Pierre Louis van Schuppen (1627-1702), after design by François de Troy (1645-1730), Ludovicus delphinus Ludovici Magni filius (The Dauphin Louis), Son of Louis XIV of France, 1684. Engraving and etching. II/II. Graphic Arts Collection. GA2013- in process. Purchased with funds provided by the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project.

Engraved by the Flemish draftsman Pierre Louis van Schuppen (1627-1702), this portrait of Louis de France, the Grand Dauphin, reproduces a painting by François de Troy (1645-1730), which has since been lost. Our print is the second of two states, including four sun-related emblems in the corners.

Louis of France (1661–1711) was the eldest son and heir of Louis XIV, King of France, and his spouse, Maria Theresa of Spain. As the heir apparent to the French throne, he was called ‘Dauphin’ and later, ‘Le Grand Dauphin’ after the birth of his own son, ‘Le Petit Dauphin’.

The mottos read:
Ex sole decor [Beauty born from the Sun],

Aspicit atque se pingit [The Sun watches and paints himself],

Extendo cum sole ramos [Branches will spread under the Sun]

Per me renascetur [Through me, he is reborn]

At the top left of James Gillray’s caricature, St. Peter opens a small door of ‘Popish Supremacy’ where wine, loaves of bread, and fishes are seen waiting. As the petitioners (Grenville, Buckingham, Fox, and others) ascend the stair to this room, they are stopped by three blasts of wind coming from Pitt, Hawkesbury, and Sidmouth.

James Gillray (1757-1815), End of the Irish Farce of Catholic Emancipation, May 17, 1805. Etching with hand color. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

Dorothy George points out that the Irish petition for Catholic Emancipation was introduced in the House of Lords by Grenville on 10 May 1805 and in the House of Commons by Fox on 13 May 1805. Motions for a Committee to consider it were defeated in the Lords by 178 to 49, and in the Commons by 336 to 124.

The all-powerful sword and crown indicates the opposition of George III, making the petition a farce since it was brought forward in the knowledge that it would not be accepted.

Verses from Paradise Lost etched below:
And now St Peter at heav’n’s wicket seems
To wait them with his keys, & now at foot
Of heav’ns ascent they lift their feet: – when lo!
A violent cross-wind from either coast
Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry
Into the devious Air: then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, & habits, with their wearers, tost,
And flutter’d into rags; then Reliques, Beads,
Indulgences, Dispenses, Pardons, Bulls,
The sport of winds! – All these whirl’d up aloft
Fly o’er ye backside of the world far off
Into a Limbo large, & broad, since call’d
The Paradise of Fools!

–Milton B. 3d’ [ II. 484-96. Correctly quoted, except ‘whirl’d up’ for ‘upwhirled’.]

 The British Museum has posted an extended description of each element in this complicated burlesque of Milton’s lines here: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1644396&partId=1&searchText=gillray+end+of+the+irish+farce+of+catholic&page=1

Paul Marvin Rudolph (1918-1997), View of Tennis Pavilion at Princeton University, 1962. Gouache drawing. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Francis J. Anscombe.

An October 1911 Daily Princetonian reported that “Charles T. Butler ‘12 and Dean Mathey ‘12 were awarded the University “P” for winning the doubles championship in the intercollegiate tennis tournament played early in September.” It was Mathey’s second championship, following his 1910 win with classmate Burnham N. Dell.

A devoted supporter of Princeton, Dean Mathey (1890-1972) went on to serve as a trustee under Presidents Hibben, Dodds, and Goheen. Together with Joseph L. Werner ’21, Mathey proposed and funded a new tennis pavilion overlooking 27 tennis courts on Brokaw Field. The design won a 1962 Architectural Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Steel Construction, cited as “delightfully decorative and fanciful, romantic and playful—in the spirit of the time.”

Paul Rudolph (1918-1997), Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, created the initial design for the New York architectural firm of Ballard, Todd, and Snibbe, and the Matthews Construction Company of Princeton served as the general contractors. Rudolph’s gouache drawing was recently discovered and given to the Graphic Arts Collection by Mr. and Mrs. Francis J. Anscombe. An influential statistician, Professor Anscombe (1918-2001) taught at Yale, Cambridge and Princeton Universities.

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Island Hay, 1945. Lithograph. Signed edition of 250, published by Associated American Artists, New York, Gift of Henry Martin, Class of 1948. Graphic Arts collection 2013- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection is the fortunate recipient of a lithograph entitled Island Hay by the Missouri-born artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), given by Henry Martin, Class of 1948. It is one of the last of over 80 lithographs the artist drew between 1929 and 1945, working summers at the family house on Martha’s Vineyard.

In a 1964 oral history with Milton Perry for the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri, Benton commented, “Yes. I did want them to get the sense that America was made, built up into the powerful country it has become, very largely by the actions of the common people spreading out over the frontiers–on their own and without any kind of official prompting. … But as I said just now about the values of a work of art being finally determined by its spectators so also will its meanings be finally determined. And that is all right. It’s not what’s in the artist’s mind that is important, but what his art raises in the spectator’s mind–that’s what counts in the long run.”

Martin remembered paying the high price of $25 for this not long after he left Princeton. For that amount he not only received the Benton but four other prints issued by the Associated American artists in the 1940s.