Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

The Track of Youth to the Land of Knowledge

Allegorical Map of the Track of Youth, to the Land of Knowledge (London: John Wallis, no. 16 Ludgate Street, June 25, 1796). Engraved by Vincent Woodthorpe (ca.1764-1822) with hand coloring, wood ribs, brass pin and ivory washer. Purchased with funds from the Historic Map Collection and Graphic Arts Collection.

http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/globes-objects/hmc05.html

Thanks to the shrewd collecting of John Delaney, Curator of The Historic Maps Collection, our two collections have partnered to acquire this allegorical map on a fan.

The map takes the viewer from youth, where they are in a state of darkness, to the final lights of Reason and Religion where Content[ment] and Happiness can be found. The voyage may take you through such places as the Great Ocean of Experience, the Rocks of Obstinacy and Idleness, the Coast of Ignorance or the Coast of Hardship. Along the way, you can check the compass for directions to Folly, Misery, Wisdom, and Reason.

The link above will lead you to this and other cartographic treasures including globes, scientific instruments, and much more.

The map was engraved by Vincent Woodthorpe (c.1764-1822) of Fetter Lane, London, who engraved maps for Faden and Laurie & Whittle as well as Wallis. Woodthorpe also engraved Robert Woolsey’s Celestial Companion: Projections, in Plano of the Starry Heavens (1802).

Isaiah Thomas, The Baskerville of America

The History of Miss Kitty Pride: Together with The Virtue of a Rod; or The History of a Naughty Boy (Worcester, Massachusetts: Isaiah Thomas, Jun. sold wholesale and retail by him, 1799). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

“The Baskerville of America,” this is what Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) called the Massachusetts printer Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831). “Thomas was the leading publisher of his day. His printing establishment in Worcester eventually employed 150 persons and included seven presses, a paper mill, and bindery . . . He is still famous for his more than a hundred children’s books of which he published tens of thousands of copies.”–Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography.

Princeton University Library holds over 100 volumes published and sold by Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831) and his son Isaiah Thomas Jr (1773-1819) from their shops in Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts. They also had branches in Walpole, Brookfield, Portsmouth, Windsor, Newburyport, Baltimore, and Albany.

Sinclair Hamilton (1884-1978) alone collected and donated 49 book published by Thomas with woodcuts and wood engravings. Happily, we have now added Miss Kitty and Virtue of a Rod to our holdings (bound in a piece of decorative wallpaper). Each story is illustrated with a surprising number of cut, for such a tiny (11 cm.) volume. Here are a few examples.

One of Isaiah Thomas’s original printing presses at the American Antiquarian Society.

Eighteenth-Century Heraldic Designs

We recently acquired W. Townley’s archive of heraldic designs and other related pieces. Drawn by Mr. Townley in pen and pen & ink, these designs date from the second half of the 18th century. Included is a sketchbook (measuring 320 x 205 mm), in marbled wrappers, which holds 43 drawings of heraldic supporters such as birds, beasts and humans. The majority are fully formed figures in ink and wash, with watercolor used for the uniform of a soldier and the robe of a female figure.

What is most interesting is that many are “pricked” with pin holes marking the outline of the design so that it can be transferred to another surface. If you click on one of the thumbnails posted here, it is easier to see the holes in the enlargement. Several are folded and the design copied from one side to the other, ensuring the exact proportions are maintained. In this manner, only one side needs to be “pricked” since they are the same (in reverse).

There are an additional nine heraldic designs, four impressive drawings of classical vases (the largest measuring 395 x 278 mm, with pricking), and 17 drawings of human figures, wild and domestic animals, and farmyard and camp scenes, some with watercolour and a number with pricking.

Also included are two manuscript fragments. The first contains a herald’s expenses and income in 1755, including fees for drawing up various pedigrees. The second records court announcements, including the appointment of Charles
Townley to the office of Lancaster Herald in 1781 (having been Bluemantle Pursuivant since 1774).

Amongst five small printed pieces are two bookplates of Sir Charles Townley, as Clarenceux King of Arms (a post he held from 1755 until 1773) and as Garter Principal King of Arms (1773-4). It appears that our W. Townley was a relation of Sir Charles Townley (1713-1774) and his son Charles (1749-1800). He never held high office himself, but these drawings show him to have been an heraldic draughtsman of some accomplishment.

W. Townley’s Archive of Heraldic Designs, 18th century. Sketchbook and loose pages with drawings in pen and ink with watercolor. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process.

The Typolithographic Press on White Lion-Court

Lithography expert Michael Twyman called The Parthenon “remarkable for its ambitious and technically daring foray into typolithography.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a complete run of The Parthenon, which is highlighted in Twyman’s chapter on lithographic incunables. He includes it as an “unusual early British work … which was the first journal to be produced anywhere entirely by lithography. Though it appeared much later than the other works discussed in this chapter, it seems appropriate to mention it with the incunables of lithographic book production because of its priority in periodical publishing and because of the particular techniques employed in its production.” -Michael Twyman, Early Lithographed Books (London: Farrand Press & Private Libraries Association, c1990). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) NE2295 .T99

Twyman continues “It was published weekly in London by Black, Young, and Young of Tavistock street, Covent Garden and ran from 11 June 1825 to January 1926 [in Princeton’s copy all 16 issues are bound in one volume]. It was printed from stone by Ross and Co. at the Typolithographic Press, White Lion-Court, Wych-street, London, using their own special process which they called Typolithography.”

“The first few numbers of the Parthenon amply demonstrate the advantages of typolithography and include facsimiles of autographs, line sketches of works of art illustrating an outline history of Italian painting, and passages of music. The whole journal has the flavour of a letterpress production…

All the same, there must have been production problems because, without a word of explanation to the reader, the numbers from 6 onwards had their text matter printed letterpress to much the same design, with the non-text matter overprinted by lithography… “–Twyman

The Parthenon: a Magazine of Art and Literature (London: Black, Young and Young, 1825-1826). Title-page and preface and no. 1-5 printed from stone at the Typolithographic press./ Title-page has imprint: London : Printed from stone, At the Typolithographic Press, White Lion Court, Wych Street. Published by Black, Young, and Young, Tavistock street, Covent Garden, 1826./ At foot of p. 437: Printed by Ross and Co., at the Typolithographic Press, White Lion Court, Wych Street. Graphic Arts GAX 2013- in process

Raumbild Verlag (Stereoview publishing)

Raumbild Verlag (Stereoview publishing) was established by Otto Wilhelm Schönstein (1891-1958) in the 1930s (the earliest book I found is 1935). Their offices moved several times, eventually settling in Munich by the end of the decade.

Each of his books was designed with extra thick boards, die-cut so that small stereographs could be inserted at the front and back, along with a stereo viewer (Raumbildbetrachter). Many of the titles included the photography of Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957), Adolf Hitler’s official photographer.

Thanks to the generous donation of professor Anson Rabinbach, Department of History, we now hold our third photobook from Schönstein’s firm, this one documenting Deutsche Plastik Unserer zeit (German Sculpture of Our Time).

The art exhibition was organized by Arno Breker (1900-1991) and hosted by the Nazi Party, highlighting the work of German sculptors. For an interesting article about Breker’s work, see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/world/europe/24germany.html?_r=0

Kurt Lothar Tank (1910-) and Wilfrid Bade (1906-1945), Deutsche Plastik unserer Zeit (München: O. Schönstein, 1942). “Mit 150 Raumbildaufnahmen und acht Tafeln.” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process. Gift of Anson G. Rabinbach.

Other volumes published by Raumbild Verlag include:

Vendig; ein raumerlebnis by Kurt Lothar Tank (1935)

Reichsparteitag der ehre by Heinrich Hoffmann (1936)

Die Olympischen spiele 1936 by Ludwig Haymann (1936)

München, die Hauptstadt der Bewegung by Heinrich Hoffmann (1937)

Die Weltausstellung: Paris 1937 by E.P. Frank (1937)

Deutsche Gaue by Alfons Czibulka (1938)

Parteitag Grossdeutschland by Henrich Hansen (1939)

Aus der lebensgemeinschaft des waldes by Kurt Dieterich (1939)

Der erste Großdeutsche Reichskriegertag by Heinrich Hoffmann (1939)

Die Soldaten des Führers im Felde by Hasso von Wedel (1940)

Der Kampf im Westen by Hasso von Wedel (1940)

Die Kriegsmarine by Fritz-Otto Busch (1942)

Der Stadt Nürnberg Ursprung und Werdegang by Fritz Schulz (1949)

Hausärztliches Taschenbuch by Wilhelm Ermer (1950)

Deutschland erwacht (Germany Wakes)

Standartenweihe im Luitpoldhain 1933. Half-tone panorama in six plates, approximately 137 cm.

Deutschland erwacht. Werden, kampf und sieg der N S D A P … ( [Altona-Bahrenfeld? Cigaretten-bilderdienst Altona-Bahrenfeld, 1933]) Notes: “Die auswahl und künstlerische durcharbeitung der lichtbilder übernahm Heinrich Hoffmann … Der verfasser des textes ist Wilfrid Bade.” Graphic Arts GAX 2013- in process. Gift of Anson Rabinbach.

Princeton professor Anson Rabinbach, Department of History, is a specialist in modern European history with an emphasis on intellectual and cultural history. He has published extensively on Nazi Germany, Austria, and European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His newest volume, due out any day, entitled The Third Reich Sourcebook (with Sander L. Gilman), is a collection of more than 400 documents with critical introductions. Thanks to Professor Rabinbach, we have acquired a number of rare books, the first pictured here.

Deutschland erwacht (Germany Wakes) is a collaboration between the author Wilfrid Bath and the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, chronicling the “struggle and victory of the NSDAP” (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or Nazi Party).

The book documents the founding of the party; the Reichstag election of 20 May 1928; selections from Mein Kampf; and both public and private moments in the life of Adolf Hitler along with much more. One highlight is the panorama at the back depicting a massive rally in 1933 at Luitpoldhain.

Our sincere thanks to Prof. Rabinbach and to Elizabeth Bennett, Librarian for History and History of Science, who coordinated the gift.

Oblique Strategies

Sadly, we are not BFF’s with Peter Norton or included on his holiday mailing list of friends who received the annual art projects commissioned over the last few decades. The Norton’s 1996 offering was created by the British musician Brian Eno and we are fortunate to have acquired a copy.

Eno and his friend, artist Peter Schmidt (who passed away in 1980), enjoyed playing the card game of Oblique Strategies. In 1975, the two wrote their own edition focusing on the art world. In this game of strategies, each card presents us with a problem we might face in life, along with a suggested way to approach the problem creatively.

In 1996, Eno revised and rewrote the deck of one hundred cards, which were edited by Norton and translated into Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic.

Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies. One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas, 1996. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process.

“These cards evolved from our separate working procedures. It was one of the many cases during the friendship that he [Peter Schmidt] and I where we arrived at a working position at almost exactly the same time and almost in exactly the same words. There were times when we hadn’t seen each other for a few months at a time sometimes, and upon remeeting or exchanging letters, we would find that we were in the same intellectual position – which was quite different from the one we’d been in prior to that.

-Brian Eno, interview with Charles Amirkhanian, KPFA-FM Berkeley, 2/1/80

See also Peter Schmidt’s design for Eno’s CD, Before and After Science (2004). Mendel Music Library (MUS) CD- 24728

Turrell’s Emblemata

Artist James Turrell is being celebrated this summer with no less than three major museum exhibitions, including a monumental installation in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Back in 2000, Turrell was inspired by the Jesuit Willem van Hees’s (Guilelmus Hesius) 1636 Antwerp emblem book Emblemata Sacra: Spe, Fide, Charitate and created his own Emblemata. Although I don’t believe he was looking at Princeton’s copy, we can do just that and compare the two side by side thanks to the recent acquisition of Turrell’s project. According to the book’s colophon “Turrell responded to the engravings in that book by creating images of his own which are here presented with the originals in sequence.”

James Turrell, Emblemata (Tempe, Arizona: Segura Publishing Company, 2000). Graphic Arts collection 2013- in process

Gulielmus Hesius (1601-1690), Gvilielmi HesI antverpiensis è Societate Iesv Emblemata sacra de fide, spe, charitate (Antverpiae, ex officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1636). Gift of Silvain S. Brunschwig. Rare Books (Ex) N7710 .H36

Effigies

Paul Auster and Sarah Horowitz, Effigies ([Portland, Or.]: Wiesedruck, 2012). Copy 14 of 20.
Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process.

“For the creation of this book handmade kozo paper was dyed in an indigo vat, hung on laundry lines in the sun, gelatin sized, and pressed flat over the course of a year. … the printing and drawing commenced in early 2012. Each image was re-drawn by hand for the edition with sumi ink … Art Larson of Horton Tank Graphics in Hadley, Massachusetts printed the letterpress on un-dyed sheets of kozo. Claudia Cohen bound the edition in indigo-dyed flax paper made by Cave Paper.”–Colophon.

Artist Sarah Horowitz writes, “Effigies is a hand-drawn limited edition artist book featuring Paul Auster’s namesake poem from 1976. My design for the book centers around a long sumi ink drawing of a bramble fence that extends over several indigo-dyed pages. For each of the 20 books in the edition, I re-drew the image by hand, resulting in 20 unique pieces. Meaning a likeness or resemblance of, effigies straddle the threshold of existence, that which is illusory or real, forgotten or remembered. The ink-drawn weeds and brambles that cross the landscape pages are part of the edges of fields, the forgotten spaces between tilled lands that grow tangled with rusting fencing. I could not be more pleased that Mr. Auster has signed the colophon!

As a book artist, I am continually creating a dialog between language and image. As a Jew—the people of the book—I have learned that my ancestors’ story is my story and its documentation is my cultural imperative. With this new book, the thorny fence represents the line on the edge of reality and forgetting. Remembering history is critical to finding balance in the world.”

Fifty of the Best Receipts for the Aquatinter 1801

John Hippisley Green, The Complete Aquatinter: being the whole process of etching and engraving in aquatinta: the method of using the aquafortis, with all the necessary tools: to which are added upwards of fifty of the best receipts for grounds, varnishes, &c.: collected from near a hundred that are most in use: the difficulties which may possibly occur, are point out, and the method of obviating them: the whole rendered clear and practical (London: Printed for J.H. Green, book and printseller…, 1801). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

This printing manual includes two plates drawn and engraved by John Hippisley Green along with his recipes (using the modern word) for soft and hard ground aquatint. The frontispiece is after a landscape engraving by Joseph Jeakes. The Princeton copy of this first edition includes various annotations and a hand written description of the soft ground process.

Green advertises his services as:

J.H. Green, having received great encouragement from the lovers and patrons of the fine arts, &c. takes the liberty to inform them, that he is now enabled to deal in a more extensive manner, in all kind of prints, ancient and modern, from the earliest period to the present day. Books, the most useful and pleasing in the English language, particularly relating to Arts and Sciences, &c. drawing materials of all kinds, as chalks, crayons, water-colours, sketch, and drawing-books, drawing-boards, portfolios, &c. &c. bought, sold, and exchanged; drawings mounted, framed, &c. Etching Wax and every requisite for engraving, aquatinting, &c. that may be depended on as the best that can be procured. Drawing taught in all its various Branches at Mr. Green’s Academy every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday after-noon. Ladies and Gentlemen attended at their residences, and schools taught on moderate terms. Drawings and designs made, portraits taken and executed in all the various methods of drawing.

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Paul Auster and Sarah Horowitz, Effigies ([Portland, Or.]: Wiesedruck, 2012). Copy 14 of 20. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process.

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Paul Auster and Sarah Horowitz, Effigies ([Portland, Or.]: Wiesedruck, 2012). Copy 14 of 20.
Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process.