William Henry Jackson’s selfie

William Henry Jackson, getting into his own picture. See the left side of the mountain below.

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), Tower of Babel. Garden of the Gods, [n.d. [1879-1897]. Albumen silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00107

Thanks to the invitation of Professor Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden, photographer William Jackson traveled to the American west with the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey expedition and from 1870 to 1878 made thousands of photographic negatives. In 1879, he settled in Denver and opened a studio to print and sell his images in a variety of formats, large and small. Most of his prints are generally dated between 1879 when he finished traveling and 1897 when he merged with the Detroit Photographic Company and stopped printing his own work.

The image above is no. 1007. “View of a sandstone rock formation identified as the Tower of Babel, the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs (El Paso County), Colorado”. The albumen print was contact printed from a mammoth glass plate negative.

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), Mount of the Holy Cross, [1879-1897, negative 1874]. Albumen silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00106

Jackson’s dog also getting into the photograph. See bottom right corner below.

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), Navajo Church. Near Fort Wingate, A.T., [1879-1897]. Albumen silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00108

This is no. 1063 in Jackson’s sales catalogue, “A view of Navajo Church, a sandstone rock formation near Fort Wingate on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the Arizona Territory (New Mexico)”. We are fortunate to have a rare print of this view, which has not been cropped or printed with a vignette to remove the dog in the lower corner. (Note, the photograph is not over-exposed as this reproduction seems, just my own poor re-photographing.)

How d’ye like me? A droll mezzotint

Unidentified Artist, How d’ye like me, 1772. Mezzotints. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.01193

“The mezzotint droll [was] generally sold for a shilling plain, two shillings coloured. Drolls were usually non-political, exploiting amusing social situations, such as the pretensions of the city nouveau riche, rather than topical events.”

“The market for comic mezzotints, based on plates which often remained in print for decades, was dominated by relatively few firms, such as that of Carington Bowles, whose shop front is shown in a number of prints….”

“Many of these prints were engraved on copper plates measuring fourteen by ten inches and could if required be easily fitted into frames of a standard size.” – David S. Alexander, Richard Newton and English Caricature in the 1790s (Manchester University Press, 1998)

[left] After Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (baptized 1733, died 1794), Welladay! Is this my son Tom!, 1773. Mezzotint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00628

[right] After Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (baptized 1733, died 1794), Be not amaz’d Dear Mother – It is indeed your Daughter Anne, 1774. Mezzotint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00627

This pair of droll mezzotints were both published by Carington Bowles, from his shop at St Paul’s Church Yard. The droll prints were all made the same size, so they could fit in the same frame. See his shop window below.

John Raphael Smith (1751-1812), Spectators at a Print-Shop in St.Paul’s Church Yard, 1774.
Mezzotint. (c) British Museum

Filmathèque Pathé-Baby

In conjunction with our collection of French silent movies, available to stream online at:
http://rbsc.princeton.edu/pathebaby/node/2244 we are also acquiring the catalogues and indexes that went together with the films produced by the Société française du Pathé-Baby.

This directory lists over 4,000 films to purchase and watch on the Pathé home movie projector, primarily French and American but others as well. We will be posting a new series of films in the fall, many of which are listed in this volume.

Filmathèque Pathé-Baby France, [11e édition]. Paris: Société française du Pathé-Baby, 1931.

http://rbsc.princeton.edu/pathebaby/node/1711

Charles Grosvenor Osgood

John Milton (1608-1674), 1800s. Earthenware. Acquired from the estate of Charles Grosvenor Osgood, 1964. Museum Objects collection. Ex 4980

This Staffordshire figurine of Milton comes from the estate of Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), Holmes Professor of Belles Lettres. “His course in English Literature and the Classics was long a favorite among undergraduates,” wrote Alexander Leitch, “and the breadth of his interests is revealed by the subjects of some of his early works: The Classical Mythology of Milton’s English Poems; the Middle English poem, The Pearl; Selections from the Works of Samuel Johnson … In 1935 [Osgood] was persuaded to write a history of English literature for classroom use. It was called The Voice of England. ‘I have small excuse, I know,’ he wrote in the preface, ‘for rehearsing the old tale herein set down, except that it is an old story, and a good one, and many are the ways of telling it.’ Osgood’s way, reviewers agreed, was one of the best, and one colleague doubted that any textbook was ever written with such grace and lucidity.” A Princeton Companion (1978).

His work includes:

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), The Classical Mythology of Milton’s English Poems (New York: Henry Holt, 1900). Annex A, Forrestal: Princeton Coll. P96.6948.03

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), Milton’s ’Sphere of Fortune’ … [n.p., 1907] Annex A, Forrestal: Princeton Coll. P96.6948.05

John Milton (1608-1674), The Poetical Works of John Milton (New York: Oxford University Press [c1935]). Firestone Library (F) PR3550.F35

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), Poetry as a Means of Grace (Princeton: Princeton University Press; London, H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1941). Firestone Library (F) PN1136 .O8 1941

Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), The Classical Mythology of Milton’s English Poems (New York: Haskell House, 1964). Firestone Library (F) PR3592.M96 O8 1964

Novak’s campus linocut

How do you transform this watercolor into an ink print? The artist Louis Novak solved the problem by carving a series of linoleum blocks and printing them successively onto a single sheet to make the Princeton Print Club’s 1943 membership print. Can you match the colors to the blocks?

Louis L. Novak (1903-1988), Joline-Campbell Hall from Blair Court, 1943. Linocut. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.02141

Anne Marguerite Hyde de Neuville

Anne Marguerite Hyde de Neuville (ca. 1749-1849), Church at Princeton, New Jersey with Girardin and Mary, 1813. Watercolor on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 047 Princetoniana. Acquired with funds contributed by the Friends of the Princeton University Library and by Bernard Kilgore, formerly Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton.

Inscribed “Mercredi 27 8 bre 1813 Princeton’s Church Giradin and Meriy” [Wednesday 27 October 1813 Princeton’s Church with Girardin and Mary]

To continue reading about this watercolor by the Baroness Hyde de Neuville, see the Princeton University Library Chronicle, 29, no.2 (winter 1968): http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_29_n_2.pdf

See also: Jadviga M. Da Costa Nunes, Baroness Hyde de Neuville: Sketches of America, 1807-1822 ([New Brunswick, N.J.]: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey; New York: New-York Historical Society, 1984). Marquand Library (SA) ND1950.H9 A4 1984

Holzschnitte der Reyher’schen Buchdruckerey

This remarkable printer’s sample book displays a wide and varied stock of woodcuts from the Reyher Printing House, founded in the seventeenth century by the German educator and scholar Andreas Reyher (1601-1673). The blocks shown include decorated and historiated fraktur alphabets, cartouches, scientific diagrams and illustrations, series of religious and vernacular scenes, astronomy, coats of arms, and an enormous number of vignettes. There is no record of another Reyher album in the United States and only two in Europe, held in German libraries.

The volume gives a particularly good overview of the range of woodcuts that would have available to a printer, showing the opportunities as well as the restrictions in his design choices. Most of the woodcuts appear to be from the seventeenth-eighteenth century, however some probably date to the late sixteenth century. It also demonstrates the continued importance of woodcut decoration into the nineteenth century.

“The Reyher press has a fascinating place in history for its influence on the new theories of education expressed by its owner which were based on the educational precepts of Comenius and Ratke, modernizing and restructuring century old school plans. Andreas Reyher had studied theology and philosophy in Leipzig. He later served as rector of the gymnasium at Schleusingen and from 1641 held the same position at Gotha. Reyher viewed a printing house as an important tool in expressing his views and took over the shop of Peter Schmidt (active 1640-1644) when it became available. Reyher wrote and edited numerous texts in a wide variety of fields including languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), grammar, mathematics, logic, and theology. The firm remained in business up till modern times.”–Roger Gaskell

Holzschnitte der Reyher’schen Buchdruckerey in Gotha [printed wrapper title] (Gotha: Reyher Buchdruckerey, 1810). Folio, 22 bifolia, 44 leaves, printed on one side only of laid paper. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

Professor Alfred Krauth

The German photographer Alfred Krauth (1878-1956) only taught for one year at the Höheren Graphischen in Vienna but maintained the title of professor throughout his career. When World War I was over, Krauth returned to Frankfurt am Main and joined with Carl Neithold to establish a photography company, specializing in stereo cameras, viewers, and images. Around 1924, Krauth traveled to the United States to attract customers for their business.

One of the companies Krauth contacted was the Textile Machine Works in Reading Pennsylvania, founded by the German industrialists Ferdinand Thun (1866-1949) and Henry Janssen (born 1866). They manufactured women’s stockings and other products with knitting machines of their own design.

Krauth personally photographed the entire factory, including the workers and the machinery, three years before Charles Sheeler did the same at the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge plant. A small collection of these images recently turned up in our graphic arts collection. Here are a few samples.

Alfred Krauth, Textile Machine Works, ca. 1924. 20 stereographs. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process

See also Dieter Lorenz, Fotografie und Raum: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stereoskopie (Münster: Waxmann, 2012). Available through googlebooks

Charles Barsotti 1933-2014

Charles Barsotti (1933-2014), “Sure, it’s inconvenient now, but when it gets published the bar will be famous,” unknown date. Pen on paper. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Henry Martin, Class of 1948. GA 2009.00354

Charles Barsotti died last Monday, June 16, 2014, at the age of 80. He will be sadly missed. Although most people will remember him best for his single cell New Yorker cartoons, Barsotti actually drew strips under many different titles. These include C. Barsotti’s People, My Kind of People, P.J. McFey, Sally Bananas (1969–1973), Funny Form (1974), Punchline: USA (1975), and Broadsides (1975–1979).

The Graphic Arts Collection holds three of his monographs, The Essential Charles Barsotti, compiled and edited by Lee Lorenz (1998) (GA) 2011-0791N; From the Very Big Desk of– : Business Cartoons (2006) (GA) 2011-0647N; and, my favorite, They Moved My Bowl: Dog Cartoons by New Yorker Cartoonist Charles Barsotti ; foreword by George Booth (2007). (GA) 2011-0646N.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

James Heath (1757-1834) was a talented reproductive engraver who was able to translate the paintings of Thomas Stothard (1755-1834), Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) and others into opulently yet accurate prints. When John Boydell (1720-1804) was looking for the best engravers in London to create the plates for an illustrated Shakespeare, Heath was one of the artists he hired.

After only a brief time, however, Heath decided he could compete with Boydell by publishing his own illustrated Shakespeare. Heath convinced his friend Stothard to contribute 16 drawings and like Boydell’s enterprise, not only bound his prints into a set of six volumes but also sold the engravings individually in print portfolios.

He released the series in parts between 1802 and 1804 when his first publisher, J. Robinson, ran out of money and turned the series over to John Stockdale, who completed the set.

Thanks to the kind donation of David Hunter McAlpin Jr., Class of 1950, the Graphic Arts Collection has a new print from Heath’s Shakespeare, depicting a scene in act 5 of Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The print includes a brief text: “King. We came to visit you; and purpose now To lead you to our court: vouchsafe it then. / Prin. This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow: Nor God, or I, delight in perjur’d men.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

James Heath (1757-1834) after Thomas Stothard (1755-1834), “Love’s Labour’s Lost” from Heath’s Shakespeare, May 1, 1802. Etching and engraving. Gift of David Hunter McAlpin jr., Class of 1950. Graphic Arts Collection

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. The Plays of William Shakspeare. From the corrected text of Johnson and Steevens. Embellished with plates … (London: J. Stockdale, 1807), Firestone Oversize PR2752 .S8 1807q

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