recto
verso, date should be 1801
cover
title page
Emblems of Mortality, Representing, in Upwards of Fifty Cuts, Death Seizing All Ranks and Degrees of People … with an Apostrophe to Each Translated from the Latin and French … to Which is Prefixed a Copious Preface, Containing an Historical Account of the Above, and Other Paintings on the Subject … 1st American ed. (Hartford: Printed by John Babcock, 1801). Sinclair Hamilton Collection (GAX) Hamilton 214
Joachim Murat executed
Attributed to Forceval (active 1814-1815), Thumy Macaromi, fameux voleur (Famous Thief), no date [ca. 1815]. Collector’s stamp of William J. Latta. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2016- in process
This French caricature depicts the public execution of Joachim Murat (1767-1815), brother-in-law of Napoleon I (1769-1821). The sign on the pole reads: Il a volé L[e] R[oyaue] de N[aples] (He stole the kingdom of Naples), referring to the fact that Napoleon named him King of Naples.
In 1812 Murat took part in Napoleon’s Russian campaign but when the campaign failed, Murat fled to Corsica, where he was arrested. Murat was put on trial for treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. The caricature changes this to execution by garroting (strangulation by a wire or cord), which was the sentence for a common thief.
In Alexander Meyrick Broadley’s Collectanea Napoleonica (Rare Books (Ex) Napoleon DA) this print is listed as Italian. Since then, the signature of a scorpion in the lower left has been attributed to the French printmaker known as Forceval (active 1814-1815). According to the British Museum “One [print] is identified in Bibliographie de la France as being published by Forceval. Nothing is known about him apart from his surviving prints, some of which were entered in the Bibliographie de la France by Martinet.”
No other copy of this rare print has these manuscript annotations on the title.
Here are a few other prints with the scorpion signature:
Forceval (active 1814-1815), L’épouvantail inutile, 1814. Etching. (c) British Museum
Forceval (active 1814-1815), Caricature des caricatures, 1814. Etching. (c) British Museum.
Forceval (active 1814-1815), L’Oiseau envolé, 1815. (c) British museum
Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic Convention
Franklin McMahon (1921-2012), Senator Barack Obama (D, Ill.) Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, July 26, 2004, 2004. Acrylic paint, watercolor, and pencil on paper. Provenance: collection of Margot McMahon. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process.
Nearly twelve years ago, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama presented the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention held in Boston, Massachusetts. That Tuesday night in July became the decisive moment that propelled Obama forward and let him to become President of the United State.
Artist and visual journalist Franklin McMahon was in the audience that night and captured the drama of the moment in this acrylic painting, recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection. Unlike the multitude of photographs published, this sketch places the viewer in the middle of the audience and gives us a sense of the excitement of that event.
The Graphic Arts Collection is pleased to have acquired several important paintings on paper by Franklin McMahon (1921-2012), documenting key moments in recent American history. We thank, in particular, his granddaughter Irene Burke, Class of 2016 and a member of the PUAM Student Advisory Board, for her help with these acquisitions. We also thank Jeremy Darrington, Politics Librarian, and David Magier, AUL for Collection Development, without whom these acquisitions would not have been possible.
See also:
The Speech: Race and Barack Obama’s “A more perfect union,” edited by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009). Firestone Library (F) E184.A1 S698 2009
Barack Obama, An American Story: the Speeches of Barack Obama: a Primer by David Olive (Toronto: ECW Press, 2008). Firestone Library (F) E901.1.O23 O45 2008
Barack Obama, Barack Obama in His Qwn Words edited by Lisa Rogak (New York: Public Affairs, 2008). Firestone Library (F) E185.97.O23 A25 2008
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004). Firestone Library (F) E185.97.O23 A3 2004b
José Rosa
In preparation for SPA 327/URB 327/LAO 327 Latino Global Cities, taught by Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones and Germán Labrador Méndez, we pulled this poster for a 1977 exhibition by the printmaker and painter José Rosa, printed “under the auspices of the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Puerto Rico.” The image is based on a wonderful book by Luis Rafael Sánchez, La guaracha del macho Camacho (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1976). Firestone Library (F) PQ7440.S235 G8
Born in 1939, Rosa studied at the Taller del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueño (Graphic Arts Workshop of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture) run by Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004) and later succeeded Homar as the workshop’s director. As this print demonstrates, he was a master of screen printing. The print was later exhibited and reproduced in the catalogue José Rosa: Exposición Homenaje: Obra Gráfica, 1963-1996: Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico, 29 de abril al 31 de agosto de 1998 ([San Juan, P.R.]: Programa de Artes Plástica, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1998).
Bookseller identified
Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670), Zrelishche vselennyia na frantsuzskom, rossiiskom u nemetskom iazykakh [Pageant of the Universe in French, Russian and German languages] (Sankt Peterburg, 1788). [8] 142 p., LXXX engr. pl. 20 cm. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) European 18 115
Thank you so much to Claudia Dias, John Overholt, Gabriel Swift, and Ian Dooley, who helped with the identification of the unattached bookseller who has been drifting through the Graphic Arts Collection. The plate appears to be from the 1788 Russian adaptation of the Orbis Pictus or Orbis Sensualium Pictus (Visible World in Pictures also called the Pageant of the Universe), a textbook for children first published by Czech educator Johann Amos Comenius in 1658. Happily the plate was not removed from Princeton’s copy.
There are many editions, translations, and illustrations for this textbook. Here’s an English version: Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670), Orbis sensualium pictus… translated into English by Charles Hoole (London, J. Kirton,. 1659). Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) English 18 128
Here are a couple more plates:
See also: Adam Fijałkowski, Orbis pictus: świat malowany Jana Amosa Komeńskiego = Orbis pictus : die Welt in Bildern des Johann Amos Comenius (Warszawa: Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2008). Accompanies an exhibition at the Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie and the Herder-Institut in Marburg. Firestone Library (F) LT101.C63 F55 2008
Kupferstichkabinett
Paul Wunderlich (Eberswalde/Brandenburg 1927 – 2010 Saint-Pierre-de-Vassols), à deux, 1960. Farblithographie in 10 Farben, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett. Schenkung Dieter Brusberg, Berlin, 2010 Inv.-Nr. 2011-54
Thank you to Laura Giles, Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970, Curator of Prints and Drawings, for mentioning a new online source for over 4,000 German, Netherlandish, and Italian old master drawings and 11,000 Italian prints from the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
“You are invited to stroll through the database of the Kupferstichkabinett, which you can access via the website of the Hamburger Kunsthalle: http://emp-web-48.zetcom.ch/eMuseumPlus. Over the next years . . . we will add another 120,000 works on paper to this pool of online data. For 2016 we are planning to include the last 20 % of our Italian prints as well as our collection of Spanish drawings, and major parts of our 19th-century German prints and drawings.”
Congratulations to Dr. Andreas Stolzenburg and Dr. David Klemm of the Leiter Kupferstichkabinett, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Glockengießerwall, Hamburg, Germany.
www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de
www.netzwerk-graphische-sammlungen.com
Albrecht Dürer (Nürnberg 1471 – 1528 Nürnberg), Adam und Eva, 1504. Kupferstich. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett Inv.-Nr. 10554
The Stage and its Stars
Miss Ellen Terry as Portia
Sarah Bernhardt as Mrs. Clarkson
Howard Paul (1835-1905), The Stage and its Stars Past and Present: a Gallery of Dramatic Illustration and Critical Biographies of Distinguished English and American Actors from the Time of Shakespeare till Today, edited by Howard Paul and George Gebbie; [with] 128 photogravure portraits and scenes from steel plates, and over 400 portraits in the text (Philadelphia: Gebbie, 1887). 28 parts unbound. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process
The Merchant of Venice
“The work will contain in all 112 steel engravings, part by etching and part by photogravure, and about 500 engravings on wood. it will be issued in twenty-eight parts at one dollar each; each part will contain 4 steel plates; each plate will be accompanied by descriptive text, and each number will contain at least 8 pages of illustrated biography of the actors and history of the Stage. One number will be issued monthly until the whole is completed. no subscriber’s name will be taken for less than the entire work. the work is payable when delivered by our agents; no cash is to be paid in advance, and no credit given. We will guarantee that the work will be in every respect equal to the samples shown by our agents, and no representation outside this statement of terms and condition will be binding on the publishers.”–prospectus
Thank You Thank You Thank You
One more day to see Jaime Ding’s senior show in the Lucas Gallery at 185 Nassau, which is closing March 4, 2016. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, a show about things bags are, from Jaime Ding ’16. http://arts.princeton.edu/events/thank-thank-thank-senior-art-show-jaime-ding/
Association of European Printing Museums
The Graphic Arts Collection is proud to be a member of the Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM), an international printing heritage network. As their website states, “the aim of the AEPM is to encourage the sharing of knowledge, experience, initiatives, and resources in all fields of the graphic arts as they have been practised from the time of Gutenberg until the present day. Originally founded as an association of European printing museums, the AEPM has gradually enlarged its remit to include a broad range of organisations and individuals interested in printing heritage, both in Europe and beyond.” We encourage others to join as well. http://www.aepm.eu/
Along with other activities, the AEPM holds annual conferences and has recently placed a CFP for their upcoming gathering. The 2016 conference will be held at the Nederlands Steendrukmuseum (Dutch lithography Museum) in Valkenswaard (Netherlands) from 3-5 November 2016. It is being jointly organised with the IADM (Internationaler Arbeitskreis für Druck- und Mediengeschichte). The theme of the conference is:
From Stone to Chip. Lithography. Few people know what it is, and even fewer know how it works. Yet we are permanently surrounded by documents and objects printed by this long-established process. Introduced in the early years of the 19th century, lithography mutated in the early 20th century to become offset lithography which went on to replace letterpress as the principal industrial printing process. For more information, see their website.
One of the many press rooms highlighted in the website’s gallery. This is the Nederlands Steendrukmuseum, Valkenswaard (Netherlands).
Coleridge and Doré
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Doré Gallery, 1876). Graphic Arts Collection GAX Over 2006-0220F
“Gustave Doré’s illustrations to Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1876) have been widely known since their initial publication in London. They appeared the following year in the United States, where they passed rapidly through nine editions and were then reprinted (and pirated) many times. During the 1880s the folio edition was published in France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. After a gap of more than half a century when Doré fell out of fashion, interest in his art once again revived in the 1960s…. Grant F. Scott, “The Many Men so Beautiful: Gustave Doré’s Illustrations to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Romanticism. 16, Issue 1 (April 2010): 1-24
“The name of Gustave Doré, who died at Paris January 23, is one so familiar to everyone at all acquainted with modern book illustration, that a summary of those of his many art-works which were published in book-form is not out of place in a book-trade journal. The New York Tribune for January 24 gives, perhaps, the fullest account of his life, and from this we borrow the following: ‘Doré published his first lithographs at the age of eleven. When fifteen years old he published his first series of sketches, The Labors of Hercules, in the Journal pour Rire, to which he became a regular contributor . . . His first important work was in illustrating the legend of The Wandering Jew, in 1854, which made him famous outside of France. There followed chronologically his illustrations of Rabelais, Balzac’s Contes drolatiques, Montaigne (1857), Taine’s Voyage aux Pyrenees (1859), Dante (1861-68), Chateaubriand’s Atala (1862), Don Quixote (1863), Milton’s Paradise Lost (1865), the Bible (1865-66), Tennyson’s Idyls of the King (1866-68), La Fontaine’s Fables (1867) and Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.”–The Publishers Weekly, January 27, 1883.
Listen to Richard Burton read from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge