James Sanford Hulme (1900-1974), The Princeton Club, Park Ave, N.Y.C., May 28, 1957. Color serigraph. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Sandra T. Brushart and Arthur H. Thornhill, III, in memory of their father Arthur H. Thornhill, Jr., Class of 1946.

In 1961, The Daily Princetonian announced that the Princeton Club had broken ground for a new home at 15-21 West 43rd Street [where it remains today]. “Ever since a small group from the Class of 1895 leased the third floor of a building on West 24th Street, shortly after graduation, the dream of a Princeton Club, fully equipped and housed in its own building, has been in the minds of alumni,” wrote Robert Lanza.

“Since that date, the club has been a floating institution. Expiration of the lease in 1897 caused the club to be abandoned in fact, but not in thought.

After two years of planning, on December 7, 1899, the Princeton Club of New York was incorporated. And less than four months later, in March 1900, the members entered their new Club House in the old Vanderbilt home on the corner of 34th Street and Park Avenue, where the Vanderbilt Hotel stands today. By 1908, the lease had run out, and the 1400 residents and nonresidents, requiring more room, decided not to renew.

Instead, they moved to larger quarters at Gramercy Park North and Lexington Avenue, into the former residence ‘of the noted architect, Stanford White. There the club stayed for 10 years. Pressures caused by the war years resulted, in 1918, in a decision to accept an invitation by the Yale Club to share its quarters at 44th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. The decision proved an advantage to both.

In 1922 the Princeton Club was able to purchase the residence on the corner of 39th Street and Park Avenue, where the club has remained for 39 years. In 1929 the adjoining residence of the late Austin G. Fox was added to the club property. Financial difficulties brought on by the depression made it mutually practical for the Brown Club to share the Princeton Club facilities, starting in March 1933. Later, similar arrangements were made with the Dartmouth College Club, which moved into the former Fox residence on April 1, 1942. Thus, the present facilities at 39th Street and Park Avenue accommodate 3200 members of the Princeton Club, over half of whom are non-resident, 1200 members of the Dartmouth College Club and 800 members of the Brown Club.”

The Graphic Arts Collection is pleased to have acquired a rare sketchbook belonging to the architectural draughtsman Friedrich Wilhelm Kloss (1805-1875). The small volume’s 40 foliated leaves hold 78 drawings, mostly city and landscape views but also a few genre scenes, plant studies, costume sketches, and other fascinating details Kloss recorded around 1828.
Kloss spent most of his life in Berlin in the circle of the architect Friedrich August Stüler (1800-1865) who, with royal patronage, transformed Berlin. Kloss specialized in highly finished topographical and architectural watercolor views. Thanks to this sketchbook, we can now chronicle his time in Rome, which he captured in seventeen architectural views including Vesta Temple; view of St. Peter from the Gianicolo; view of St. Peter with Castel san Angelo and Tiber; Porta dell Popolo; bridge over the Tiber; Forum Romanum; Venus Temple; Concordia Temple; Sant’Onofrio; Temple of Antonio; the lake in Villa Borghese gardens; Villa Pamphili; gardens of Villa Medici; courtyard view of a Roman palace; and several unidentified views. He also visited Tivoli, Venice, Florence, and the ruins in Paestum and Portici.



There are also four pages of autographs, where German artist friends living in Rome recorded their names at the end of Kloss’s sketchbook as a sign of friendship. He notes, “Am latten Abend im Künstlerverein hier Roma, als ich den Künstlern Lebewohl sagte, haben dieselben ein Gleiches gethan und zur Erinnerung ihre Namen hier eingetragen” (on the last evening at the German Artists Society in Rome, when I [i.e. Kloss] said farewell, the artists did the same and in memory of our friendship signed their names).

This is a very early document showing that there was a formal association, a Künstlerverein, of German artists in Rome. A total of seventeen German artists residing in Rome, mostly painters, but also the odd sculptor or etcher, signed their names and some also gave the city of their birth. They are listed here in the order they appear in the sketchbook:

August Hopfgarten – Zur Erinnerung an Rome (i.e. ‘in memory of Rome’) [lived in Rome 1827-32]; J[ohann] Bravo [lived from 1827 in Rome]; G. Baumgarten aus Dresden; Friederich Peller aus Weimar [Rome 1826-31]; Dr. Carl Schunterman; Adolph Loehser; Adolph Kaiser aus Weimar [Rome 1828-30]; H[erman] W[ilhelm] Bissen [Rome 1823-35, sculptor, favourite pupil of Thorvaldsen]; August Riedel aus Bayreuth [Rome March 1828-29, and again from 1832]; Kühne aus Eisleben; August Richter aus Dresden [Rome 1826-30, draughtsman]; [Franz] Nadorp [Rome from Jan. 1828, etcher]; A[nton] Draeger aus Trier [lived in Rome since 1821]; Friedrich Mosbrugger aus Konstanz [Rome Dec. 1827-1829]; Bernhard Neher von Biberach [Rome 1827-31]; Eduard Erhad aus Graudenz in Westpreussen [Rome 1826-30]; Rudolf Freytag zur Erinnerung Rom ’28 [Rome 1825-30, again 1840-43, sculptor]; Joseph Anton Koch Rome [Rome 1795-1812, and 1815-1839], Kloss has written above Koch’s name ‘Ausgezeichneter Landschaftsmaler’ (i.e. ‘excellent landscape painter’), while Koch himself, a notorious womaniser, used the opportunity to greet a lady friend, Louise Oesterreich, from afar in the knowledge that Kloss would report his greetings to her in his native Berlin, he helpfully also furnished her address, ‘Louise Oesterreich, Mauerstra[sse] no. 65, eine Treppe hoch, bitte ich höflich zu grüssen’; [August] W[ilhelm] Schirmer [Rome 1827-31].

Friedrich Wilhelm Kloss (1805-1875), Sketchbook of Rome, Tivoli, Florence, Venice, and the ruins of Paestum, ca. 1828. Pencil, pen and wash drawings. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process