Travel safe

Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/fb494b97t

“Just as you are going off with only one other person on your side of the coach, who you flatter yourself is the last- seeing the door suddenly opened and the L and lady coachman / guard [illegible] craning shoving buttressing up an overgrown puffing, greazy human Hog of the bucher or grazier breed. the whole machine straining and groaning under its cargo from / the box to the basket- by dint of incredible efforts and contrivances the Carcase is at length weighed up to the door where it has next to struggle with various / obstructions in the passage.”–James Beresford

The scene above, taking place outside the Maidenhead Inn, was drawn during the height of popularity for the satirical book, “The Miseries of Human Life” by Rev. James Beresford. Rowlandson’s earliest drawing are dated 1806, the same year as the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth editions of Beresford’s book. When the artist completed 50 plates, Rudolph Ackermann released the set in a luxury edition. Rowlandson used many of the same images in his next pictorial narrative The Tours of Doctor Syntax.

James Beresford (1764-1840), The Miseries of Human Life, or, The groans of Samuel Sensitive, and Timothy Testy : with a few supplementary sighs from Mrs. Testy …. New and improved ed. (London: Printed for W. Miller, Albemarle-Street, by W. Bulmer and Co. Cleveland-Row, 1806). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1806.31.11

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Miseries of Traveling. Pubd. Febry. 15th, 1807 by R. Ackermann, N. 101 Strand. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GC112

Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/02870z45r

La vie parisienne

La Vie parisienne par Marcelin ([Paris: s.n.], 1863-1915). Editor 1863-87: Marcelin. Letterpress and lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) in process

The French satirist Émile-Marcelin-Isidore Planat (1825-1887) also published under the names Émile Marcelin and simply Marcelin. His birth date is often listed incorrectly as 1830, which may have been his own doing.

Marcelin found work in the 1840s at L’Illustration: journal universel (1845-48, Oversize AP20 .F736q) and the 1850s with Le Journal Pour Rire, later retitled Journal Amusant (1848-1855, GAX 2011-0030E). By the 1860s, he was ready to be his own boss and raised the funds to print a weekly newspaper called La vie parisienne (The Parisian Life), highlighting the pleasures and arts of Paris in image and text.

When Marcelin died in 1887, the journal continued under a new editor but it was not the same and by the 20th century, the title no longer retained any of Marcelin’s original style. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired the full, original run of La vie parisienne, bound in 30 volumes.

See also Marcelin’s artistic predecessor Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), Scènes de la vie parisienne (Paris: Mme. Charles-Béchet, 1834-[v.1, 1835]). Rare Books (Ex) 3232.382

Clément Pierre Marillier

“The Juggler,” from Émile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

“For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others do not attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue more extraordinary still, — that of attracting at a distance, and without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and floating on a bowl of water. Much surprised, we did not however say, “He is a conjurer,” for we knew nothing about conjurers. Continually struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out of it.

When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that we thought we would endeavor to copy it. Taking a perfect needle, well magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck’s bill. We placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece of bread. We saw that some time or other we might observe the direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water. But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a suite of proofs (before lettering) for engravings designed by Clément Pierre Marillier (1740-1808) as illustrations for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s books, Émile and La Nouvelle Heloise. The volume includes twenty-seven engraved plates, including a portrait of Rousseau, along with a letter from Marillier to “Monsieur le Préfet” at Boissie la Bertrand, dated February 17, 1808, concerning Marillier’s nomination as mayor of the town.

Here are a few more examples of Marillier’s designs.

Levi Strauss 1915 Advertising

Levi Strauss & Company [lithographic advertising brochure die-cut and folded into the shape of a pair of blue jeans]. San Francisco: Levi-Strauss & Co., [1915]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a very rare trade catalogue from the Levi Strauss company. The outside is color printed in the color of blue denim with red stitching and brass rivets. The inside is a multiple-sided color lithograph depicting men, boys, and children (no ladies) wearing jeans and other denim clothing, at various activities.

The center panel features the “Complete factory in operation in Palace of Manufactures – Panama Pacific International Expo,” which helps date the piece to ca. 1915. The middle inside section shows the famous Levi’s trademark logo and states: “Levi Strauss & Co., San Francisco, Cal., Manufacturer of Two Horse Brand Overalls, Koveralls, and Koverall nighties. 75 cents the suit. Everywhere a new suit free if they rip.”

Levi Strauss introduced blue jeans in 1873. In 1915 the firm received the highest award for waist overalls at the Panama Pacific International Expo. The complete story of their company is posted here: http://levistrauss.com/our-story/

Charlotte Berend-Corinth

An oversize portfolio of lithographs depicting the comic actor Max Pallenberg (1877-1934) recently turned up and was sent over to the Graphic Arts Collection, where it will remain. The artist is Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880-1967).

When she was twenty-one, Charlotte Berend married her painting professor, Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), an early member of the Berlin Secession. Charlotte sacrificed her own career to support her husband and children, finally joining the Secession in 1912.

The two artists were also serious patrons of German Theater and beginning in 1919, Charlotte drew character studies of various Berlin actors and actresses, including Valeska Gert (1892-1978); Anita Berber (1899-1928); and Fritzi Massary (1882-1969). An undated portfolio of nine characters played by Massary’s husband Max Pallenberg (1877-1934) was probably completed in the early 1920s.

Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880-1967), Max Pallenberg. Lithographien von Charlotte Berend (Berlin: Oesterheld, no date [ca. 1920]). 9 lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Fritzi Massari and her husband, Max Pallenberg, sing a duet written by Leo Fall.

Song of Myself

8,992 words from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” spiral outward from a fountain in New York’s newly dedicated AIDS Memorial. Located in St. Vincent’s Triangle, across from the former site of St. Vincent’s Hospital where an AIDS ward opened in 1984, the memorial was designed by Jenny Holzer and will be completed before the end of 2016. http://nycaidsmemorial.org/

The first Leaves of Grass was put on sale in at least two stores, one in New York and another in Brooklyn, in late June of 1855. Printed in the shop of Andrew Rome of Brooklyn (where Andrew was assisted by his younger brother Tom), the quarto-size volume was designed and published by Whitman himself, who is also believed to have set the type for a few of its 95 pages. As William White has shown, 795 copies were printed in all, 599 of which were bound in cloth with varying degrees of gilt, the rest of them in paper or boards. A recent census of extant copies of the first edition reveals that nearly 200 copies survive today. Ivan Marki, “Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition,” in J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds., Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Princeton University Library has three copies of Whitman’s 1855 edition. Seen here: Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, N.Y.: [Walt Whitman]; [Brooklyn: Rome Bros], 1855). Rare Books (Ex) Behrman American no. 226q.

SONG OF MYSELF.

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Read the entire poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45477

Do You Have General Mercer’s Sword?

On May 31, 1929, The Princeton Alumni Weekly announced that Charles L. Burke, ’01, had presented General Hugh Mercer’s sword to the University. Today, we were asked if we still have it.

Rare Books and Special Collections does have a collection of rifles, swords, spears, and other armaments but Mercer’s sword is not specifically labeled. https://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2012/08/post_36.html

Several of the collection’s swords have leather belts or other straps still attached. Several have curved blades. Several could be considered heavy and/or massive weapons. We are consulting with experts but in the meantime, do you recognize Mercer’s sword?

Hugh Mercer (1726-1777) was a soldier, a physician, and a close friend to George Washington. Mercer died as a result of his wounds received at the Battle of Princeton and became a fallen hero and rallying symbol of the American Revolution.

Here might be an answer to the question: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Sword-of-Princeton-hero-to-be-displayed-at-American-Revolution-museim.html

A detail of this sword’s engraved blade is below.

Detail of tag below.

The Death of Mercer, ca. 1789-ca. 1831, oil painting, Yale University. 1832.6.1

The Vote Album

The Vote Album ([London?]: Women’s Freedom League, no date [ca. 1910]). Album with 20 green paper leaves cut to house postcards. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a rare copy of a postcard album sold by the Women’s Freedom League at the height of the “Votes for Women” campaign. The faded white and gold central panel contains the title The Vote Album with a design attributed to Eva Claire showing the Suffragists at the door of the State, which is barred and bolted against them. Seeking entrance are the Women of the Nation: graduates in academic dress standing side by side with working women.

This particular album once belonged to Mrs. Louisa Thomson-Price (nee Sowdon, 1864-1926). She was the daughter of a Tory military family but from an early age rebelled against their way of thinking and became a secularist and a Radical. She was impressed by Charles Bradlaugh of the National Secular Society (NSS) and in 1888, married John Sansom, who was a member of the NSS. Thomson-Price worked as a journalist from around 1886, as a political writer (then a very unusual area for women), and drew cartoons for a radical journal, Political World. She was also a member of the Council of the Society of Women Journalists. After the death of her first husband in 1907 she married George Thomson Price.

Thanks to Ed Smith and Elizabeth Crawford for their research on the album, repeated here.

Price was an early member of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL), became a consultant editor of its paper, The Vote, and then, a director of its firm: Minerva Publishing. Price took part in the WFL picket of the House of Commons and was very much in favor of this type of militancy. In her will she left £250 to the WFL and £1000 to endow a “Louisa Thomson Price bed” at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.

When she died Thomson-Price was living at 17 Belsize Park Gardens, Hampstead, and her will was witnessed by Edith Alexander, a professional nurse who ran a nursing home at that address. Also living there were Miss Edith Alexandra Hartley and Miss Martha Poles Hartley, the latter being the elder sister of the father of the novelist, L.P. Hartley. It is assumed that after Mrs. Thomson Price’s death The Vote Album remained in her home and was taken over by Miss Alexander as a place to put her own postcards, none of which have any suffrage relevance.

See also: Marion Holmes (died 1943), The A.B.C. of votes for women ([London]: Women’s Freedom League, [1912?])
And
Teresa Billington-Greig (1877-1964), Suffragist tactics (London: Women’s Freedom League, [191-]).

The Interior of the Lemercier Lithography Firm

At the center of this rare print, talking to a client, is Joseph Lemercier (1803-1887) the director of the celebrated Paris lithography firm of Lemercier & Cie. Behind him on the main floor are at least thirty lithographic presses, while artists and writers work on the balconies along the sides. Against the walls are cabinets filled with hundreds of Bavarian limestones catalogued and held for reprinting.

Lemercier learned the art of lithography working at Formentin & Cie and then in the shop of Édouard Knecht, a pupil of Aloys Senefelder. He obtained his license as a printer-lithographer in 1828 and moved to 2 rue Pierre Sarrazin with a single lithographic press. From there, Lemercier moved to a larger studio on 55, rue du Four, Saint-Germain, and finally 57, rue de Seine, where he founded the printing company Lemercier et Cie in 1837. His nephew Alfred Léon Lemercier joined the firm and succeeded him until 1901.

Charles Villemin (active 1835-1849) after a design by Victor Adam (1801-1866), Interieur de l’Imprimerie lithographique de Lemercier (Interior of the Lemercier Lithographic Printing House), printed by Lemercier & Cie., no date (ca. 1842). Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GC 077.

See also: Alfred Lemercier, La lithographie Française de 1796 à 1896: et les arts qui s’y rattachent, manuel pratique s’adressant aux artistes et aux imprimeurs (Paris: C. Lorilleux & cie, [1896?]). SAX Oversize NE2349.25 .L453 1896q

An Early Comic Strip, 1841

Thomas Onwhyn (1814-1886), A Railway Adventure that Mr. Larkin Encountered with the Lady of Captn. Coleraine. Showing the Power of Platonic Love (London: Ackermann & Co, no date [ca . 1841]). Etched concertina with 20 plates. Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process.

The first railroad line from the London Bridge to Brighton opened in 1841 and Onwhyn’s book was published in conjunction with that event. The artist is best remembered for his pirated illustrations to works by Charles Dickens, under the pseudonym Samuel Weller.

See also:
Thomas Onwhyn, The Child’s Own New Scrap Book of Pictures by Peter Pallette (London: Dean & Son, 11, Ludgate Hill, [between 1857 and 1865]). CTSN Eng 19Q 7013

Thomas Onwhyn, Illustrations to the Pickwick Club edited by “Boz”; by Samuel Weller ([London]: E. Grattan, 1837). Rare Books: Morris L. Parrish Collection (ExParrish) Dickens 758

Thomas Onwhyn, Nothing to Wear (London: Rock & Co, 1858). (Ex) 2014-0549N

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