The Valise

Latin American Studies and the Graphic Arts Collection are collaborating on the purchase of the limited edition publication La valija (The Valise), which was unveiled Tuesday night at the Museum of Modern Art. The collective artists’ project unites seven South American artists—Johanna Calle (Bogotá, Colombia), Matías Duville (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Maria Laet (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Mateo López (Bogotá, Colombia), Nicolás Paris (Bogota, Colombia), Rosângela Rennó (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), and Christian Vinck Henriquez (Maracaibo, Venezuela)—with the Argentine writer César Aria.

The artists created over 50 original artworks responding to Aria’s novel Un episodio en la vida del pintor viajero (An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter), which follows the German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas’s 1837 journey through South America.

Designed to fit in a special valise, the works include original prints, maps, artist’s books, airmail envelopes, origami toys, posters, a sound recording, and a hand blown glass sculpture, all reflecting the artists’ shared affinity for geography, travel literature, and book-making.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

To celebrate the publication of The Valise, Aria gave a private reading for members of the Library Council of The Museum of Modern Art. He told the audience that he had wanted to be a painter but now paints with his words. Rejecting computers, Aria said he prefers to write using a fountain pen (he has an extensive collection) on good heavy paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information on this project, see https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/research-resources/library/council/valise

The novelist was recently profiled in The New Yorker to mark the publication of Ema the Captive, his 13th novel in English. See: Alena Graedon, “César Aira’s Infinite Footnote to Borges,” The New Yorker, January 27, 2017 http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/cesar-airas-infinite-footnote-to-borges

Probably the best seller of 1786

A Wonderful Discovery of a Hermit Who Lived Upwards of 200 Years ([United States: s.n., 1786?]). Broadside with hand colored woodcut. Sinclair Hamilton Collection of American Illustrated Books. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 110

An Account of the Wonderful Old Hermit’s Death, and Burial ([Boston?: Printed by Ezekiel Russell?, 1787?]). Broadside with hand colored woodcut. Sinclair Hamilton Collection of American Illustrated Books. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 111

The Sinclair Hamilton collection holds two broadsides concerning a hermit “who lived upwards of 200 years.” In the first, the hermit (who told everything but his name) was discovered in 1785 by “two Virginia gentlemen, Captain James Buckland and Mr. John Fielding.” The second describes a visit in 1786 by Dr. Samuel Brake, who offered the hermit a drink of rum, his first drink of alcohol and shortly after, the hermit died. “A deplorable ending to a man who had lived 200 years without liquor and might have lived 200 years more had he not drank that horrid draught!”

The text in each of the broadsides was also published in small booklets, which sold well.

“Probably the best domestic seller of 1786 was James Buckland’s An Account of the Discovery of a Hermit, Who Lived about 200 Years in a Cave at the Foot of a Hill, 73 Days Journey Westward of the Great [Allegheny] Mountains, which appeared in that year at [Pittsburgh], Portsmouth, Middletown, New Haven, Norwich, and Boston, and which went through several myth-adding editions in the next few years.”

“Its vogue is noted here merely to emphasize the fact that the American public was becoming prepared for that literary enfranchisement noticeable in the last years of the eighteenth century.” –Earl L. Bradsher, The Cambridge History of American Literature: Later National Literature: pt. II (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921).

“The next day they did not depart as they had proposed, but being so much pleased, they tarried several days. At their departure they used their utmost endeavours to persuade the Hermit to come off with them; but he refused, and said he had been exceeding happy in their company, and could have entertained them longer; as for leaving his Cave he could not, he thought Heaven had provided that place for his dwelling, in which he ever expected to reside while he lived in this world. Notwithstanding his reluctance to leave his Cave, he was exceedingly affected with their leaving him, he wept like a child, and taking Capt Buckland by the hand, he embraced him, wishing him prosperity, after which they departed.”

In American Bibliography: 1786-1789 (1912), Charles Evans lists the following works by James Buckland:

19527 — An Account of the Discovery of a Hermit, Who Lived about 200 Years in a Cave, at the Foot of a Hill, 73 Days Journey Westward of the Great [Allegheny] Mountains Written By James Buckland And John Fielding, The Persons Who Discovered Him. [Pittsburgh]: Printed by John Scott and Joseph Hall, 1786.

19528 — The Remarkable Discovery of an American Hermit, Who Lived Upwards of 220 Years. Portsmouth: Printed and sold by George Jerry Osborne. 1786.

19529 — A Surprizing Account of an Old Hermit Lately Discovered in America; To Which Is Added, an Elegant Engraved Typographical Plate, Containing the Hermit, and the Travellers who Discovered Him… Middletown: Printed and sold by Woodward and Green. 1786.

19530 — A Surprizing Account of an Old Hermit, Lately Discovered in America. With an Elegant Engraved Typographical Plate, Containing the Hermit and the Travellers Who Discovered Him.  New-Haven: Printed by Daniel Bowen. 1786.

19531 — A Wonderful Discovery of an Old Hermit, Who Lived Upwards of Two Hundred Years. [Ornament.] Norwich: Printed by John Trumbull, M.DCC.LXXXVI.

19532 — A Wonderful Discovery of a Hermit! And a Most Remarkable Narrative of a Citizen of London, Who Left his Native Country on Account of Being Connected with a Nobleman’s Daughter, and Sailed in a Ship Bound for Italy . . .  [Boston: Printed by Ezckiel Russell and] Sold at the Office near Liberty Pole, [1786].

A Letter to Bailey and His Elephant, part 3

Thanks to the help of Jennifer Lemmer Posey, Associate Curator of the Circus Museum at The Ringling and Editor of Bandwagon, The Journal of the Circus Historical Society, we have the identity of the gentlemen seated above, drawn on an envelope by Henry Herman Cross (1837-1918) and mailed June 30, 1884, to James Anthony Bailey (1847-1906).

He is the entrepreneur and circus owner Adam John Forepaugh (1831-1890), once called ‘the Nobelist Roman of them all.’ From 1865 through 1890, Forepaugh owned and operated a circus under various names including Forepaugh’s Circus, The Great Forepaugh Show, The Adam Forepaugh Circus, and Forepaugh & The Wild West. His operations were at least equal to or larger than those of P. T. Barnum.

Forepaugh’s outfit “even claimed forty elephants for the 1883 season in response to the birth of P. T. Barnum’s ‘baby elephant’ at his winter quarters barns in Bridgeport the year before. The ‘Elephant wars’ of the 1880s were a result of a generation of gambling management tactics that many people understood as bluster.” — Susan Nance, “Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus,” JHU Press, Jan 14, 2013.

A Letter to Bailey and His Elephant, part 2

In 1880, as James Anthony Bailey (1847-1906) was negotiating with P.T. Barnum (18101-1891) for the purchase of the baby elephant named Columbia, owned and exhibited in the “Cooper, Bailey & Company Great London Circus,” the artist Henry Herman Cross (1837-1918) wrote to Bailey. The envelope is beautifully illustrated with a drawing of Cooper and Bailey on the right and Barnum on the left.

The portrait of Bailey’s baby that Cross discusses in his letter is not a family portrait but the painting of his elephant. Bailey writes that it is “a magnificent production and when finished you will do me the honor and credit to acknowledge the fact, that it is no conceit, or egotistical boast of mine—but an actual fact, for it delights every one who has witnessed it in its yet incomplete state.” Cross confirms he will bring it to Boston so he can finish it by placing a portrait of Bailey alongside the elephant.

(This letter cost 12 cents to mail in 1880)


Cross worked on a drawing for Harper’s Weekly but only this article was published, announcing “A Baby Elephant.”

A very interesting event—the birth of a baby elephant—took place at the circus stables of Cooper & Bailey, Philadelphia, early in the morning of March 10. The importance of the affair to the world of science will be realized when it is stated that it is the first authenticated instance of the kind that has ever taken place among these animals in a state of captivity. It is said that a similar event occurred in London some time during the last century, but there is no positive proof in regard to it.

At the sides of the stable-room where this little creature was born were a number of large elephants chained to posts, while Hebe, the mother, was chained in the centre of the room, where she was safe from molestation. The moment the baby was born, the other elephants set up a tremendous bellowing, threw their trunks about, wheeled around, stood on their hind – legs, and cavorted and danced in the highest glee, as though they had gone mad. The excitement communicated itself to Hebe, and she became almost frantic. With a terrific plunge she broke the chains and ropes which held her, and grasping up the little baby elephant with her trunk, threw it about twenty yards across the room, letting it fall near a large hot stove—where a fire is always kept burning—then followed with a mad rush, bellowing and lashing her trunk as though she would carry everything before her. . .

A Letter to Bailey and His Elephant

If you have seen a 19th-century Barnum & Bailey circus wagon, you have seen the painting of Henry Herman Cross (1837-1918). Although trained in Paris to be a portrait painter, Cross ran away to join the circus and spent many years traveling with the shows as their graphic artist. He even made trips to Africa with Bailey to acquire animals. Cross’s work is also found on backdrops, posters, newspapers, and brochures for his friend ‘Buffalo’ Bill Cody.

The Graphic Arts Collection holds several envelopes decorated by Cross, which were mailed to James Anthony Bailey (1847-1906), the partner of P.T. Barnum (18101-1891). As everyone knows, Barnum and Bailey  (and Cooper) merged their individual circuses in 1881 to form “P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show On Earth.”

Bailey and Cooper had been operating the “Cooper and Bailey Circus,” which featured a baby elephant known as Columbia, advertised as “the first elephant born in the United States.” Barnum wanted to buy the elephant for his circus but Bailey would not sell. Eventually, they agreed to combine the two operations, featuring the elephant now known as Jumbo.

One envelope is dated 1881 and another 1884. Although Barnum and Bailey were only together a few years, it was not a happy partnership and men separated in 1885. On the envelope seen above, Bailey is pictured on the right spoon feeding pap to a baby elephant while Barnum is seen on the left impersonating an elephant in an exhibition case. A proclamation claims this to be “the only baby elephant ever born on wheels.”

 

Today, the largest collection of Cross’s paintings can be seen at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Buffalo Bill Historic Center in Cody, Wyoming, also houses many canvases. See the exhibition catalogue: H.H. Cross (1837-1918), The T.B. Walker collection of Indian portraits; 125 reproductions of paintings by Henry H. Cross, of which 22 are in color (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1948). Western Americana (WA) 2009-2369N


H.H. Cross, Buffalo Bill, William Frederick Cody. ©Gilcrease Museum

Cheap and Well-Illustrated

The Wild Woman: or, The Wrecked Heart: Being the True Autobiography of the “Wild Woman,” Who Was Recently Exhibited at Cincinnati, and Was Rescued from Her Persecutors by the Citizens of That City, and Sent to the Insane Asylum at Dayton, Ohio. The History of This Strange Woman Furnishes Incidents of the Most Thrilling Narrative Ever Written, and Is Now Offered for the First Time (Philadelphia : Barclay & Co., 1864). Designs by Charles F. Noble (born ca. 1833) and Nathaniel Orr (1822-1908). Sinclair Hamilton Collection of American Illustrated Books (GAX) Oversize Hamilton 1887q

 

Four years after the wood engraver Nathaniel Orr finished the plates for Twelve Years a Slave, he was asked to supply a few cuts for another captivity narrative. This time it was the autobiography of Alice Galon, a young woman who was (according to a very complex story) seduced by Clarence Withrow, a villain who became her lover and then killed their baby. When she suffered a nervous breakdown, he put her on exhibit as a wild mountain woman, charging 15 cent per view.

The actual woman at the center of this tragedy was named Ann Walter, an emotionally challenged girl held captive by Captain J. W. C. Northecote and his cohorts. For several months in 1856, they traveled the Midwest exhibiting Walton as a “Wild Woman of the Wachita Mountains of Missouri.”

When they got to Cincinnati, the police thankfully stopped the show and brought them all in for questioning. On July 16, 1856, an account of the trial was published locally and repeated in the New-York Tribune (see below). Walton spent a period of time at an asylum in Dayton, Ohio, before being released.

 


“The wild woman on a legal platform: lunatico inquirendo–interesting inquiry in the probate court–physicians and other witnesses examined–supposed imposition,” The Cincinnati Gasetic, New-York Daily Tribune, July 16, 1856: 6.
.

The first edition of the narrative was published in 1857 by the Cincinnati firm of E. E. Barclay & Company, whose lurid accounts of sex and murder were printed in both English and German.  Seven years later, after the firm moved to Philadelphia, the story was reprinted with only a new title page. This is the copy held in the Sinclair Hamilton collection at Princeton.

“What devilish impulse suggested to Clarence Withrow the thought of speculating upon his crazed and unhappy victim, is a mystery of wickedness too deep to comprehend. Arraying her in a manner suitable to his scheme, assisted by wily accomplices, he exhibited her as a wild woman, who had been captured in the mountains.” Page 80

 

 

 

[Alice Galon], Das wilde Weib; oder: Das gebrochene Herz: Eine selbstverfasste Lebensbeschreibung des wilden Weibes, das neulich in Cincinnati ausgestellt war, aber von den Bürgern dieser Stadt den Händen ihrer Verfolger entriffen und in das Irrenhaus in Dayton gebracht wurde (Cincinnati: Verlag von Barclay & Co., No. 6 West 4te Strasse, 1857). “Diese Geschichte des wilden Weibes, die Vorfälle der rührendsten Art enthält, die je geschrieben wurden, wird nun zum ersten Mal dem Publikum angeboten.”

 

The Watermark Collection

Thomas Keith Tindale and Harriett Ramsey Tindale, The Handmade Papers of Japan; foreword by Dard Hunter (Rutland, Vt.; Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle, 1952). Published in an edition of “not more than two hundred and fifty copies.”

Portfolio (v. [4]) contains foreword by Haruji Yoshida (director general, Government Printing Agency) and catalog (5 p.), and 20 sheets of colored papers made at the Oji Paper Mill of the Government Printing Agency in Tokyo, each with a pictorial light and shade watermark made by the tesuri-kako-ho (hand-rubbing) method from engravings by Seishiro Suzuki, Yayoji Shiomi, Kinnojo Kawashima and Sadakichi Kataoka.

Gift of Edwin N. Benson, Jr. Class of 1899 and Mrs. Benson in memory of Peter Benson, Class of 1938. Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF) Oversize TS1095.J3 T5q

Overhead lighting
Back lighting
Snow and Crow. Engraving by Kinnojo Kawashima. The watermark is on grey paper and is of a crow resting on a blossoming branch which is covered iwth snow. Note the detail of the bird’s claw.







 

 

The first attempt to produce a fine piece of book-making in America


After appearing in 54 numbers (28 pages each), Harper’s Illuminated and New Pictorial Bible came out in all its morocco-bound, hand-tooled, gold-embossed, and gilt-edged glory in the early part of 1846. Frank Weitenkampf called it “the first richly illustrated book in the United States, the first attempt to produce a fine piece of book-making.” By 1859 the Bible had sold 25,000 copies at more than a half million dollars retail. –details from Eugene Exman, The Brothers Harper (Z473.H29 E9 1965).

The total edition is uncertain since a large number of copies were lost in their building fire of 1853.



The initial idea came from the engraver Joseph Alexander Adams (1803-1880), who contracted with Harper’s on the guarantee of half the final profits from the Bible.  According to Exman:

Adams was “concerned with the problem of printing wood engravings, especially to find a border that would both support and protect the blocks. In 1839, he developed a galvanic process whereby an electric current passing through a solution holding copper would coat a wax mold of his border engraving with a shell of copper. This shell, when affixed to a block, gave the necessary support to the engraving itself. This discovery, now known as electrotyping was simultaneously developed that same year by two Englishmen and a Russian.

Another mechanical aid was the development of the six-roller press by Isaac Adams (not related to the engraver) and his brother Seth of Boston. This press was first put into operation at Cliff Street in 1840. Since the Adams press could take a larger sheet than other presses, this may have been the reason for the decision to issue the Harper-Adams Bible in folio.”

John L. O’Sullivan of the Democratic Review wrote “We think it questionable taste to print the edition in the obsolete form of folio.”

John Gadsby Chapman (1808-1889) supplied 1,400 designs to be engraved, for which he was paid $2,121.80. In his volume of proofs for the bible Illustrations, Chapman lists the engravers as Roberts, Childs, Minot, Howland, Gordon, Butler, Morse, Orr Jr. (Nathaniel), Hall Hart, Kinnersley (Henry), Kinnersley (Augustus F.), Peckham, Bookhour, Holland, and Weeks. He goes on to say only a few can be definitely ascribed to Adams (such as the title page above).

John Gadsby Chapman (1808-1889), Bible illustrations ([New York? 1846?]). 5 v. Note: “These proofs, from the original cuts, were taken by hand by the Engravers thereof, in course of execution for ’Harpers Family Bible’ – New York 1843.-44. 45- and are, so far as I know, the only complete set existing. Presented by me to my Daughter. – Rome October 5. 1879. – John G. Chapman.” Sinclair Hamilton Collection of American Illustrated Books. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Hamilton 199q

Gee’s Bend Prints Acquired


Loretta Pettway (American, born 1942), Remember Me, 2006. Color soft ground and spit bite aquatint etching. Edition of 50; printed and published by Paulson Fontaine Press. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017 AAS1

Mary Lee Bendolph (American, born 1935), Get Ready, 2006. Color soft ground and spit bite aquatint etching. Edition of 50; printed and published by Paulson Fontaine Press. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017 AAS2

Loretta Pettway (American, born 1942), Lazy Gal, 2006. Color soft ground and spit bite aquatint etching. Edition of 50; printed and published by Paulson Fontaine Press. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017 AAS3

 

Three spectacular new etchings have been acquired for Firestone Library’s African American Studies Room (B floor) thanks to a joint initiative between the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton University Library, and the Department of African American Studies.

Many thanks to all those who participated, especially our art handlers John Walako and Rory Mahon, see here, who did a beautiful job hanging the works this morning.

Mary Lee Bendolph and Loretta Pettway are members of the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective and live in the area of Rehoboth and Boykin, Alabama. For a history of the group, see their website: https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/gees-bend-quiltmakers

The etchings were produced in 2006 in collaboration with the printmakers at Paulson Bott (now Fontaine) Press in Berkeley, California. See more at: http://paulsonfontainepress.com/


 

 

John Beardsley’s 2002 study, Gee’s Bend: the Women and their Quilts, has been placed in the AAS room so students and visitors can learn more about the collective. For additional source material, see this video from Glass World Films:

The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend (Award-winning PBS Feature) from Glass World Films on Vimeo.

Photographydatabase

1879 Hall, Princeton University

Andrew Eskind recently posted information on the former George Eastman House photography database we all like to use. I repost here in case you missed it.

1. photographydatabase.org is alive and well. It extends work Greg Drake and I did at Eastman House, but no longer has any relationship with GEH (now GEM). I had permission to export the data–much of it grant supported–and to extend it beyond its status at the time of my departure in 2003.

2. Yes, it continues to be maintained and web served via Filemaker which favors Safari and Chrome web browsers, and has issues with Firefox (and perhaps other) browsers. The issues are mostly cosmetic, but no guarantees.

3. We edit offline on a daily basis, but only refresh the online copy one per month–usually mid-month. The current version still says “March” but will change to “April” probably sometime next week.

4. The relationship to pic.nypl.org is simply as one source among many they use. However, PIC in no way supercedes photographydatabase.org. In fact, I believe their snapshot is based on the 1998 print edition of the final G.K. Hall print edition. There is no formal relationship and they don’t track additions, deletions, corrections (yes, we catch mistakes on occasion)–I think photographydatabase includes nearly twice as many photographer records as PIC lists as sourced from us.

More importantly, photographydatabase collates public photography collections worldwide-now over 1000. It also collates museum exhibitions (not gallery exhibs)-now nearly 9500 – both historic and current. To a lesser extent we track galleries–not their exhibs, just the photographers they represent or whose work they have in inventory. The world is far too dynamic to keep everything up-to-date-some museums provide Annual Reports of their new photography acquisitions, most do not. Some are easy to monitor via their websites-many don’t provide such information online. We’re currently in the process of sorting out which part of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s photography collection has been distributed to the National Gallery, and which has gone to GW. Same issue with Time, Inc. as well as a couple of smaller collections.

5. For an historic overview of the long-term evolution, see these postings graciously mentored by A.D. Coleman a few years ago-still basically current:

http://www.teachingphoto.com/2011/04/24/hello-world/
http://www.teachingphoto.com/2014/03/26/the-making-of-photographydatabase-org-2/

As always, Greg and I are happy to hear from users with suggestions, corrections, or just in need of navigational support. Regards, Andrew Eskind, Rochester, NY