The Principles of Static and Friction

Richtige Grund Sätze der Friction Berechnung, Zuweit gewißerer Beurtheilung und Einrichtung aller Machinen überhaupt, aus des Monsr. Amontons und Monsr. Belidors Schrifften, dennen Lieb habern mechanischer Wissenschafften zu gefallen in beliebter kürtze zusammen getragen Andere Tabelle. Sumptibus hæredun Homannianorum Cum Privil. S. C. M. [ca. 1740-6]. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two large 18th-century wall charts outlining the principles of statics and friction. Homann Erben, one of the leading map publishers of the era, produced and published them in Nurnberg, Germany.

In the chart below, five simple machines are depicted demonstrating the concepts of force, equilibrium, and statics. Forty individual illustrations, together with accompanying descriptions and calculations, show a number of gear mechanisms, counterweights and pulleys, explaining ways in which forces combine with each other so as to produce equilibrium. At the top of this post, our second chart represents the “Important Principles of Friction” in sixteen variations using pulleys and hoists.

The principles being described come from two noted scientists: Guillaume Amontons (1663-1705) and Bernard Forest de Bélidor (1697/98-1761). Amontons “produced the first known study on the question of losses caused by friction in machines, and established the laws of proportionality between the friction and the mutual pressure of the bodies in contact.” Bélidor was professor of mathematics at the artillery school at La Fère, who wrote numerous texts on mechanics, including La Science des ingénieurs (1729), Marquand Library SAX NA2510 .B421 and Architecture hydraulique (1737-39) Recap 9166.162.

Homann Erben die Fürhehmsten Grund-Sätze der Static; oder Die Vergleichung der krafft und last an denen fünf einfachen machinen über haupt, bloß nach dem gleich gewichts standt, ohne der in der bewegung darbeis fürfallenden friction, in deutlichen proportions sätzen nach denen reguln der verhältnis in beliebte kürtze gebracht. [Nürnberg]: Herausgegeben von Homoennischen erben mit Kayser aller gn. Privl., [ca. 1740-60]. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA2015- in process

Taking the Company Wagon

The Czech Republic has a number of mineral and thermal springs. Over the years, curative spas and luxury resorts have been built around this area, hosting many famous visitors (I’m told), including Goethe, Beethoven, and Peter the Great. The most eminent are in the West Bohemian spa triangle including two of the largest: Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) in valley of the River Teplá and Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad), not far from Prague.

In 1830, Gottlieb Unger and Christoph Schäck purchased a carriage, which they called “the company wagon” or Gesellschaftswagen. These entrepreneurs established a bus route between the spa towns of Carlsbad and Marienbad, approximately 32.15 km or 19.98 miles. The estimated driving time given today on google maps is 43 minutes.

This unrecorded broadside advertises their luxury wagon service in a covered but open-side, horse-drawn carriage, which seated eight passengers comfortably. The broadside goes on to offer another smaller carriage for the exclusive use of four people and other options for personal transport throughout the summer months. Longer trips to Leipzig, Dresden or Prague could be arranged.

Gesellschaftswagen broadside ([Carlsbad], 1831). 383 x 233 mm, Graphic Arts collection GAX 2015- in process.

Gillett Griffin invents cloud storage

Gillett G. Griffin, Untitled [Gillett Griffin on ladder, placing books on shelf], no date [20th century]. Paper collage. Graphic Arts Collection GC001

A former Curator of Graphic Arts, Gillett G. Griffin (born 1928) was responsible for moving our collection into the 2nd floor of the new Firestone Library in 1953. This paper collage is a self-portrait of Griffin shelving (or re-shelving) the monumental collection while balancing on a cloud. Perhaps a foreshadowing of off-site storage.

Jean Dupuis’s Parting Words

Jean Dupuis (1799-1888) was a celebrated French athlete, circus performer, and wrestler who would traveled from town to town, performing feats of strength. He would lift a variety of heavy objects and then, challenge the strongest man in the town to a wrestling match, offering prize money to anyone who could defeat him.

He managed to remain undefeated for a number of years, fighting predominantly in Germany but also in Paris, Moscow, Rome, and Warsaw. Finally, on January 22, 1841, Dupuis lost a fight at the Munich Royal Theatre. A rare satirical broadside (above and below) was published celebrating this defeat at the hands of a Munich servant known only as Simon. The charming illustration shows Dupuis as a defeated half naked Hercules collapsed in his chariot as four Munich citizens wave his broadsides at him. These may well be the four men who wished to fight him. Dupuis only agreed to fight two and was defeated in his second bout.

Only one other copy of the Dupuis defeat broadside has been found in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and that copy is uncolored.The Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig (City Museum of Leipzig) has a number of Dupuis wrestling broadsides, although not these two. The distinctive wrestling woodcut at the bottom of this post was owned by Dupuis as it is used in two other broadsides by him.

Abschiedsworte an den geworfenen Herrn Jean Dupuis ersten Herkules von Europa und noch einigen Provinzen. Munich, 22 January 1841. Lithographic broadside with calligraphic title printed in gold. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process.

Sonntag den 20. October 1839. Grosses Kampfspiel im Ringen von Jean Dupuis mit einem starken Mann … welcher seine Kraft, heute Sonntag in der Abend-Vorstellung, mit mir messen will. [Leipzig], 1839. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

Holiday Cards Not Sent

Here are some images we did not choose for this year’s holiday card.
John McClellan (1908-1986), Woodstock Christmas, 1936. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00466.

The artists pictured here are John McClellan (back turned to viewer), Emil Ganso (1895-1941), Eugene Speicher (1883-1962), Russell Lee (1903-1986) next to stove, and Doris Lee (1905-1983) on sofa, nursing an infant. From 1906 until 1922, and again after the end of World War II, the Art Students League in New York City operated a summer school of painting at Woodstock, New York. Many artists split their time between Manhattan and Woodstock. Some, like McClellan, made it their permanent home.

Theodore Lane (1800-1828), A Merry Christmas Day, in the Watch House, for Milling the Charlies [beating up a policeman], no date [ca. 1828]. Etching with hand coloring. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00952.

Note from Legal aid: “If you’re in the watch-house and the police won’t give you bail, you have to be taken to court at the earliest possible time. If when you go to court you apply for bail but the court doesn’t give you bail, you’ll go back to jail (first back to the watch-house, and then to a remand centre) until your next court date. You usually won’t stay in the watch-house for more than a few days (but you may stay in a remand centre for much longer).” For the real story of this print, see: https://theprintshopwindow.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/thomas-mcleans-secret-shame/

James N. Rosenberg (1874-1970), A Christmas Card Not Sent, 1929. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.02401.

In the upper left side of the print is the inscription, “Dec. 25 1929, Festivities on Wall St.” It reminds us that the American Stock Market crashed in the fall of 1929 and few celebrations were held the following holiday season.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756 or 1757- 1827), The Brilliants, 1801. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014.00777. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

Tempus edax rerum – Time, that devours all things

Posted for everyone who is feeling a lack of time these days.

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Re-issue of Scraps and sketches … In monthly parts … Part 1st. Illustrations of time … (London: W. Kent & Co. [1860?]). 7 col. pl. on which are designs by G. Cruikshank, all of which originally appeared in 1827. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize 2015-0070F

Time Badly Employed

No More Time

Term Time

Time Gone, Past Recalling

Too Much Time

Lord Chief Baron Pollock, member of the London Photographical Society

While showing the scrapbook of early photography collected by Richard Willats today, the class noticed a loose photograph slipped into the very back of the album. The albumen silver print is a studio portrait of the Lord Chief Baron Frederick Pollock (1783-1870). Although it is not dated, we know that Pollock was an active member of the London Photographical Society and would have been interested in the new albumen process, which was invented around 1850. Compare it to the two formal portrait paintings done around the same time.

(c) Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Unidentified artist, Jonathan Frederick Pollock (1783–1870), Lord Chief Baron Pollock, Fellow and Judge, no date. Oil on canvas. (c) Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

According to the Oxford DNB, Sir (Jonathan) Frederick Pollock, first baronet (1783–1870) “attended, and quitted in dissatisfaction, three suburban schools before entering St Paul’s School in January 1800. At Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1802, he obtained a scholarship in 1804, but was nevertheless so poor that, but for the help of his tutor George Frederick Tavel, the ‘unlucky Tavel’ of Byron’s ‘Hints from Horace’, he would have left the university without a degree.”

“…Pollock entered the Middle Temple on 5 October 1802 and was called to the bar on 27 November 1807. Uniting a retentive memory, great natural acumen, and tact in the management of juries with a profound knowledge of the common law, Pollock rapidly acquired an extensive practice both at Westminster and on the northern circuit, which he went regularly from 1816, contending with Brougham and Scarlett.”

(c) Huntingdon Town Council; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Francis Grant, The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Pollock (1783–1870), Lord Chief Baron of Her Majesty’s Exchequer, 1849. Oil on canvas. (c) Huntingdon Town Council; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

“…In 1830 Pollock declined a judgeship in the common pleas and turned his attention to politics. . . He was knighted on 29 December 1834 on accepting the office of attorney-general in Sir Robert Peel’s first administration, which terminated on 9 April 1835. . . But his aspirations were judicial, not political, and he readily agreed to become lord chief baron of the exchequer in succession to Lord Abinger on 15 April 1844; he was made a serjeant on 18 April.”

“…On his retirement on 12 July 1866 Pollock received a baronetcy on 24 July. In the then rural surroundings of Hatton, Middlesex, he resumed the studies of his youth. To the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1816, he communicated three mathematical papers, the last on the theory of numbers and Fermat’s theorem. He was also FSA and FGS and a keen member of the council of the London Photographical Society.”

To view the entire Willats album, use the permanent link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/k930bx11x

Safe Cures

In 1994, Gerald J. Levy donated to the Princeton University Library 6,000 wood engravings from 19th-century illustrated journals such as Harper’s Weekly and the London Illustrated News. The Gerald J. and Anne C. Levy Iconographic Library, 1850-1920, is still available and used by researchers.

Along with these came a box of 19th-century almanacs and home remedy manuals. We are finally sorting these treasures out for conservation and cataloguing.

One is a rare 1892 issue of Warner’s Safe Cure Almanac (“First edition: 8,000,000 copies”). This company is described in depth on the blog “Safe Cure Almanacs”: https://warnerssafeblog.wordpress.com/category/safe-cure-almanacs/

Besides wonderful advertisements, the issue held at Princeton includes a special feature on “How to make money,” and a section of testimonials from men who have been cured of kidney disease, headache, dyspepsia, and that ‘tired feeling’ by Warner’s products. “Safe yeast” is also sold for home cooking by all “first class grocers.”

Here are a few more:

Invitation to Graphic Passion

Princeton University students are invited to a free viewing of the exhibition Graphic Passion: Matisse and the Book Arts, along with other shows at the Morgan Library this Thursday evening, November 12, 2015. The Graphic Arts Collection just received the catalogue to this collection, which offers three scholarly essays with new insight into the works of this well-known artist. In addition, 47 books illustrated by Matisse between 1912 and 1954 are illustrated and described in detail. “Each of these projects,” writes curator John Bidwell, “large and small, reveals something about his deep appreciation for the printed word.” Hopefully, our students will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

James Gillray online catalogue

James Gillray (1757-1815), Blowing up the Pic Nic’s; – or – Harlequin Quixotte attacking the puppets. Vide Tottenham Street Pantomime, 1802. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.01079.

Jim Sherry writes, “Now that I am retired from AT&T, I am returning to my interest in caricature, but using the skills and knowledge I acquired in my work life to reach what I hope will be a more general audience.” In honor of the anniversary of the British caricaturist James Gillray, Sherry has mounted an online catalogue raisonne, with an index to many of the leading institutional collections of these prints. Several collections will be a surprise to those who only use the British Museum’s collection. http://www.james-gillray.org/index.html

“So the site you see before you is solely designed, produced, and written by me,” Sherry continues. “Its mistakes, limitations, and omissions are likewise my responsibility. But in the spirit of Bell Labs, I hope that it inspires and facilitates further research on an amazing and under-rated artist, James Gillray. . . . The following catalogue is an attempt to address that problem. Here you can find a listing of all the prints attributed to James Gillray, satiric or otherwise, in what I believe is their proper chronological order.

Launched on June 1st, 2015, the 200th anniversary of Gillray’s death, Sherry asks other enthusiasts to help proof and enhance his site. He requests that anyone interested “feel free to contact me with corrections or suggestions.” Congratulations on his good work.

Jim Sherry
http://www.jim-sherry.com

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