Wille

Johann Georg Wille (sometimes Jean Georges Wille, 1715-1808) after Gerard Ter Borch II (1617-1681), L’Instruction Paternelle [Paternal Instruction], 1765. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection

Johann Georg Wille (sometime Jean Georges Wille, 1715-1808) after Godfrey Schalken (1643-1706), Le Concert de Famille [The Family Concert], 1769. Engraving. Second state with coat of arms. Graphic Arts Collection

The Graphic Arts collection has 19 engraving by the German-born printmaker Johann Georg Wille (sometimes Jean Georges Wille, 1715-1808). Most of these are reproductions of French, Dutch, and Italian oil paintings. At one time, Wille served as an engraver to emperors and kings but as the 18th century progressed, commissions became infrequent, Wille lost most his possessions, and died in poverty.

Seen here are two engravings, one is a second state with a coat of arms but without the caption added. The other is a third state with both coat of arms and caption. The Princeton University Art Museum also has a copy of The Family Concert, given by Junius S. Morgan, Class of 1888. Theirs is the first state before letters and coat of arms.

See also:
Bibiena, Ferdinando Galli, 1657-1743. Basilica Carolina: opus grande, non homini sed Deo praeparata habitatio … : Mannhemii Palatina in metropoli aedificata … Mannhemii: Ex Typographejo Electorali Aulico, [1760]. Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books Oversize N6923.B52 R322 1760f

Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744. Essai sur l’homme. Traduction franc̦oise en prose, par Mr. S**** [i.e. Étienne de Silhouette]. Lausanne, M. Chapuis, 1762. Temporarily Shelved at Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 2005-0451Q

Wille, Johann Georg, 1715-1808. Mémoires et journal de J.-G. Wille, graveur du roi, pub. d’après les manuscrits autographes de les manuscrits autographes de la Bibliothèque impériale, par Georges Duplessis, avec une préface par Edmond et Jules de Goncourt. Paris, Ve J. Renouard, 1857. Marquand Library (SA) NE650.W6 A3

Where are the William Blakes in Lavater’s “Physiognomy”?

Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801), Essays on Physiognomy: Designed to Promote the Knowledge and the Love of Mankind [Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe]; illustrated by more than eight hundred engravings, accurately copied; and some duplicates added from originals; executed by, or under the inspection of, Thomas Holloway (London: Printed for John Murray … H. Hunter … and T. Holloway …, 1792). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2007-0002Q

William Blake (1757-1827) engraved four plates for the English edition of Essays on Physiognomy by Johann Caspar Lavater as well as a portrait of Lavater commissioned by Joseph Johnson. A student recently asked which plates exactly were engraved by Blake.

The Graphic Arts Collection’s three volumes of the English edition are complete with 173 engraved plates by Blake, Bartolozzi, Thomas Holloway and others, with an additional 500 engraved illustrations and vignettes in the text. Blake is believed to be responsible for three of the engraved vignettes signed “Blake S” and “Blake Sc” in volume one, as well as a full page plate engraved by Blake after Rubens.

William Blake, volume 1, opposite p. 159

William Blake, volume 1, p. 206

Attributed to William Blake, volume 1, p.127

William Blake, volume 1, p. 225

The full plate portrait of Democritus comes in Lavater’s chapter, “Harmony of Moral with Physical Beauty,” addition Eighth. Democritus” beginning on page 159 with the text:

“Here is a Democritus after Rubens, Painted from fancy. He is not the person whom the philosophers represent ‘as a vast and penetrating spirit, a creative genius capable of every thing, the author of new discoveries, and the improver of those already made. This is not the man who had his eyes thrust or burnt out, as a security against the distraction of mind occasioned by external objects, that he might give himself wholly up to abstract speculations. Neither is he the declared enemy of sensuality and carnal pleasure.’ No; this is not the Democritus before us: it is the image of Democritus the Laugher, who ‘Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum / Protuleratque pedem,’ [Who grinn’d and grinn’d at every one he met]. He who laughs continually, and at every thing, is not only a fool, but a wicked wretch; as he who is always crying, and at every thing, is a child, a changeling, or a hypocrite.”

The majority of the plates were engraved by Thomas Holloway (1748-1827)

The Game of the Goose

“The Royal Game of the Goose–400 Years of Printed Board Games” will open on February 24, 2016, at the Grolier Club in New York. The exhibition is organized by and based on the collection of British historian Adrian Sevelle. “Dating from medieval times,” Sevelle writes, “The Royal Game of the Goose is the simplest of games: throw the dice to race to the end of the spiral track. No choice of move, no demonstration of skill. Yet this game has spawned thousands of variants, has influenced early American board games, and is still going strong in Europe.”

“Some Beautiful Board Games” is a half-day symposium on the art and history of printed board games on April 5, chaired by Andrea Immel, Princeton University curator of the Cotsen Childrens Library.

Although most of the games of the goose in our collections are found in the Cotsen Childrens Library, the Graphic Arts Collection has a few adult versions.

J. A. Grozier, Game of Round the World: a Novel and Fascinating Game with Plenty of Excitement by Land and Sea: with Nellie Bly (1864-1922), the World’s Globe Circler (New York: McLoughlin Brothers, 1890).

Le prix de sagesse ou La Fontaine en jeu (The Price of Wisdom or A Game of La Fontaine), 1810. Etching. Paris: Chez Demonville Imprimeur Libraire.

Luca Pacioli Discarded

It is being reported that Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has dropped the museum’s old logo based on a woodcut by Fra Luca Pacioli for a new logo designed by the firm Wolff Olins (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/arts/the-met-and-a-new-logo.html)

Fra Luca Pacioli (approximately 1445-1517). Divina proportione: opera a tutti glingegni perspicaci e curiosi necessaria oue ciascun studioso di philosophia, prospectiua, pictura, sculptura, architectura, musica, e altre mathematice, suauissima, sottile, e admirabile doctrina consequira ... / m. Antonio Capella eruditiss. recensente. [Venice]: A. Paganius Paganinus … imprimebat, [1 June 1509]. After designs by Leonardo, da Vinci (1452-1519). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2004-1250Q

The Ancients, having taken into consideration the rigorous construction of the human body, elaborated all their works, as especially their holy temples, according to these proportions; for they found here the two principal figures without which no project is possible: the perfection of the circle, the principle of all regular bodies, and the equilateral square.–Luca Pacioli

Chromatropes

A group of art history students have organized a visit to the Graphic Arts Collection on Friday to see our collection of magic lanterns. With help from the Cotsen Collection, we have arranged quite an assortment of lanterns and lantern slides.
In particular, we have a number of slipping slides, artificial fireworks, kaleidoscopes, and [seen here] chromatrope slides. These have a second strip of painted glass over a fixed one and use a rack and pinion mechanism to create a circular motion. The lantern operator would slowly turn the crank and make planets move, ships sail, and a variety of objects appear or disappear. Here’s one example (note the image would be laterally reversed when projected through the lantern’s lens):

See also this post about the Cotsen Childrens Library’s collection: https://blogs.princeton.edu/cotsen/2015/01/mechanical-magic-patterns/

The First Picture of a Printing Press

In preparing for the Spring 2016 class “Waking the Dead,” ATL 497 at the Princeton Atelier [http://arts.princeton.edu/academics/atelier/], we pulled a number of books and prints. The class is being taught by graphic novelist Kevin C. Pyle and Jennine Willett, co-artistic director of Third Rail Projects, a dance theater company known for immersive works. Pyle and Willett are collaborating with students across multiple disciplines to integrate movement, images, and text into a new story-telling format.

Eric White, our curator of rare books, kindly gave me a preview of La grāt danse macabre des hōmes (Lyon, 1499) in the Scheide Library, which not only has spectacular representations of death but also the first illustration of a printing office and a working printing press. We have one of the only two copies known to have survived (the other is in the British Library).

Published by Mathias Huss, the page above shows death at a book shop, interrupting a compositor, and calling a halt to the printing of a book. Here are a few close ups (the color of the paper is not well represented in these photographs).

La grāt danse macabre des hōmes, des fēmes hystoriee, augmentee de beaulx dis en latin. Le debat du corps et de lame. La cōplainte de lame dampnee. Exortation de bien viure, bien mourir. La vie du mauuais antecrist. Les quinze signes. Le iugement. [With woodcuts.] G.L. ([Mathias Huss:] Lyon, le .xviii. iour de feurier, 1499). Scheide Library, Princeton University. dance of d7

Dreamland’s Big Statue

London-born illusionist Henry Roltair (1853-1910) designed “Creation at the Pike” (also called Roltair’s Creation) for the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Lasting over two hours, the ride took spectators through the biblical story of creation as described in the book of Genesis. Visitors were also shown the great wonders of the world, including the Grand Canyon, the Egyptian pyramids, and other international sites.

In 1905, the work was recreated and installed on Surf Avenue, Brooklyn, to serve as the entrance to Dreamland at Coney Island. The ride was shorter than the original but covered the same biblical theme of creation. Both the Creation ride and Dreamland continued until 1910 when its owner William Reynolds went bankrupt. The following year, Dreamland was destroyed in a fire.

“Dreamland’s Big Statue took twenty-three men two weeks to make moulds for ‘Creation,’” New York Tribune May 4, 1905:

“The allegorical figure, ‘Creation’ at the entrance to Dreamland, Coney Island, entailed in its erection unusual difficulties. The figure is that of an angel with extended wings which measure from tip to tip eighty feet. Its height is forty feet. It as the intention to bring to Dreamland the original figure which stood in front of the ‘Creation’ building at the St. Louis Fair but it was found that the original statue contained so much iron work that it would be impossible to cut it into sections for transportation. It became necessary to make a mould of this figure, the largest piece of statuary ever seen in this country except the Statue of Liberty. A Creatry & Co. contractors in ornamental plaster work, agreed to do the work and President Reynolds made the necessary contract with them. Mr. Creatry of that firm, who reproduced the statue and the ornamental work on the façade of the dreamland building said that it was the most difficult work he had ever undertaken. Two weeks were required to complete the moulds. . . Herman Leon [possibly Charles Herrmann-Leon, 1838-1908], a French sculptor made the original model of ‘Creation’. In all its dimensions it is that of the perfect woman. Ten women posed for different parts of the statue.”

Here is a short film of Dreamland in 1905. You will see the entrance to Creation about halfway through, just after the camel. The wings are not yet installed.

The gelatin silver photograph above was made between 1905-1910 by amateur photographer Thomas William Kennedy (1837-1923).

A Tragic Almanac

In the 1840s, a unique genre originated in lower Manhattan known as the tragic almanac. Meant as a complement to the popular comic almanacs, the tragic annuals offered stories of murders, shipwrecks, disasters, fires, and various other events of death and destruction. Surprisingly, they did not sell well and were soon discontinued.

It was Robert Henry Elton (1806-1850?) who may have been the first engraver and publisher of a comic almanac in New York City. The Graphic Arts Collection holds Elton’s Comic All-My-Nack, 1838 ([New York]: Elton & Harrison 134 Division 68 Chatham Sts. New York., [c1837?]). Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage RCPXG-6866954.

Elton eventually moved to 90 Nassau in late 1830s, continuing to produce a variety of almanacs and in the early 1840s, his competitor, engraver Charles P. Huestis, opened a shop at 104 Nassau just across of Ann Street from Elton’s firm. Huestis also published comic publications but had the idea to fill the public’s interest in the opposite side of the market.

In 1842, Huestis published The Tragic Almanac from the offices of the New York Sun at the corner of Nassau and Fulton, later publishing from his own shop a few doors away. The issues include a number of lurid wood engravings depicting scenes of horrible murders. Graphic Arts Collection holds an issue for 1843 (Hamilton SS 557). It is unclear whether this lasted more than two issues.

Thanks to Richard West’s biography of Thomas W. Strong (1817-1892) we know that Strong worked for Elton as a teenager (Ephemera News, summer 2009) through 1840, when Elton merged his firm with John McLoughlin to form Elton and Company.

When Strong left Elton to established his own shop at 98 Nassau Street, he decided to publish a tragic almanac, continuing the series begun the year before by Huestis. Strong’s annuals lasted until 1850. Unfortunately, Princeton doesn’t yet hold any of Strong’s rare tragic almanacs.
The Graphic Arts Collection does hold many comic editions, including Boy’s Own Book of Fun / with two hundred engravings by Old Comic Elton (New York : T. W. Strong, 1847). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1005s; The Crystal Palace Comic Almanac, 1854 (New York : T.W. Strong, [1853?]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1835; and Young America’s Comic Almanac for … (New York : T.W. Strong, 1855). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Hamilton 1842q.

A Pirated Print

The engraving “Fluvius Grandis,” was published as pages 620-621 in Arnoldus Montanus (1625-1683), De Nieuwe en onbekende Weereld of Beschryving van America en’t Zuid-Land or as translated into English by John Ogilby, The New and Unknown World: or Description of America and the Southland, (1671). It is only one of the book’s 125 maps and engravings.

The plate focuses on Forte dos Reis Magos (Fortress of the Three Wise Men) in the Brazilian city of Natal, along the banks of the Potengi River (later nicknamed the Rio Grande or in Latin, Fluvius Grandis).

The Dutch publisher Jacob van Meurs (ca. 1619-before 1680) also designed and printed engravings for the Dutch editions and most of the plates for the English publication.

However, a closer look at the loose engraving in the Graphic Arts Collection indicates that it was not by Meurs but is a pirated copy by Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733).

Benjamin Schmidt’s recent book Inventing Exoticism: Geography, Globalism, and Europe’s Early Modern World compares the two engravers, noting “Van der Aa . . . occupies an enviable place in the history of early modern print; he was the leading bookmaker of Leiden from the 1690s through the early 1730s and perhaps the most ambitious European publisher of his day. He mastered a slightly different form of geography than van Meurs, issuing massive, serial compilations, often comprising previously published texts, which were generously embellished with engraved maps, city views . . . and the like.”

Alexander Hamilton

The Graphic Arts Collection has many copies of the prints issued by the Society of Iconophiles. As beautifully described by the NYHS: “The Society of Iconophiles was formed in 1894 by William Loring Andrews (1837-1920), a member of the Grolier Club. Its stated purpose was to issue series of engraved views of New York City and portraits of prominent persons connected with New York City.

Each series of engravings was issued in an edition of 101. Eleven of these were proofs before letter, which were signed by the engraver. The plates were destroyed after this first printing. The Society initially limited itself to ten members, each of whom was to receive one of these signed proofs. The other 90 prints were sold to the public.

In 1905, the Society of Iconophiles enlarged its circle by creating 50 Associate Members, who subscribed to the upcoming print series. The initial group of ten became known as the Active Members. During its tenure, the Society produced seventeen discrete series of prints, other assorted prints, and several volumes. The Society of Iconophiles ceased to exist in 1939.”

From 1899 to 1902, Francis Scott King (1850-1913) completed six engraved portraits for the Iconophiles, including General Lafayette, George Washington, DeWitt Clinton, Admiral Dewey, and Aaron Burr. The last portrait he completed in 1902 was of Alexander Hamilton along with a view of Hamilton’s home, known as The Grange, which is now a national memorial: http://www.nps.gov/hagr/planyourvisit/index.htm.

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