), The Isle of Man, or, The legal proceeding in Man-Shire against sin Wherein, by way of a continued allegory, the chief malefactors disturbing both church and commonwealth, are detected and attached; with their arraignment and judicial tryal, according to the laws of England. To which is added, the contents of the book for spiritual use; with an apology for the manner of handling, most necessary to be first read, for direction in the right use of the allegory throughout by Richard Bernard, Rector of Batcomb in Somersetshire. Sixteenth edition (Boston: Reprinted by J. Franklin, for B. Eliot, 1719). Graphic Arts Collection, Hamilton 13s

Not only did Franklin print and publish this edition, he also designed the woodcut frontispiece [above] for the volume, along with small cuts throughout. See Sinclair Hamilton’s American Illustrated Books, (1968 ed.), no. 13. Here are a few more pages. The entire volume can be read at Identifier:http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/pz50h088r

Last Portraits

Charles Mottram (1817-1876) after Joseph Ames (1816-1872), The Last Days of Webster at Marshfield: to the Family and Friends of the Late Daniel Webster, This Plate Representing a Scene During His Last Days at Marshfield, Is Most Respectfully Dedicated by the Publishers, 1858. Etching and engraving. Published by Smith & Parmalee, 59 Beekman Street, New York, NY.

 

In 2002, the Musée d’Orsay held an exhibition of Last Portraits. “The purpose of the exhibition is to evoke a practice of the past: portraying a deceased person, on their deathbed or in their coffin. This ‘last portrait’ – death mask, painting, drawing or photograph – remained in the narrow circle of relatives and friends, but, in the case of famous personalities, it could be widely circulated in public. This practice, extremely common in Western countries in the nineteenth century and until the first half of the twentieth century, is today fast disappearing, or at least it remains strictly within the boundaries of the private sphere.”

The last portrait of Daniel Webster (1782-1852), a Whig senator from Massachusetts, was not included in their show but was the subject of a recent reference question. Webster, who Sydney Smith once called “a steam-engine in trousers,” died at his home in Marshfield in 1852 after falling off his horse.

Who are the others in this scene? Joseph Alexander Ames (1816-1872); Daniel Webster (1782-1852); Charles Henry Thomas; Jacob Le Roy; Edward Curtis; Caroline Bayard Le Roy Webster (1797-1882); Mrs. James Paige; James W. Paige; George Ashmun (1804-1870); Rufus Choate (1799-1859); Peter Harvey (1810-1879); Col. Fletcher Webster, 1819-1862; Caroline L. Appleton; Daniel Webster, Jr.; Mrs. Fletcher Webster; Caroline Webster (1845-1884); J. Mason Warren; Unidentified Woman; John Taylor; Porter Wright.

“The whole household were now again in the room, calmly awaiting the moment when he would be released from pain. …It was past midnight, when, awaking from one of the slumbers that he had at intervals, he seemed not to know whether he had not already passed from his earthly existence. He made a strong effort to ascertain what the consciousness that he could still perceive actually was, and then uttered those well-known words, “I still live!” as if he had satisfied himself of the fact that he was striving to know. They were his last coherent utterance. …At twenty-three minutes before three o’clock, his breathing ceased; the features settled into a superb repose; and Dr. Jeffries, who still held the pulse, after waiting for a few seconds, gently laid down the arm, and, amid a breathless silence, pronounced the single word ‘Dead.’ –“The Death-bed of Daniel Webster,” Appletons’ Journal [Volume 3, Issue 49, Mar 5, 1870; pp. 273-275].

Princeton is fortunate to also hold a life mask [left] of Webster’s face taken in Washington D.C. by Clark Mills (1810-1883) in 1849.

“Clark Mills … developed a new technique for creating life masks that was quicker and cheaper than the existing method and as a result received many commissions for sculptures. In 1847, Mills traveled to Washington to study the statuary in the Capitol. He was selected by Congress to create an equestrian statue of President Andrew Jackson, winning the commission over the artist Hiram Powers. This piece was the first monumental equestrian statue in the country to be cast in bronze….”—Smithsonian American Art Museum

Laurence Hutton wrote “I cannot to this day understand how Clark Mills managed to make moulds from life of the entire head of Webster and of that of Calhoun, each so distinct and so near to nature, without leaving in the casts some traces of the hair they wore. Their faces were smooth shaven, but they were both far from being bald. The occiput must have been carefully and closely covered with something which left no mark; but what that something was I cannot determine. Each cast is signed by the artist and dated — Calhoun’s in 1844, Webster’s in 1849,—and that clearly enough establishes their identity. … both he and Webster—the phrenologists tell us—had unusually large heads; and we need no phrenologists to tell us that there was a good deal in them.” Laurence Hutton, Talks in a library with Laurence Hutton (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905)

Some of the many other deathbed scenes include:

Junius Brutus Stearns (1810-1885), Washington on his Deathbed, 1851. Oil on canvas. Dayton Art Institute, Ohio.

 

Jacques Louis David (1748–1825), Death of Socrates, 1787. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931

 

Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret (1782-1863), Honors Rendered to Raphael on His Deathbed, 1806. Oil on canvas. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio.

 

William L. Walton (1796-1872) after Oakley, John Calvin on his deathbed, with members of the Church in attendance, ca. 1865. Lithograph. Wellcome Trust, London.

 

Artist Unidentified, A Deathbed: a man breathes his last, the devil flies down and grabs his soul (in the form of a baby) from his mouth, 17th century. Engraving, inscription: “L’un de ses lieux sera ta demeure eternelle, Il faut l’un de ces deux te sauver, ou perir, Mourir comme un chrestien, ou comme un infidelle” [loosely translated One of its places will be your eternal home, One of these two must save you, or perish, Die like a Christian, or like an infidel]. Wellcome Trust, London.

 

Alexander Hay Ritchie (1822-1895), Death of Lincoln, ca. 1874. Mezzotint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.01243

 

Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) after Richard Newton (1777-1798), Giving up the ghost or one too many, ca.1813. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014.00260.
A dying man lies on a miserable bed. A fat doctor sits asleep at the bedside. Beside him are the words:
“I purge I bleed I sweat em
Then if they Die I Lets em”

Formerly known as

This is a confirmed portrait from the Graphic Arts Collection of the Dutch historian and cartographer John Speed (1594-1678), who biographers often compliment as “having had twelve sons, and six daughters, by one wife.”– James Granger, A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution … (J. Rivington and Sons, 1804).

The portrait may or may not relate to an oil painting in London’s National Portrait Gallery, currently labeled:
Unknown man, formerly known as John Speed
by Unknown artist
oil on panel, circa 1550-1575
© National Portrait Gallery

 

 

How many other portraits are now “formerly known as”?

 

 

Online London’s National Portrait Gallery turns up 223: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait-list.php?search=sp&sText=formerly%20known&firstRun=true

These include 12 portraits of unknown women formerly known as Anne Boleyn, such as: Probably by Robert White, after Hans Holbein the Younger, Unknown woman formerly known as Anne Boleyn, line engraving, published 1681?, NPG D21020

Online the British Museum currently lists 79 portraits formerly known as someone, now unknown (although my count in F. O’Donoghue, Engraved British Portraits Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 1908, lists over 200). Not one of the 1,650 portraits of William Shakespeare is listed as ‘formerly known as’.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the doubly confusing: Thomas Wright (1792-1849) after Cornelius Janssen (formerly known as), William Shakespeare (formerly known as) 1827. Stipple engraving in Wivell’s Inquiry into the History of the Shakespeare Portraits (1827).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917 (17.3.756-2422)

“…based on a painting then attributed to Cornelius Johnson (or Janssen), owned by Charles Jennens and believed to represent Shakespeare at the age of forty. That worked passed from Jennens, to the Duke of Hamilton, Duke of Somerset, then Lady Ramsden at Bulstrode Park, near Reading, before entering the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Today, the “Janssen Portrait” it is no longer believed to portray Shakespeare and has been retitled “Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman, possibly Thomas Overbury” (see also 17.3.756-1714).”

Artist: After Anonymous, Anglo-Netherlandish, 17th century
Artist: Once said to be after Cornelius Janssen (British, London, baptised 1593–1661 Utrecht)
Sitter: Once said to portray William Shakespeare (British, Stratford-upon-Avon 1564–1616 Stratford-upon-Avon)

 

In addition, the MET has a portrait of the artist formerly known as Prince, by the artist currently known as Prince:

Richard Prince (born 1949), Untitled, 1999. 4 gelatin silver prints and a button. Described: “Signed in ink on printed card attached to frame verso: “R [illegible]”; printed text on card affixed to frame verso: “Left to right an inscribed Barbara Streisand, the artist formerly known as Prince, Sid Vicious, with an attached untitled “Joke” pin and Sylvester Stallone with a signed card by Stallone. [signature] 1999″

“…In his most recent Publicity series, the artist created Duchampian “assisted readymades” by obsessively collecting 8 x 10-inch glossy promotional photographs of show business personalities-in this example, Barbra Streisand, Prince, Sid Vicious, and Sylvester Stallone. Interspersing “authentic” autographs from celebrities (or usually their assistants) with those forged by the artist himself, Prince [not the artist formerly known as Prince] makes explicit the issues of authorship and appropriation that he has explored throughout his career, by demonstrating that the meanings of images are determined primarily by the unruly desires of the viewer.”.

Our database turns up the much less interesting: Princeton University, formerly known as the College of New Jersey and Richardson Auditorium formerly known as Alexander Hall.

More on our engraving:

Salomon Savery (1594-1678), John Speed, ca. 1631. Engraving. Also used as a frontispiece to Speed’s Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World and History of Great British Isles Atlas, Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine as well as the combined editions of the two atlases. Hollstein D.24.62 (No. 133). Graphic Arts Collection Dutch prints

Latin dedication legend by publisher George Humble: “AEt [ernae] M [emoriae] | Viri clarissimi | Joannis Speed, Farndoniae nati in Comitatu Cestriae, Civis Londinensis, Mercatorum Scissorum fratris, | Servi fidelissimi regiarum majestatum Elizae, Jacobi, et Caroli nunc Superstitis: Terrarum nostra = | rum Geographi accurati, et fidi antiquitatis Britannicae Historiographi, Genealogiae Sacrae elegan = | tissimi delineatoris; qui post quam annos 77. superaverat non tam morbo confectus, quam mortalitatis | taedio lassatus, Corpore suo levat [us] est July 28, 1629 “
=The eternal memory of the famous John Speed, born at Farndon in the county of Chester, citizen of London, brother of the MS [?], most loyal servant of the royal majesties Elisabeth, Jacob I and the now reigning Karl I .; the exact geographer of our country and faithful historiographer of British antiquities, the witty designer of a biblical genealogy; who, after 77 years behind him, was not so exhausted from sickness as exhausted from his body from weariness from mortality on July 28, 1629.

The DNB lists John Speed (1552?-1629) as historian and cartographer and continues: “…On 15 June 1598, on Greville’s recommendation, Queen Elizabeth gave Speed ‘a waiter’s room in the custom-house’ … Speed first used his leisure in making maps of the counties of England. … These, accompanied by a description of each map, were collected in 1611 in Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, for which George Humble, the publisher, had received a license three vears before…. A second edition appeared in 1614, and a third in 1627, with the title A Prospect of the most Famous Parts of the World. …Meanwhile Speed had become a member of the Society of Antiquaries, where he met Camden, Cotton, and other scholars. Encouraged by their help, he had commenced his great work The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of ye Bomans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans . . . . An anonymous portrait of Speed was in 1879 transferred from the British Museum to the National Portrait Gallery, London. An engraving by G. Savery, from a painting belonging to Speed’s grandson Samuel, is prefixed to the later editions of most of Speed’s works.”

James Granger, A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution: Consisting of Characters Disposed in Different Classes… (J. Rivington and Sons, 1804), p. 320 below:

Aubrey Beardsley ‘covered in place’ at the Tate

Although the Tate Britain exhibition Aubrey Beardsley, with 10 exceptional drawings from Princeton University Library, has now closed due to CV19, the museum has posted an interesting video discussion here:

“Curator Stephen Calloway and drag performer Holly James Johnston sit down to tea to discuss the ‘dos and don’ts’ of dandyism according to artist Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley shocked and delighted Victorian London with his black and white drawings. In fact, the 1890s even became known in some circles as the ‘Beardsley Period’. At the centre of this decadent world was the ‘dandy’, an elegant and enigmatic character made famous by Beardsley and friends like Oscar Wilde. You can find out more about Beardsley in an exhibition of his work at Tate Britain, from 4 March to 25 May 2020: http://bit.ly/3cjrc75 “

Even today, Aubrey Beardsley drawings shock and delight. Here are a few of our drawings sent to London and currently safely “covered in place” on the Tate walls. https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2020/01/14/aubrey-beardsleys-die-gotterdammerung/

 


Don’t pay for a copy of our Gotterdammerung, as suggested below, here is a usable jpg:
https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/158/2020/01/figgy_prod_52_f5_5a_52f55ab501bd443097fa04aa9f80505b_intermediate_file.jp2_.jpg

Here is a paper list of the resources at Princeton University Library, for later in person use: file:///C:/Users/jmellby/AppData/Local/Temp/Bib.56701.Beardsley-catalogue-1952-Wainwright-mapped-with-call-numbers-2012.pdf

You can read the article “The Death of Aubrey Beardsley,” by Matthew Sturgis from the Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Autumn 1998), pp. 61 full text in jstor here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.60.1.0061

Read the 1896 catalogue The Yellow Book: an Illustrated Quarterly from Elkin Mathews and John Lane at GoogleBooks: https://books.google.com/books?id=KrX5eLvtEAMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=beardsley+yellow+book&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1hZyhgLjoAhVulXIEHSMsDgwQ6AEwAXoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=beardsley&f=false

The complete “Yellow Book” can be read online, also available in cut and paste-able plain text.

 

Hathi Trust offers many full text books including “Aubrey Beardsley and the Yellow Book,” from John Lane 1903 here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t4zg6jt02&view=thumb&seq=9

There is much more, this is just a sample.

 

Need a Project, no. 3? Women’s history

Working this week on the renowned 17th -century scholar Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678), perhaps best remembered as the first woman to attend a European university. Schurman produced oil paintings, engravings, calligraphy, and paper cuttings while also fluent in 14 languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, and more. “To describe the high qualities of this incomparable muse with the emphasis she deserves is an impossible impossibility,” wrote the German author Georg Christian Lehms in 1717.

When she first demonstrated talent, Schurman was sent to study printmaking, not with the local master printer Crispijn van de Passe the Elder (ca. 1564-1637) or with one of his three talented sons but with Magdalena van de Passe (1600–1638), the youngest of the children. And an exceptional talent in her own right. Schurman made her first self-portrait in 1633 and continued to use herself as a model throughout her life. The Graphic Arts Collection holds an engraving [seen above] dated 1640, III/IV (Hollstein Dutch and Flemish, v.26, p.113) with the Latin inscription “Cernitis hic picta nostros in imagine vultus: si negat ars forma, gratia vestra dabit.” = “See my likeness depicted in this portrait: May your favor perfect the work where art has failed.” The print was later used in her inspirational: Nobiliss. virginis Annae Mariae à Schurman, Opuscula: hebraea, graeca, latina, gallica: prosaica & metrica (Lvgd. Batavor: Ex Officinâ Elseviriorum, 1648).

In 1634 she agreed to write a poem for the opening of the University of Utrecht, but used the opportunity to challenge the university’s exclusion of women. In response to her complaint authorities allowed her to attend lectures, thus becoming the first female student at the university, or at any Dutch university (although she was required to sit behind a screen so she wouldn’t distract the boys).

Here’s the challenge. Who was the first woman to graduate from your university or school or college or institution? My great-aunt Agnes was the first woman to graduate from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.  Willa Cather was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Princeton University. Who else?

Please send who, where, when, and other details. We will put together a document of all the “first women graduates” around the world. Send your research to jmellby@princeton.edu and I will later post the results.

 

Meanwhile, here are a few more Schurman portraits.

Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen (1593-1661), Anna Maria van Schurman, 1657. Oil on panel. Inscription: center left, below the cathedral, in the portrait medallion: Cornelius Ionson / Van Ceulen / fecit / 1657

 

Steven van Lamsweerde, Anna Maria van Schurman, 1657, engraving, from Jacob Cats, Alle de Wercken, soo oude als nieuwe (Amsterdam, 1700), fol. 31, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC, David K. E. Bruce Fund

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What ‘working from home’ gets you

Charles Williams (died 1830), The Ambassadors Return- or- A New Arrival from Congress, March 1, 1815. Hand colored etching.
Description: Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822) says: “My Prince I am returned overwhelmed with glory, to recieve the applauses of a gratefull nation. I am doubtless the greatest negociator in the World.” False praise since Dorothy George tells us that in fact Castlereagh, who left Vienna and landed at Dover on March 3, 1815, was attacked for sacrificing Poland and Saxony, having done his utmost for Poland, and succeeded in defeating the demands of Prussia for the whole of Saxony.

 

This is one example of the difficulty in online searching of digital images (here done in the Graphic Arts Collection and the British Museum print collection). The above print and the ones below all appeared thanks to a search on Working From Home, words that appear somewhere connected. This can be fun, except when a final paper is due. For today, each is a terrific scene – perhaps not surprising that several concern taxes.

 

Charles Williams (died 1830), The Two Journals [second of two plates], July 1814. Hand colored etching.

On June 2, 1814, the Prince Regent, on his way to the Drawing Room at Buckingham House, was hooted when his carriage entered the Park. This was on account of his exclusion of the Princess of Wales from the Drawing Room, at which Princess Charlotte made her first appearance.

It ends: The Regent sits at a writing-table, looking round to the left. “Worn with ennui—devour’d with spleen, / Yawn’d—trifled—cursed and drank between / Wrote to the square—got dressed once more, / New stay—new wig—new whiskers wore—”  Finally, the Regent’s empty chair stands at a dinner-table on which are decanters and glasses, some overturned or broken. The drunk Prince is being conducted from the room by McMahon and Yarmouth. “At eight my dinner table graced / With friends select—of kindred taste / I quaff’d till half were on the floor, / Then reel’d to bed—quite drunk—at four—”

 

 

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), American Justice!! or the Ferocious Yankee Genl Jack’s Reward for Butchering Two British Subjects!!!-, April 1819. Hand colored etching.

President Monroe (right) receives General Andrew Jackson, offering him “The Government of the Floridas.” Monroe says: “There’s your Reward! Where e’er you catch the English String ’em up like Herrings!—Go, Rob the Indians! Seize their Country! Sell ’em for Slaves! Liberty & Equality are only intended for the inhabitants of the United States! We’ll take care Nobody else shall enjoy any!”

Dorothy George comments that Andrew Jackson was sent in 1818 to attack Seminole Indians from Florida who were making trouble on the frontier. He followed them into Spanish territory, and, setting aside the sentence of a court-martial, hanged two British subjects, Robert Christian Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, who had been exercising hostile influence with the Indians. The Report of a Committee of the Senate on the ‘Seminole War’ blamed Jackson for the execution of the two British subjects who were prisoners of war.

 

 

Attributed to Richard Newton (1777-1798), possibly after a design by George Moutard Woodward (ca.1765-1809), More Visitors to John Bull, or the Assess’d Taxes!!!, December 1, 1797. Hand colored etching.

John Bull (right) says: “What do you want you little Devils – an’t I plagued with enough of you already more pick poket Work, I suppose!!” They reply: “Please your Honor we are the assess’d Taxes.” It is a satire on the tripling of the assessed taxes proposed by Pitt in his famous budget speech on November 24, 1797, his ‘plan of finance’ to support the war without recourse to loans…

See more: Richard Cooper, “William Pitt, Taxation, and the Needs of War,” Journal of British Studies  22, no. 1 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 94-103.

 

 


Charles Jameson Grant (active 1830-1852), Taking the Boromongers Home, June 1832. Hand colored lithograph.

The devil is carrying off a group of political dignitaries or boroughmongers. What is that? The OED lists boroughmonger as “One who trades in parliamentary seats for boroughs. (A sarcastic designation coined about the end of the 18th cent., and very frequently used in the discussions on electoral reform up to 1832.) As in 1809   Sir Fr. the Reformer   “He swears eternal detestation to borough-mongers of the nation.”

Princeton, N.J., stopped being a borough on December 31, 2012, so there is no boromongering here.

 

Gestes


Gestes [Gestures]: Texte de Raymond Duncan. Bois dessinés, gravés, enluminés et tirés par Marc Roux ([Paris]: Raymond Duncan, 1921). Copy 30 of 100. “Tirages, 1 ex: spécial marqué A, 24 ex: grand luxe de B a Z, 100 ex: de 1 a 100 exemplaire”– t.p. verso/ “Achevé le 10 avril 1921.”–Colophon. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

In 1919 Raymond Duncan (1874-1966), wife Penelope, and their teenage son Menalkas, moved back to Paris where he reestablished his Akademia Raymond Duncan at 21 Rue Bonaparte.

With his long, flowing hair and Grecian robes, Duncan became a fixture along the streets of Paris and in the galleries and theaters. He organized international conferences each year at his université philosophique and developed a small following of disciples.

Students were taught to weave, print, and create the other decorative arts sold by the Akademia, in exchange for vegetarian meals and lessons in Duncan’s philosophy of a simple, holistic lifestyle. His sister Isadora Duncan did not appreciate the austerity of her brother’s commune and moved back to Russia where she established her own dance school in Moscow. Conversely, Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce, became deeply immersed in Raymond’s Akademia and studied with him for several years.

Duncan collaborated on Gestes with his friend Marcel (here spelled as “Marc” on the cover and title-page) a year before Roux’s death. The artist suffered from an illnesses contracted while a medical orderly during World War I, and was forced to switch from his usual copperplate engraving to the softer woodcuts for this project but the style fit Duncan’s verse perfectly. Roux printed 100 copies of the book in his studio at 9 Rue Falguiere, published on April 10, 1921.

Only two other copies are held in institutional collections, one at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the second at the Houghton library, Harvard University. This would be a third known copy of an extraordinary book.


Raymond Duncan’s inspiration was the Antique, but his work needs to be set alongside the other stylistic influences of the era including Japonisme, …Indian and Persian art, His life and work should also be related to other contemporary international art movements operating throughout Europe: the Weiner Werkstätte, the Ecole Martine, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and the Glasgow School, and Bloomsbury and the Omega workshops. His dress and textiles are part of an important group of hand-crafted objects created by artist-designers that include …Paul Poiret, who was patronized by Isadora, and is said to have copied designs from Raymond (L, Duncan 2014). –Charlotte Nicklas, Dress History: New Directions in Theory and Practice (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)