Laughter for the Languid


With the morning mail came a question about volume 3 of a reissue (c. 1830) by S. W. Fores of Pigmy Revels (originally published in 1800-1801) under a new title: The Lilliputian Museum, or, Panoramic Representation of Pigmy Revels: Calculated to Create Joy for the Juvenile, Laughter for the Languid, Fun for the Feeble, Sauce for the Serious, and Mirth for the Melancholy: Containing Wit without Indecency, Humour without Vulgarity, Mirth without Malice, and Satire without Personality.

Does our copy (Rowlandson 1800.4) have extraneous material included? At approximately 20 feet in length, with many sections separated and/or re-taped together, it is difficult to tell but this section of two plates (below) does seem to stand along. What do you think?

Glyptogravure of the Naver Ceremony

Above: Shapoor N Bhedwar, The Naver Ceremony. The First Ablution. Glyptogravure by Waterlow & Sons Limited. Frontispiece to The Photogram, 1, no.4 (April 1894).

 

Catharine Weed Barnes Ward (1851-1913) and her husband Henry Snowden Ward (1865-1911) founded the monthly magazine, The Photogram in 1894 with the ambitious plan to include a photograph or photomechanical print tipped into each issue. The variety and quality of prints mailed to subscribers that first year is surprising.

The April supplement in particular offers a glyptogravure (meaning engraved on stone, elsewhere called woodbury-gravure) from the postage stamp and certificate engravers Waterlow & Sons.

More on the photographer Shapoor Bhedwar can be found here: http://www.photo-web.com.au/gael/docs/Shapoor-Bhedwar.htm and more on the Naver Ceremony related to the consecration of a priest into the Parsi (Parsee, i.e. Zoroastrian) priesthood can be found here: https://www.zoroastrian.org/articles/The%20Iranian%20and%20Parsi%20Priests.htm

An obituary for Catherine Weed Ward was published in American Photography, 7 (1913), which reads in part:

The brief announcement in our September number of the death of Mrs. H. Snowden Ward, formerly Catherine Weed Barnes, on July 31 at her English home, Golden Green, Hadlow, Kent, England, will, we are sure, be received with regret and sorrow by her numerous American friends, occurring as it did about eighteen months after her husband’s death here in December, 1911.

It was between 1887 and 1888 that Mrs. Ward began the practice of photography. With the aid and advice of a professional photographer at her Albany, N. Y., home, she fitted up there a studio and darkroom facilities for photographic work. She was interested in the Historical Society at Albany, and made many photographs of historical places, buildings, and articles in and about the city. She soon acquired the technique of negative making and became a proficient photographer. Shortly after this she became one of the first women members of the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York, and contributed prints and slides to its exhibitions.

About 1890 for two or three years she was an associate editor with our Mr. Beach, and also at one time with Mr. Alfred Stieglitz, of this magazine, then known as the American Amateur Photographer. In the summer of 1893 she was married to Mr. H. Snowden Ward in Rochester, N. Y., at which time he was editor of an English monthly magazine called the Practical Photographer, published in London. Mrs. Ward then made her home in England, and continued her photographic work there with the same zeal and interest as here. The publication of a new monthly photographic magazine was begun in 1894, called The Photogram, which Mr. Ward edited, assisted by Mrs. Ward in a literary and pictorial way, supplemented by the publication of an annual book entitled “Photograms,” containing superior halftone illustrations of the best work that had been exhibited during the previous year.

With apologies for my camera, here are some of the other prints included in The Photograms of 1894.
Harold Baker (negative), printed by J. Martin & Company on Paget Matt Surface Print Out Paper, An Artist. The Photogram 1, no. 9 (September 1894).

 

The Eastman Company (positive) after W.J. Byrne (negative), A Portrait. Nikko Bromide paper print. The Photogram 1, no.3 (March 1894).

 

Thomas Fall, My Friends. Woodburytype. The Photogram 1, no.2 (February 1984).

 

Erwin Raupp, [Portrait of a Lady], printed on Three Star Brilliant Albumen paper. Albumen silver print. The Photogram 1, no. 6 (June 1894).

 

The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, Specimen print on Scholzig’s “Otto” paper. Otto silver print. The Photogram 1, no. 7 (July 1894).

 

Thank you to David Magier, Associate University Librarian for Collection Development, for explaining the Parsi consecration ceremony.

The Photogram (London, 1894-1903). RECAP 4597.7171

 

Deadline for the Adler Collecting Prize Coming Soon!

Deadline: Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Students: Are you an avid collector of books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, or other materials found in libraries? If so, consider submitting an essay about your collection for a chance to win the Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize!

Endowed from the estate of Elmer Adler, who for many years encouraged the collecting of books by Princeton undergraduates, this prize is awarded annually to undergraduate students who, in the opinion of a committee of judges, have shown the most thought and ingenuity in assembling a thematically coherent collection of books, manuscripts, or other material normally collected by libraries.

Please note that the rarity or monetary value of the student’s collection is not as important as the creativity and persistence shown in collecting and the fidelity of the collection to the goals described in a personal essay.

The personal essay is about a collection owned by the student that he or she actively collects or curates as opposed to an essay that focuses on whatever is found in one’s library. The essay should describe the thematic or artifactual nature of the collection and discuss with some specificity the unifying characteristics that have prompted the student to think of certain items as a collection. It should also convey a strong sense of the student’s motivations for collecting and what their particular collection means to them personally.

The history of the collection, including collecting goals, acquisition methods, and milestones are of particular interest, as is a critical look at how the goals may have evolved over time and an outlook on the future development of the collection. Essays are judged in equal measures on the strength of the collection and the strength of the writing.

Winners will receive their prizes at an annual dinner of the Friends of the Princeton University Library, which they are expected to attend. The first-prize essay has the honor of representing Princeton University in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. Please note that per the ABAA’s contest rules, the winning essay will be entered exactly as submitted to the Adler Prize contest, without possibility of revision. In addition, the first-prize winner will have the opportunity to have his or her essay featured in a Library-affiliated publication.

Prize amounts:
First prize: $2000
Second prize: $1500
Third prize: $1000

The deadline for submission is Tuesday, November 28, 2017. Essays should be submitted via e-mail, in a Microsoft Word attachment, to Julie Mellby, jmellby@princeton.edu. They should be between 9-10 pages long, 12pt, double-spaced, and include a separate cover sheet with your name, class year, residential address, email address, and phone number. In addition to the essay, each entry should include a selected bibliography of no more than 3 pages detailing the items in the collection.

Please note that essays submitted in file formats other than Microsoft Word and/or without cover sheet or a bibliography will not be forwarded to the judges.

For inquiries, please contact Julie Mellby, jmellby@princeton.edu.

Recent Adler Prize Winning Essays:

Matthew Kritz, ’18. “Books Unforgotten: Finding the Lost Volumes of My Tradition.”

Nandita Rao, ’17. “Of Relationships: Recording Ties through My LP Collection.”

Samantha Flitter, ’16. “The Sand and the Sea: An Age of Sail in Rural New Mexico.” also the recipient of the 2016 National Collegiate Book Collection Contest Essay Award.

Anna Leader ’18. “‘Like a Thunderstorm’; A Shelved Story of Love and Literature” Princeton University Library Chronicle 76:3 (spring)

Rory Fitzpatrick ‘16. “The Search for the Shape of the Universe, One Book at a Time.” PULC 75:3 (spring)

Natasha Japanwala ’14. “Conversation Among the Ruins: Collecting Books By and About Sylvia Plath.” PULC 74:2 (winter)

Mary Thierry ’12. “Mirror, Mirror: American Daguerrean Portraits.” PULC 73:3 (spring)

In case you missed the opening of the Graphikportal

In case you didn’t see the dozens of announcements this weekend about the unveiling of the Graphikportal, https://www.graphikportal.org/, here’s the YouTube introduction in English. The site is currently only in German but we are told there will eventually be an English language option.

The working group for the Graphic Arts Networks joined forces in March 2011 at the conference “Kupferstichkabinett online” in Wolfenbüttel. Its members include around 70 print collections from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France and the Netherlands (museums, libraries, archives, etc.). The aim is to agree on common digitization standards and to develop strategies for the further digital networking of graphic collections.

“250,000 works of art are now available online, including works from major museums, libraries and research institutions, such as the Kupferstichkabinette of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Prussian Cultural Heritage, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden or the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Also included are the Albertina and the MAK-Bibliothek and Kunstblättersammlung in Vienna, the prints collections of the ETH Zurich and the Zentralbibliothek Zürich or the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome. Last but not least, the holdings of the Virtual Print Room, a cooperation of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum Braunschweig and the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, will be integrated.”

All institutions are members of the international working group “Graphik vernetzt.” You can follow their progress on twitter:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Graphikportal?src=hash

Wood Pulp Paper

Matthias Koops (active 1789-1805) applied for and received three patents. The first dated April 28, 1800 outlined a process for extracting printing and writing ink from paper “making thereof paper fit for writing, printing, and other purposes.” Recycled paper.

The second two were for manufacturing paper from straw, hay, thistles, waste and refuse of hemp and flax, and different kinds of wood and bark. Wood pulp paper. “The manufactory was first established at the Neckinger Mill, at Bermondsey; and afterwards removed to the Thames Bank, Chelsea, where it terminated unsuccessfully.” –The Franklin Journal and American Mechanics’ Magazine 1, no. 4 (April 1826): 251. Previous debts forced the closure and sale of his Straw Paper Manufactury in 1804.

Thanks to Elmer Adler, the Graphic Arts Collection holds the first book printed on paper made not from linen or cotton but from straw, with an appendix printed from paper made from wood pulp. Koops dedicated his book to George III and wrote:

“I therefore most submissively, entreat permission to lay at Your Majesty’s feet the first useful Paper which has ever been made from Straw, without any rags or addition, and on which these lines are printed; but at the same time most humbly beg leave to observe to Your Majesty, that this Paper is not yet in such a state of perfection as it will hereafter be, when the necessary, implements are completed, and the Manufactory regularly established and farther advanced; but as there now can be no doubt that good and useful Paper may be manufactured solely from Straw.”

View of Millbank in Wallis’s Plan of The Cities of London And Westminster 1804

 

Matthias Koops, Historical account of the substances which have been used to describe events, and to convey ideas, from the earliest date to the invention of paper (London: Printed by T. Burton …, 1800). Laid in: sample blank folded sheet of straw paper, 35 x 43 cm. folded to 18 x 12 cm. Watermark: “Neckinger Mill.” Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize TS1090 .K66q

 

 

 

Full text:

April 28, 1800. No. 2392. Matthias Koops. Extracting printing & writing ink from printed & written paper, & converting the paper from which the ink is extracted into pulp, and making thereof paper fit for writing, printing, & other purposes. The printed and written papers, after certain selection, are to be divested of their size by means of hot water, and afterwards boiled in solutions of American potashes and lime water mixed, and of a different strength, accordingly as the paper has been printed with German or English ink, or ordinary writing ink.

After washing with water, the material resulting from such treatment is to be thoroughly cleansed from the alkali by washing in the engine; and to brighten the colour, so much of the pulp is to be treated with a solution prepared by distilling a certain amount of marine salt with a certain amount of black wad and vitriolic acid into soft water. This pulp is then to be ground in order to be made into paper.

Written paper assorted is cleansed from size by boiling water, the water pressed out; it is put into a wooden case lined with a thick mixture of white lead & water, the neck of a retort containing the before-mentioned ingredients is attached and heat applied, when the article is impregnated so that it becomes whitened; it is conveyed into the engine to grind into a substance for making paper.– [See Repertory of Arts, vol. 14, p. 225; Davies on Patents, p. 244; Bolls Chapel Reports (sixth), p. 197.]

August 2, 1800. No..2433. Matthias Koops. Manufacturing paper from straw, hay, thistles, waste & refuse of hemp & flax, & different kinds of wood & bark. [No Specification enrolled.]

February 17, 1801. No. 2481. Matthias Koops. Manufacturing paper from straw, hay, thistles, waste & refuse of hemp & flax, & different kinds of wood & bark, fit for printing & other useful purposes, by steeping for a given time in lime water, to which, in some cases, christal of soda or potash may be added, afterwards boiling in clean water, in which, in some cases, a certain quantity of chrystal of soda or potash may be dissolved, then washing and again boiling, after which pressing, when proceed to manufacture the material into paper by the usual & well-known processes of making paper.

In the case of straw or hay, they are cut into portions of about two inches in length by a chaff-cutting machine; with thistles, they are cut when the bloom begins to fall therefrom, dried and cut into lengths of two inches; and with wood, it is first reduced into shavings, then cut with the chaff-cutting engine into lengths of about two inches; but wood which contains much turpentine or resinous matter cannot usefully & beneficially be made into paper.

Some of the substances, previous to steeping in the lime water, may be boiled for a given time in ordinary water. And again, in some cases it has been found to be advantageous to suffer the pressed material to ferment & heat for several days before reducing it to pulp, in order to its being made or manufactured into paper.– [See Repertory of Arts, vol. 1 (second series), p. 241; Webster’s Reports, vol. 1, p. 418; Webster’s Patent Law, pp. 16, 71, 83, 100 (also p. 127, cases 35 and 4i); Carpmael’s Reports on Patent Cases, vol. 1, pp. 175 and 186; Davies on Patents, pp. 11 and 244; Parliamentary Reports, 1829, p. 192; Vosey’s Chancery Reports, vol. 6, p. 599; Bosanquet and Puller’s Reports, vol. 3, p. 505; Rolls Chapel. Reports (sixth), p. 200.]

Airborne Propaganda Leaflets

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a small group of propaganda leaflets in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Burmese, and Japanese, prepared to be dropped from airplanes and hydrogen balloons during World War II. They date from approximately 1940 to 1945, some printed in color and some with illustrations. The variety of languages and messages demonstrate the use of airborne leaflet propaganda by all sides of the conflict.

 

Of three English language items, two question Britain’s alliance with Russia, asking “Why die for Stalin?” Another depicts a growing number of skeletons within the British army, writing “Which of you will be the last?”

There are six leaflets in French and fifteen in German, most denouncing Hitler. Several guarantee the good treatment of prisoners by the allies and list the statistics on Germans captured. An Italian leaflet claims that Italian workers working in Germany are keeping their families from misery and a Spanish leaflet warns fishermen to keep out of the restricted waters, where they are in danger of attack by the British navy. A Russian flyer promises good treatment to those that surrender and so on.

 

 

[Collection of air drop propaganda leaflets in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Burmese, and Japanese] ([Various places, 1940-1945]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Q-000311

See also
Bernard Wilkin, Aerial propaganda and the wartime occupation of France, 1914-1918 (London; New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017). Firestone Library (F) D544 .W37 2017

James Morris Erdmann (born 1918), Leaflet operations in the Second World War … ([Colorado? : s.n.], c1969). “The story of the how and why of the 6,500,000,000 propaganda leaflets dropped on Axis forces and homelands in the Mediterranean and European theaters of operations.” Firestone Library (F) D810.P6 E736 1969

Isabella Piccini and Angela Baroni, 18th-century engravers

Detail “Suor Isabella Piccini Sculpi”

Detail “Angela Baroni Scrisse Ve.a”

From: Bernardo Lodoli, Serenissimo Venetiarum Dominio ill[ustrissi]mo, et ecc[ellentissi]mo Arsenatus regimini Bernardi Lodoli … fidele votvm … ([Venetiis], [1703]). 12 leaves. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process. Thanks to Gail Smith, Senior Bibliographic Specialist. Rare Books Cataloging Team, who worked out the description of this item.

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a rare all-engraved publication by two eighteenth-century female printmakers, Sister Isabella Piccini (1644-1734) and Angela Baroni (active 1700s), with text by Bernardo Lodoli.

The bound compilation announces and endorses a forthcoming work, including its printed index and engraved title page.: Il cvore veneto legale formato dalla compilatione delle leggi … et altre cose notabili stabilite nel corso di cinque secoli per la buona a[m]ministratione … dell Arsenale di Venetia … Opera dal dottor Bernardo Lodoli … [Venezia] 1703. There are three full-page engravings and engraved title page by Piccini and “Cvore” title page; along with four leaves of text (one illustrated) engraved by Baroni.

For more information see: Morazzoni: Libro illustrato veneziano del settecento, Graphic Arts reference (GARF) Oversize Z1023 .M85 1943q, p.239.

Detail

Thanks to Eric White’s Bridwell Library exhibition “Fifty Women,” we now know “that Elisabetta Piccini (1644–1734) was the daughter of the Venetian engraver Giacomo Piccini (d. 1669), who trained her in the art of drawing and engraving in the styles of the great masters, particularly Titian and Peter Paul Rubens.

In 1666 she entered the Convent of Santa Croce in Venice and took the name Suor (Sister) Isabella. She continued to work as an engraver, accepting numerous commissions from Venetian publishers to illustrate liturgical books, biographies of saints, and prayer manuals. However, as a Franciscan nun dedicated to a life of poverty, she divided her earnings between her convent and her family living in Venice. Her long and productive career ended with her death at the age of ninety.”

For more, see the entry in the Enciclopedia delle donne: http://www.enciclopediadelledonne.it/biografie/elisabetta-piccini/

In this work, Piccini was partnered with Angela Baroni (active 1700s), who specialized in calligraphic engraving.

Detail

 

Detail

Piccini’s work can also be seen in: Missale Romanum : ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, S. Pii V. Pontificis Maximi jussu editum, Clementis VIII. & Urbani VIII. Auctoritate recognitum ; in quo missæe novissimæ Sanctorum accuratè sunt dispositæ (Venetiis: ex Typographia Balleoniana, 1727). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2012-0009F

Carlo Labia, Dell’imprese pastorali (Venetia: Appresso Nicolò Pezzana, 1685). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize N7710 .L12q

Carlo Labia, Simboli predicabili estratti da sacri evangeli che corrono nella quadragesima, delineaticon morali, & eruditi discorsi da Carlo Labia….(Ferrara: Appresso B. Barbieri, 1692).Rare Books (Ex) Oversize N7710 .L122q

 

 

The Newsboy’s Debt and other Lantern Readings

The Lucerna Magic Lantern Website notes: No magic lantern show consisted of slides alone: there were always elements like music, audience participation, or the spoken word. Especially in the later nineteenth century, many slide producers published ‘readings’ giving a recitation, story, or lecture to accompany the slide images.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a dozen or so Lantern Readings, the text that accompanies a particular set of slide. As noted on the covers, the scripts could be borrowed for a performance and returned when it was done. Today, they can be matched with the Magic Lantern Society’s Readings Library project, launched in 1995, which currently offers nearly 3,000 images, scripts, and music scores.

 

The Newsboy’s Debt: [originally published by Hannah R. Hudson, “The Newsboy’s Debt,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, May 1873].  Plot: A gentleman trusts a newspaper boy to get change, which he was to bring to his office. The lad, however, is run over, but sends his brother to say that when he gets well he’ll work to refund the money lost at the time of the accident.

References to this set:
1891 Catalogue of photographic lantern transparencies and apparatus: season 1891-2 (Bradford: Riley Brothers, 1891), 34
1891 Complete catalogue of lantern slides, dissolving views, magic lanterns etc. (London: UK Band of Hope Union, 1891), C 17
1894 Wood’s catalogue of slides, optical lanterns, and dissolving views apparatus: forty-eighth issue (London: E.G. Wood, 1894), 106
1905 Catalogue of optical lantern slides (Bradford: Riley Brothers, 1905), 16
1910 A detailed catalogue of photographic lantern slides, life models &c. (Holmfirth: Bamforth & Co., 1910), 13
1912 Lantern slide catalogue (Glasgow: J. Lizars, 1912), 45
1912 Wood’s catalogue of over 200,000 slides, optical lanterns etc.: 1912-13, sixty-seventh issue (London: E.G. Wood, 1912), 383
Other references (2)
1888 Stationer’s Hall copyright register, COPY 1/393/154-155 (27 July 1888)
1888 Walter D. Welford and Henry Sturmey (compilers), The ‘indispensable handbook’ to the optical lantern: a complete cyclopaedia on the subject of optical lanterns, slides, and accessory apparatus (London: Iliffe & Son, 1888), 299

 

 

While the Sabbath Bells Were Ringing:


While the Sabbath Bells Were Ringing By W. A. Eaton (1848-1915)

The sunshine fell on cottage-roofs and waving cornfields bright,
And all the world seemed lying still beneath the golden light.
The cattle stood beside the hedge, the sheep were in the fold,
The sunlight on the old church-tower lit up the fane of gold.

And from its nest in the long grass the lark was upward springing,
And softly on the evening air the Sabbath bells were ringing.
The organ-notes rang loud and deep, and sweetly sang the choir,
While through the colored window-panes the sunlight fell like fire.

And earnestly the minister lifted his voice in prayer;
The sunshine fell upon his face, and on his snow-white hair.
And then once more upon the air there came the sound of singing,
While softly, sweetly over all the Sabbath bells were ringing.

Within the street of a great town I saw a noisy throng;
And there were women wan and pale, and brawny men and strong.
And they were pressing round the door of a gin-shop warm and bright;
Within they drank and screamed for more — it was an awful sight.

And oh ! the din of babbling tongues, and loud, half -drunken singing,
While far above them, out of sight, the Sabbath bells were ringing.
And farther on I saw a crowd around two women stand;
And one of them, with eyes aflame and blood upon her hand,

Struck at the other like a fiend and felled her to the ground;
And no one tried to interpose of all who stood around.
She rose and glared upon her foe, like fiend from hell up-springing.
And this was in a Christian land, while the Sabbath bells were ringing.

 

The Quarryman’s Resolve by Joseph John Lane:

 

 

The Bathos

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Tailpiece, or The Bathos, 1764. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection

There was a reference question this week concerning Hogarth’s last print, The Bathos, which is filled with all manner of images denoting the end of life as we know it. This led to a close reading, following entry no.216 in Ronald Paulson’s catalogue raisonne Hogarth’s Graphic Works, 3rd revised edition.

Paulson writes “This print is the culmination of such pessimistic images . . . . [taking] his general composition, the configuration of objects, and some of the particular items, from Dürer’s engraving, Melancholia; but he also recalls Salvator Rosa’s Democritus in Meditation (which derives from Dürer’s print) with a scroll at the bottom of the etching: ‘Democritus the mocker of all things, confounded by the ending of All Things’ (Antal, p.168).”

below left: Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia I, 1514. Engraving. Princeton University Art Museum, x1952-1

below right: Salvator Rosa, Democritus in Meditation, Etching. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012.136.848

“But,” Paulson adds, “Roubiliac’s Hargrave Monument (Westminster Abbey, 1757), with crumbling pyramid and Time himself breaking his scythe across his knee, must have been Hogarth’s primary inspiration.”Louis François Roubiliac, Monument to General William Hargrave, 1757. Photographic detail, Courtauld Institute of Art.

 

Hogarth includes several references to his own print The Times, including the entire sheet [seen above] catching on fire from a burning candle. Below we see a globe also on fire, as it is in the far right of The Times.


William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Times, plate 1, 1762. Engraving and etching. Graphic Arts GA113.

 

Paulson continues, “In the far distance is a sea with a sinking ship and a gallows on the shore (for hanging pirates). Above in the sky is Apollo and his horses dead, his chariot wheel broken, a limp parody of the group in Poussin’s The Kingdom of Flora.”

 

Nicolas Poussin, L’Empire de Flore, 1594. Oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden

 

Time’s “last will and testament reads: ‘all and every Atom thereof to [name crossed out; beneficiary changed to ] Chaos whom I appoint my sole Executor. Witness Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos’ (the three Fates, with their seals).

Behind him lies a statute of bankruptcy with a pendant seal (a pale horse and pale rider, probably Death, on it), labeled “H. Nature Bankrupt”; and an empty purse. A playbook open to its last page and Exeunt Omnes” [This is a stage direction to indicate that all the actors leave the stage].

 


Hogarth’s Graphic Works / compiled and with a commentary by Ronald Paulson. 3rd rev. ed. (London: Print Room, 1989). Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF) Oversize ND497.H7 A35 1989q

See also: https://rbsc.princeton.edu/hogarth/

 

Es ist bitter, die Heimat zu verlassen

Romano Hänni, Es ist bitter, die Heimat zu verlassen [It is Bitter to Leave Your Home] (Basel: Hänni, 2017). Number 21 of 87 copies of the standard edition. Text in German, English, and Japanese. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process


Swiss artist Romano Hänni has spoken passionately about the devastating effects of contamination from nuclear facilities. His new book Es is bitter die Heimat zu verlassen concerns the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that occurred on March 11, 2011, as well as the ongoing impact of radioactive contamination.

Hänni writes that claims made by nuclear scientists “that no health consequences are to be expected from contamination are unscientific, immoral, and criminal.” He further states that “there is no peaceful use for nuclear energy. It is repressive, criminal and deadly. Only nuclear plants that have not been built can offer absolutely safety.”

His newest book is printed in five colors on paper towels, a technique the artist perfected with an earlier work: Typo bilder buch: von Hand gesetzt und auf der Handabziehpress gedruckt. Graphic Arts RCPXG-7350409. Small selections of text are juxtaposed with letters, images, and symbols to communicate the event and its aftermath. 

The artist writes “Work on this book began in December 2013, was interrupted by some commissioned work, and lasted until June 2017. The page format was determined by the paper: paper towels, maxi roll . . . The printing forms were composed from individual parts and printed on the hand proofing press. The Japanese text was [cast] and composed in the type foundry Sasaki Katsuji in Tokyo and delivered to Basel. For most of the pages several printing forms and printing runs are needed. The body of the book was bound by hand with thread. Overall production time was approximately 1400 hours.”

http://www.romano-haenni.ch/assets/21_it_is_bitter_to_leave_your_home_standard-edition-2017.pdf

Minnesota Center for the Book: “Educated at the Basel School of Design, [Romano] Hänni returns to the core values of traditional printing technique and modernist European design. The strict limitations of hand typesetting are his cornerstone, everything composed from the incremental units of type and spacing available in the type shop. Hänni’s work encompasses a wide range of fields in visual communication, from books, magazines, catalogs and newspapers to drawings, photography and journalism about design and everyday culture.”

 

The book is accompanied by a glossy 12-page color pamphlet with 108 photographs documenting the production process for this publication.