Petite visionneuse

Thanks to the help of Professor Rubén Gallo, the Graphic Arts Collection acquired a small peep show viewer, ca. 1865, mounted with 12 miniature albumen silver photographs. The pyramid shaped device has a monocular lens at the front through which one views the photographs. A moveable lid can be raised to let in light. The 12 prints are sewed to a panoramic strip of cloth that is rotated by two copper buttons.

The viewer or visionneuse comes originally from a maison close or brothel in Paris. The images, no more than 3 cm, are of a nude man and woman in various erotic poses, not unlike something you might find today on the internet. Small enough to be held in the palm of your hand, the device could easily be passed secretly from one man to another for their viewing pleasure.

For more about the history of prostitution in 19th century Paris, see the exhibition and catalogue for “Splendor and Misery: Images of Prostitution 1850-1910,” at the Musée d’Orsay. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/arts/design/splendor-and-misery-images-of-prostitution-captures-a-profession-in-paris-through-artists-eyes.html?_r=0

Bartholomew Fair in 1721

Bartholomew’s Fair in 1721, no date (1824). Etching and aquatint designed as a fan. Sold by J.F. Setchel. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process.

From 1133 to 1855, the citizens of London came together for several days each August to enjoy the pleasures at the Bartholomew Fair. Thanks to this colored aquatint, we can also enjoy the many entertainments offered during the 1721 fair, including a peep-show of The Siege of Gibraltar, Lee and Harper’s presentation of Judith and Holofernes, Faux’s Dexterity of Hand and his Famous posture master. At the top, people are seen riding an “ups and downs,” an early version of the ferris wheel.

“There was once sold in Bartholomew Fair a Fan,” wrote Henry Morley in his Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair, “on which the Fair was represented as it then appeared in the eyes of a Bartholomew artist, who having his own views of perspective, carefully economised the number of his figures, and left out at discretion bodies or legs, in the treatment of which he was embarrassed. A coloured engraving of this picture was issued by Mr. Setchel of Covent Garden, with a brief description commonly assigned to Caulfield, the bookseller, author of four volumes of Remarkable Characters. The date of the Fan is here said to be 1721; but this cannot be right, since it displays, among other things, a puppet show of the Siege of Gibraltar, which occurred in 1727. Almost every great Siege in which England was concerned reappeared on the first occasion in the shows at the Fair.”

A drawing for this scene, owned by the British Museum, was probably made circa 1730 but the fans were likely printed and sold in 1824.
Isaac Fawkes or Faux (1675?–1732) was an English magician and showman. In 1722, he paid for an advertisement that read, “Tricks by Dexterity of Hand, with his Cards, Eggs, Corn, Mice, curious India Birds, and Money . . . Likewize the surprising Activity of Body perform’d by his Little Boy, of 12 Years of Age . . . .” —A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 5 (Firestone PN 2597 .H5 1973).
Possible portrait of Robert Walpole (1676-1745)

Let not the ballad singer’s shrilling strain
Amid the swarm thy listening ear detain:
Guard well thy pocket, for these syrens stand
To aid the labours of the diving hand;
Confederate in the cheat, they draw the throng,
And Cambric handkerchiefs reward the song.”

–Andrew White Tuer, Old London Street Cries and the Cries of To-day (1885)

David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), Kenneth Macleay (1802-1878), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process.
Kenneth Macleay was a Scottish painter who specialized in miniatures, seen here posing in full Highland dress. He is also known as the husband to Louisa Campbell (1817-1868).
David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), Thomas Duncan (1807-1845), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process
Thomas Duncan, RA RSA, was a Scottish portrait and historical painter.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired 8 early photographic portraits by the great Scottish painter David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848), a Scottish chemist and pioneer photographer.

“In the mid-1840s, the Scottish painter-photographer team of Hill and Adamson produced the first substantial body of self-consciously artistic work using the newly invented medium of photography. William Henry Fox Talbot’s patent restrictions on his “calotype” or “Talbotype” process did not apply in Scotland, and, in fact, Talbot encouraged its use there. Among the fellow scientists with whom he corresponded and to whom he sent examples of the new art, was the physicist Sir David Brewster, principal of the United Colleges of Saint Salvator and Saint Leonard at Saint Andrews University, just north of Edinburgh. By 1841, Brewster and his colleague John Adamson, curator of the College Museum and professor of chemistry, were experimenting with the calotype process, and the following year they instructed Adamson’s younger brother Robert in the techniques of paper photography. By May 1843, Robert Adamson, then just twenty-one years old, was prepared to move to Edinburgh and set up shop as the city’s first professional calotypist.” Selection from: Malclom Daniel. “David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) and Robert Adamson (1821–1848) (1840s)”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hlad/hd_hlad.htm (October 2004)

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), George Meikle Kemp (1795-1844), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process. The Scottish architect George Kemp [also seen below] is best known as the designer of the Scottish Monument in central Edinburgh.

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), George Meikle Kemp (1795-1844), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process..

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), William Etty (1787-1849), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process
The English artist William Etty later painted a self-portrait based on photographs taken by Hill and Adamson.

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), David Octavius Hill and two unknown ladies, ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), Sir William Allan (1782-1850), ca. 1843. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process. Allan was a noted Scottish history painter, who traveled extensively painting in Russia, Italy, Spain, and Greece.

David Octavius Hill (1802–1870); Robert Adamson (1821–1848), William Forrest (1805-1889), ca. 1845. Salted paper print from paper negative. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process.
The Scottish engraver William Forrest studied with Thomas Fry in London before moving to the United States, eventually settling in Hudson N.Y.

Thereafter

Maro Vandorou, Thereafter ([Dublin, CA]: Maro Vandorou; printed and bound by Sandy Tilcock, 2015). 20 unnumbered leaves. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

“Thereafter is a limited edition handmade book of original images and writings. The conceptual focus is on capturing, depicting and interpreting the enigmatic behavior of a coral paeonia. In the course of 7 days the flower undergoes an almost mystical transformation with a profound healing effect.”

New Art for the A Floor

While many of the students and faculty were driving home for Thanksgiving, we used the quiet time to hang a few more paintings on the A floor of Firestone Library.

Here you see Elizabeth Aldred, registrar for the Princeton University Art Museum, completing a condition report on Jean-Paul Riopelle’s untitled painting before it was packed up and returned to the museum for conservation.

In its place, the museum kindly offered a beautiful 1960s painting by the New York artist Loren MacIver for the Cheng Family Reading Room.
MacIver was a primarily self-taught artist, known for semi-abstract landscapes, cityscapes, and close views of natural forms, many of them ensconced in a hazy fog, lending them a dreamlike aura.

”My wish is to make something permanent out of the transitory,” MacIver wrote in 1946. ”Certain moments have the gift of revealing the past and foretelling the future. It is these moments that I hope to catch.”

MacIver befriended many American poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, E. E. Cummings, and Marianne Moore. See also the catalogue prepared to honor the artist at her death: Loren MacIver: A Retrospective (New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 1998). Marquand Library (SA) Oversize ND237.M165 B287 1998q
Loren MacIver (1909–1998), Byzantium, ca. 1965. Oil on canvas. Gift of Thirteen Friends (Mrs. Harold Hochschild, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Hochschild, Mrs. R. Wolcott Hooker, Mr. and Mrs. P. J. Kelleher, Mr. Frank Kissner, Mr. and Mrs. John McAndrew, Miss Dorothy C. Miller, Mrs. J. D. Rockefeller III, Mr. James T. Soby, Miss Eleanor D. Wilson). Princeton University Art Museum.

This was followed by the hanging of a monumental painting titled Hippolytus by Princeton University alumnus Cleve Gray, Class of 1940. While at Princeton, Gray studied in the department of Art and Archaeology, completing a thesis on Yuan Dynasty landscape painting with George Rowley (1892-1962).

After serving in Europe during World War II, Gray remained in Paris to receive informal art training from a number of French artists. His paintings from the 1960s, including this one, graft impulsive gestures derived from Abstract Expressionism onto a more or less solid armature, a fusion that hints at the competing tensions at play in painting in the 1960s.

Cleve Gray, Class of 1940 (1918–2004), Hippolytus, 1963. Oil on canvas. Gift of the artist. Princeton University Art Museum.
For more on Hippolytus, see Princeton University’s “Phaedra project” website:

“Born to Minos, King of Crete, and Pasiphaë, immortal daughter of Helios, the Sun, Phaedra became the second wife to Theseus, the founder-king of Athens. Theseus’s son Hippolytus (by his first wife Hippolyta) was a virginal devotee of Artemis, and spurned Aphrodite. In revenge for his disregard, Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with Hippolytus. In some accounts, it is the nurse who reveals Phaedra’s burning passion for her stepson, while in others it is Phaedra herself. When Hippolytus vehemently rejects his step-mother’s desire, Phaedra falsely accuses him of rape. Believing his wife, Theseus curses his son, prompting Poseidon to send a sea monster (or in some accounts Dionysus to send a wild bull), to terrify Hippolytus’s horses and to plunge his chariot over a cliff, sending him to his doom. As many versions of the story have it, Phaedra, upon hearing of her beloved Hippolytus’s death, takes her own life.” — “Myth in Transformation: The Phaedra Project” http://www.princeton.edu/~phaedra/index.html

Nolli’s Rome

We are preparing for next week’s visit from ART 233 / ARC 233 Renaissance Art and Architecture taught by Carolina Mangone and Carolyn Yerkes. The course is described: “What was the Renaissance? This class explores the major artistic currents that swept northern and southern Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries in an attempt to answer that question. In addition to considering key themes such as the revival of antiquity, imitation and license, religious devotion, artistic style, and the art market, we will survey significant works by artists and architects including Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Jan van Eyck, Dürer, and Michelangelo. Precepts will focus on direct study of original objects, with visits to Princeton’s collections of paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, books and maps.”

To this end, we are rolling out the enormous maps of Rome [seen here] in 1748 by Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756) and Venice in 1500 originally published anonymously, now attributed to Jacopo de Barbari (ca. 1460/70-ca. 1516). The latter is Princeton University Library’s facsimile edition of the woodcuts published in 1962 by Officine Grafiche Trevisan, Cassa di Risparmio, Venezia.

Nolli’s map, a stunning original, is titled Alla Santita di Nosto Signore Papa Benedetto XIV la nuova topografia di Roma, ossequiosamente offerisce e dedica l’umilissimo servo Giambattista Nolli Comasco. Composed in 12 sheets, each 42 x 67.5 cm., the complete engraving measures a monumental 174 x 210 cm.

Thanks to our colleagues at Berkeley, a high resolution digital map can be found at:
http://vm136.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/maps/nolli.html

Giovanni Battista Nolli (1701-1756), Alla Santitá di Nosto Signore Papa Benedetto XIV la nuova topografia di Roma, ossequiosamente offerisce e dedica l’umilissimo servo Giambattista Nolli Comasco ([Roma]: Giambattista Nolli, 1748). 1 map on 12 engraved sheets; 174 x 210 cm, Rare Books: Historic Maps Collection (MAP)

A Speech Introducing Albert Einstein

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), A Speech Introducing Albert Einstein. Introduction and etching by Joseph R. Goldyne (Rockport, Maine: Two Ponds Press, 2015). Copy 19 of 75. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

“Professor Albert Einstein heard himself acclaimed by George Bernard Shaw tonight as one of the handful of men in all human history who have “Created Universes.” Before a thousand guests at a dinner here Professor Einstein listened while Mr. Shaw placed him on a pedestal with the greatest thinkers of mankind. Only seven men in the history of 2,500 years, said Mr. Shaw, could share with Professor Einstein his place as a destroyer of the old absolutism and builder of the new world. The list began with Pythagoras and included Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and finally Einstein, “the greatest of our contemporaries.” –Anonymous, “Shaw Calls Einstein Universe Creator. Acclaims Scientist, the Guest at Dinner in London, as One of History’s Eight Greatest.” Special cable to the New York Times, October 29, 1930.

Shaw’s speech was delivered at a formal high-profile fund-raising dinner for ORT (Obschestvo Remeslenovo i. Zemledelcheskovo Trouda), an organization dedicated to the support of Eastern European Jewry. The setting was the ballroom of London’s Savoy Hotel in 1930.

In this newly acquired fine press edition, the full text of Shaw’s speech is reprinted, together with Albert Einstein’s response, originally delivered in German and printed here in English translation. Joesph Goldyne illustrated the volume with five etchings created especially for this publication. The drypoints, etchings, and burnished aquatints, executed with the artist’s unique graphic signature, pay tribute to the featured speakers as well as to the sense of the event.

.
.
.
.

A portion of the actual speech has been posted here. Nice to include the laughter and the applause:

A Man in Bogotá

The Man in Bogotá. Story by Amy Hempel, Photocollages by Mary Daniel Hobson, Design and Night Skies by Charles Hobson ([San Francisco]: Pacific Editions, 2015). Copy 17 of 40. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process.

“Mary Daniel Hobson’s photocollages were created by layering photographic transparencies, stitched tissue paper, old maps, handwriting and real bird feathers. They have been reproduced here as archival pigment prints on Entrada 300 rag paper by Rhiannon Alpers at the San Francisco Art Institute. Rhiannon Alpers also printed the text in Adobe Garamond by letterpress on Coronado SST paper.”

“The circular holes in the pages were laser cut at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California, and the covers and clamshell boxes have been made at the studio of John DeMerritt, Emeryville, California.”

“Charles Hobson designed the edition and painted the night sky individually for each set of covers and for the insets with acrylic paint on Canson Mi-Tientes paper. He also assembled and bound the edition with the assistance of Alice Shaw.”–Colophon.

“The book contains five photocollages bound into a concertina spine. A sixth image is presented as a separate print signed by the artist in a folder on the inside of the back cover.”–Prospectus.

An interview with the author Amy Hempel: http://bombmagazine.org/article/2058/amy-hempel

Frances Parker, Countess of Morley

The Times have been
That when the brains were out
The man would die
And there an end

Frances Talbot Parker, Countess of Morley (1781-1857), The Flying Burgermaster: a Legend of the Black Forest ([S.l.]: F. Morley, 1832). Letterpress and lithographs. Rare Books (Ex) 3866.569.335

inscribed on flyleaf

This volume was pulled today to answer a reference question. Both images and text have been attributed to Frances Talbot Parker, Countess of Morley (1781-1857). The Countess is listed in Modern English Biography (1897) as the “celebrated as a woman of wit and the ‘first of talkers’; a painter rn. 23 Aug. 1809, as his second wife, John Parker 1 Earl of Morley, b. 1772, d. 14 March 1840; lithographed the plates in Portraits of the Spruggins family, arranged by Richard Sucklethumkin Spruggins 1829; author of The Flying burgomaster, a legend of the BlackForest 1832 anon; The royal intellectual bazaar, a prospectus of a plan for the improvement of the fashionable circle 1832 anon; The man without a name, 2 vols. 1852; edited Dacre, a novel, 3 vols. 1834. d. Saltram, Plympton 6 Dec. 1857. bur. in family vault at Plympton St. Mary.”

More of her biography can be found at http://anidarayfield.blogspot.com/2013/10/frances-1st-countess-morley-artist.html.

Note, an unillustrated prose version of this story turns up in Henry Glassford Bell, My old portfolio: or, tales and sketches (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1832). Hard to know which came first.

Persoz’s calico

Jean-François Persoz (1805-1868), Traité théorique et pratique de l’impression des tissus … Ouvrage avec 165 figures et 429 échantillons intercalés dans le texte …(Paris: V. Masson, 1846). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize TP930 .P46q

“The newly developed and developing techniques of color photography and color printing, particularly “chromotypogravure” in which the dots of the half-tone screen are used to produce grainy color may have encouraged him to pursue his pointillist methods, but are unlikely to have been major causative factors behind his style. For concepts of contrast and harmony, Chevreul is obviously of key importance, but he is not the only author [Georges] Seurat consulted in the field of tapestry design. Jules Persoz’s brilliantly illustrated Traité de l’impression des tissues attracted Seurat’s attention, to the extent that the painter transcribed a section of its text. There was also much interest in oriental color usage, in theory and in practice. The general impression is that Seurat avidly consumed writings on color, turning a variety of apparently diverse ideas to his own coherent account.” –Martin Kemp: The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (1990) Firestone ND1475 .K45 1990

The study that George Seurat called “brilliant” was written by Jean-François Persoz (1805-1868), a chemist and Professor in the School of Pharmacy at Strasbourg. Persoz prepared the book for the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale (founded 1802), winning a medal and more importantly, the publication of his work.

The first volume describes the technical aspects of coloring and chemistry, while the following volumes include vibrant fabric samples from the principal calico printers in England, Scotland, Alsace, Switzerland, Normandy and Paris.

The five volumes are illustrated with 429 fabric samples, each individually mounted onto printed pages. Volume 5 includes 3 chromolithographs of decorative dot patterns.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: