Thaumatrope

Trompe-l’oeil ou les plaisirs de Jocko, French, ca. 1837. Discs: 2 1/2″ diam.; set contains 24 discs. Graphic Arts Collection, optical devices

A thaumatrope is a small paper disc with two strings on either side. Half of a picture is on the front and the other half on the back. When you spin it between your fingers, the pictures appear to merge and form a complete scene. The Graphic Arts collection has a French set from the early 1800s. Here are a few examples.

For a set of smoother animations, see the wonderful Richard Balzer tumbler or website:
http://dickbalzer.blogspot.com/

Phenakistoscope

One of the optical toys not represented in the Graphic Arts Collection is an original Phenakistoscope. We do, however, have a modern facsimile with a nice variety of circular image sequences.

Here is one example of a slack rope dancer or acrobat.

Zoetrope strip for Halloween

The Graphic Arts Collection has a large selection of optical devices, including a zoetrope with hand colored image sequences.

Here is one for Halloween, entitled “Who’s that knocking at the door?”

Procter Hall, Princeton University

Procter Hall, Graduate College, Princeton University, ca.1913. Glass lantern slide. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. A. Perry Morgan. Graphic Arts Collection 2013- in process

2013 is the centenary of Princeton University’s Graduate College. An exhibition at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library highlights the College’s history: http://blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/2013/09/building-the-house-of-knowledge-the-graduate-college-centennial/

Back in Graphic Arts, Elizabeth and Perry Morgan, Class of 1946, generously donated a large, glass lantern slide of the Seven Liberal Arts window in Procter Hall, the College dining hall. Designed by William and Annie Lee Willet of Philadelphia, the stained glass window rises forty feet in height. The center row of images depicts the Seven Liberal Arts. The first four, the quadrivium, are arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The other three, the trivium, being grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

At the bottom is an inscription: Nec vocemini magistri quia magister vester unus est christus,” or “And be ye not called master, for one is your master, even Christ.”

William Willet (1869-1921) and Anne Lee Willet (1867-1943) collaborated on mural and stained glass designs from their studio in Pittsburgh and then, Philadelphia. The Willets incorporated in 1909, only a few years before their work at Procter Hall. At William’s death, Anne Lee took over the business, which still continues today.

Island Hay

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Island Hay, 1945. Lithograph. Signed edition of 250, published by Associated American Artists, New York, Gift of Henry Martin, Class of 1948. Graphic Arts collection 2013- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection is the fortunate recipient of a lithograph entitled Island Hay by the Missouri-born artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), given by Henry Martin, Class of 1948. It is one of the last of over 80 lithographs the artist drew between 1929 and 1945, working summers at the family house on Martha’s Vineyard.

In a 1964 oral history with Milton Perry for the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri, Benton commented, “Yes. I did want them to get the sense that America was made, built up into the powerful country it has become, very largely by the actions of the common people spreading out over the frontiers–on their own and without any kind of official prompting. … But as I said just now about the values of a work of art being finally determined by its spectators so also will its meanings be finally determined. And that is all right. It’s not what’s in the artist’s mind that is important, but what his art raises in the spectator’s mind–that’s what counts in the long run.”

Martin remembered paying the high price of $25 for this not long after he left Princeton. For that amount he not only received the Benton but four other prints issued by the Associated American artists in the 1940s.

Shizhuzhai shuhua pu

Hu Zhengyan, Shizhuzhai shuhua pu (‘A Manual of Calligraphy and Painting from the Ten Bamboo Studio’). uncatalogued books, Graphic Arts Collection 2013 in process

“During the first third of the seventeenth century the Chinese publisher Hu Zhengyan (1584–1674) produced one the very first examples of color woodblock printing. His publication was perhaps the most beautiful set of prints ever made, the Shuzhuzhai shuhuapu (Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting).”

This is how Thomas Ebrey begins his wonderful article “The Editions, Superstates, and States of the Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting” in Princeton University’s The East Asian Library Journal 14, no. 1 (2010): 1-119, available full-text online at : http://gest.princeton.edu/EALJ/ebrey_thomas.ealj.v14.n01.p001.pdf

Ebrey continues, “The Ten Bamboo Studio Collection consists of a pair of fascicles (ce) for each of eight subjects, with ten pictures in most fascicles; for seven of the eight subjects each picture is accompanied by a matching poem written out by a master calligrapher. The collection also includes additional leaves illustrating painting motifs, a general introduction to the whole work, as well as a preface to each subject.”

“Altogether there are 186 pictures, 140 poems and 30 text pages for a total of 356 folio pages (i.e. double pages), usually bound into either eight double or sixteen single fascicles. Although one of the poems was dated 1619 and others 1622, 1624, 1625, and 1627, the publication date usually given for the first edition of this book is 1633, the date of its general introduction.”

The Graphic Arts Collection also holds an interesting catalogue of facsimile prints by a German author: Jan Tschichold (1902-1974), Der Frühe chinesische Farbendruck [ Exhibition of pictures of the Ten bamboo studio] (Basel: Holbein-verlag, 1940). “Die Faksimiles dieses Buches … sind mit zwei Ausnahmen einem sechzehnbändigen Exemplar der Bildersammlung der Zehnbambushalle [Hu Chêng-yens] entnommen, das aus dem Jahre 1643 zu stammen Scheint. Blatt 9 gehört einem anderen Exemplar derselben Ausgabe an; blatt 6 ist sehr wahrscheinlich ein wirklicher Erstdruck aus der Zeit zwischen 1619 und 1627”–Leaf 6. Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage Oversize RCPXG-7172600

See also the British Museum’s page highlighting their copy: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/asia/h/hu_zhengyan,_shizhuzhai_shuhua.aspx

The Attorney-General’s Charges Against the Late Queen are now online

Graphic Arts is fortunate to own one of the few complete volumes of The Attorney-General’s Charges Against the Late Queen: Brought Forward in the House of Peers, on Saturday, August 19th, 1820, commissioned by George IV and published by George Humphrey. The transcript of the trial and all 50 hand colored plates attributed to Theodore Lane (1800-1828); George Cruikshank (1792-1878), and Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), have now been digitized and are available at http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/dj52w599c

Attributed to Theodore Lane (1800-1828), The Attorney-General’s Charges Against the Late Queen, Brought Forward in the House of Peers, on Saturday, August 19th, 1820 (London: George Humphrey [1821]). Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Cruik 1820.29E

The volume begins with a view of Humphrey’s shop-window where 42 of these prints are on view. The focus of these caricatures is Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821) and her alleged affair with Bartolommeo Bergami (active 1820). She renamed him Pergami (as being more aristocratic), and appointed him Grand Master of the Order of St Caroline.

In 1820, her estranged husband George became King of the United Kingdom and Hanover, and Caroline assumed she would become Queen. Instead, George attempted to divorce her by introducing the Pains and Penalties Bill to Parliament. A campaign was launched through George Humphrey, funded by George IV, to discredit her. The following year, in July 1821, Caroline was barred from the coronation, fell ill, and died three weeks later.

New York from Brooklyn Heights in 1836

The British-born artist John William Hill (1812-1879) was only twenty-four years old when he sketched lower Manhattan from a Brooklyn Heights rooftop but the details he captured are amazing. William Bennett (ca. 1784-1844) engraved the scene after Hill’s painting and was able to include a legend at the bottom identifying each of the buildings (difficult to see in the thumbnail here). Ever since, historians have used the print as a document of New York at that time.

Included in this view are the Merchants’ Exchange, Trinity Church, Holt’s Hotel, St. Paul’s, and City Hall. In sharp contrast to the busy commerce on the Manhattan side is the bucolic setting of Brooklyn, showing the pleasures of family life in a pastoral setting.

John W. Hill should not to be confused with his father, the British engraver John Hill (1770-1850). By 1822, both Hill’s were living in New York City and working together on a number of projects. Hill senior is best known for his aquatints and engraving, while his son is best remembered for his watercolors.

William James Bennett (ca. 1784-1844), after a painting by John William Hill (1812-1879), New York, from Brooklyn Heights, 1837 (painting 1836?). Colored aquatint with engraving and etching. Gift of Leonard L. Milberg, class of 1953. Graphic Arts collection GA , GA 2009.00418

Rediscovering Color in German Graphic Art, 1487–1600

The American Printing History Association’s 38th Annual Conference concludes today. One of the highlights of the presentations yesterday at the Grolier Club in New York City was the paper by Dr. Elizabeth Upper, Munby Fellow in Bibliography at Cambridge University Library 2012-13.

The day began with her presentation entitled “Rediscovering Color in German Graphic Art, 1487–1600,” and left many quickly rewriting their papers as the day moved on. Her work will certainly change the way we think of color in early printed books from now on. Dr. Upper has posted some of her work here: http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/cmt/?p=2730

‘Detail of Hans Baldung Grien (attr.), Title Border with Wrestling Putti, colour woodcut from two blocks (red and black). Title page of Juan López, De libertate ecclesiastica (Strasbourg: Johann Schott, 1511). – See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/black-white-and-red-all-over#sthash.u4f9v0VG.dpuf

The Annunciation, colour woodcut from two impressions (black and red), in The Primer in Latin and Englishe [1555]. CUL, Young 263, fol. A1r. (c) Cambridge University Library.

Dr. Upper has several new books coming, including Vivid Prints: Colour Printmaking and the Transformation of Visual Information in Early Modern Germany, 1476-ca. 1600 and Printing Colour: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Reception, Vol. I: 1400-1700.

Those attending the College Art Association conference next February in Chicago will have another chance to hear Dr. Upper speak in the United States, with a paper entitled: “Early Modern Decals: Printing Intarsia in the German-Speaking Lands, c.1550-c.1650,” for the session Objectifying Prints: Hybrid Media 1450-1800.

Elucidations on a Collection of Sample Prints on Strasbourg Special Papers

Theodore Goebel (1829-1916), Musterdrucke auf Strassburger Special-Papieren. Sammlung hervorragender Kunstblätter hergestellt unter Anwendung der wichtigsten graphischen Verfahren [Sample Prints on Strasbourg Special Papers. An Excellent Collection of Works on Paper Prepared Using the Most Important Printing Techniques] (Strassburg-Ruprechtsau: Neue Papier-Manufactur, 1900). Graphic Arts Collection GA 2013- in process.

In celebrating the bibliophile and historian Theodor Goebel’s 70^th year as a printer, The Inland Printer referred to him as the Nestor of typography in Germany. Bigmore and Wyman, vol. 1, describes Goebel as “one of the most earnest and accomplished among German students of the history and antiquities of printing. In addition to this, he is a sound practical printer”

The author of several distinguished volumes, Goebel angered traditionalists when he brought printing history up-to-date with Die graphischen Künste der Gegenwart [The Graphic Arts of the Present Time] in 1895. Five years later, Goebel lent his essay Erlauterungen zur Sammlung von Musterdrucken auf Strassburger Specialpapieren [Elucidation on a Collection of Sample Prints on Strasbourg Special Papers] to a wonderful specimen book prepared by the Strasbourg Neue Papier Manufactur.

For the first time, a copy of this extraordinary volume has reach the United States and can be found in the Graphic Arts Collection at Firestone Library.

The book is a “state of the art” survey of printing techniques to the turn of the last century, including etching, engraving, photogravure, heliogravure, phototypies, lichtdruck or collotype, autotype, lithography, chromolithography, and much more. There are examples of paper for playing cards in color (spielkarten), maps in color (landkartendruck) and other special papers.

Near the end is an astonishing progressive series of lithographic proofs showing a bird’s eye view of the actual Neue Papier factory.

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