Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Early Soviet Sheet Music Online

Last spring, the Graphic Arts Collection, together with Thomas Keenan, Slavic, East European, and Eurasian librarian, purchased 100 pieces of illustrated Early Soviet sheet music: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2016/05/03/illustrated-russian-sheet-music/.

Over the year, the collection has been conserved, catalogued, rehoused, and digitized. We are happy to announce these fragile sheets are now available online at: http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/fd0d3495-faf0-4262-b135-e10add322ad9

The collection includes music scores published from 1920 to 1937, with numerous composers and lyricists (primarily Russian but also European and American) represented. Most scores were published in Moscow or Leningrad. Other imprints include Rostov-na-Donu, Kiev, Kharʹkov, and Tiflis; and most are popular music, jazz or dance music. The covers were designed by many different artists.

Many staff members worked on this project but thanks in particular to Joyce Bell, who did the coding in record time so that the collection would be ready for the spring semester.

Here is the call number if you would like to come to our reading room and see them in person: Graphic Arts Collection. F-000050. Here is a pdf list of the complete set of 100 pieces of music: Link

An unrecorded subversive almanac for 1794

Les Romances du temps présent. Almanach nouveau (Paris: chez les Marchands de Nouveautés, [between August and mid-October 1793]). 100 mm. Collation: [1]32 [2]8 (nested quires). 33, [16], 34-64 pp. Calendar for 1794. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired an unrecorded subversive almanac, innocuous in appearance but containing openly anti-Revolutionary poems, songs, and invocations.

The “Romances of the present day” [above] opens with several heart-rending poems on the plight of Marie-Antoinette, who, on August 1, 1793, had been transferred at dead of night from her prison in the Temple to a solitary cell in the Conciergerie. She would be guillotined 77 days later on October 16.

Other poems set to popular tunes include an invocation of the Dauphin (age 10, separated from his mother on July 3); a “romance” of the ghost of Louis XVI (executed on 21 January 1793) addressing the French people; a song relating the last words of the dying King, “found in his papers”; and a song “to the Sans-Culottes”: Rhabilles-toi peuple Français. Ne donnes plus dans les excès De nos faux Patriotes! [Get dressed French people. Do not give in excess of our false patriots!]

There is a racy pair of couplets, “to the Emigrés, by the French Ladies,” and vice-versa, each verse ending with the equivocal line “ce qu’on fit en nous [vous] faisant” (e.g., “Et jurons qu’un brave Emigré / Seul aura droit de nous faire / Ce qu’on fit en nous faisant),” along with a series of “Ariettes, written from the siege of Maastricht” (winter of 1793).

Beside these subversive texts are normal apolitical songs and a calendar for 1794.

Taufenpatenbrief or Godparent’s letter, 1781

Baptism Certificate. Folding, stencil-colored, engraved, and letterpress congratulatory “baptism letter” from a godparent ([Bavaria or Austria], July 20, 1781). Graphic Arts Collection 2017- in process

A square half-sheet (158 x 155 mm) with letterpress text on the inner side and nine stencil colored engraved scenes, each in its own compartment, on the outer side. The certificate is filled in with a place name (?) abbreviated Hoh., a date: 20 July 1781 and a name: Maria Sabina Schneiderin.

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired a very well-preserved devotional ephemeron: a Taufbrief or Taufenpatenbrief, i.e., “Baptism letter” or “Godparent’s letter.”

It was customary in Germany for godparents to send their godchildren painted, handwritten, or printed good luck wishes on the occasion of their baptisms. These folded paper objects often contained small coins, and served as both a certificate of blessing and as religious instruction for young children: illustrated with scenes related to the meaning of baptism, they were preserved for the child’s edification when he or she reached an appropriate age.

In the 18th century printers developed a gamut of formats for these delightful paper-toy documents, which are now understandably rare. The earliest engraved folded baptism letters known to Spamer, as well as similarly presented marriage greetings, dated from the mid-18th century. See Adolf Spamer, Das kleine Andachtsbild, vom XIV. bis zum XX. Jahrhundert. Mit 314 Abbildungen auf 218 Tafeln und 53 Abbildungen im Text (München, F. Bruckmann, 1930). RECAP Oversize N7640.S78q p. 242.

Earlier examples were usually handwritten on parchment. See also Michael Twyman’s chapter on ‘Baptismal Papers’ in: Maurice Rickards (1919-1998), The Encyclopedia of Ephemera… edited and completed by Michael Twyman (GARF Oversize NC1280 .R52 2000q)

To see the letter in action, play this very short video. Thanks to Patrick Crowley, Project Cataloging Specialist, for his help unfolding the sheet.

Hieronymus Schürstab, Mayor of Nuremberg

Hanns Lautensack (ca. 1520-1564/66), Portrait of Hieronymus Schürstab, 1554. Etching. II/II. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process.

The German printmaker, draftsman, and medalist Hanns Lautensack used the printer’s mark H.S.L. (under the Latin text), which has led to confusion in his name. Some assume the mark included his middle name, often written as Hans Sebald Lautensack, but recent sources suggest that his name and mark ought to be read Ham Lauten-Sack. For now, the Getty’s Union List of Artist Names uses Hanns alone and so do we.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired one of the last works Lautensack etched before leaving Nuremberg for Vienna, a lifetime portrait of Hieronymous (or Jerome) Schürstab (1512-1573). “Schürstab was a prominent member of the Nuremberg city council,” writes Jeffrey Chipps Smith. “From 1545 he served as the bürgermeister and from 1558 as the alter bürgermeister (elder or senior mayor).” —Nuremberg, a Renaissance City, 1500-1618 (Marquand Oversize N6886.N9 S64q).

For a Schurstab-Rheticus-Copernicus connection, see chapter 6, pages 86-87 of The First Copernican by Dennis Richard Danielson (Firestone QB36.R38 D36 2006).

The church in the distance is identified as the St. Leonhard church and infirmary, located southwest of Nuremberg. St. Leonhard was established by one of Schürstab’s early relatives and several years after the portrait was published, he was appointed one of its overseers.

However, when this portrait was etched, Schürstab was a guardian of St. Peter’s and it has been suggested that the building in this landscape actually represents St. Peter’s. Five years later, when Schürstab transferred to St. Leonhard, he hired an artist to add the inscription to the plate and a second edition of his portrait was printed. See F.W.H. Hollstein, German Engravings, Etchings, and Woodcuts. XXI, no.68.

Latin text:
Hieronymus Schürstab
Octo lustra, duos annos mea tempora vidi
Cum talis nostro vultus in ore fuit,
Et patriae clades, et tristia bella potentum
Lugebam: Sed tu da meliora Deus,
Sic patriam nostramque Domum Regesque guberna,
Vt pia tranquillae tempora pacis agant,
Vt late magnum currant tua regna per orbem
Et crescant verbi semina vera tui.

Translation:
Hieronymus Schuerstab
For forty-two years I saw my times,
While such an aspect of things was always before us.
I have mourned the calamity of the homeland, the bitter wars of the powerful.
But give us better things, o God!
So govern our land, our homeland and our kings,
That they might bring about such faithful times of tranquil peace,
That far and wide, throughout the great earth, Thy domains should run,
And the true seeds of Thy word should thrive.
(translation by Mark Farrell)

ONEEVERYONE

https://www.hamilton-landmarks.org/

“ONEEVERYONE, a public art project by Ann Hamilton, is framed by the recognition that human touch is the most essential means of contact and a fundamental expression of physical care. Commissioned by Landmarks for the Dell Medical School, ONEEVERYONE begins with a series of more than 500 portraits of Austin community members, photographed through a semi-transparent membrane that focuses each point where the body make contact. These images are presented in multiple forms, including porcelain enamel architectural panels; a newsprint publication with commissioned essays responding to the project; public forums; and an exhibition at the Visual Arts Center.”—Andrée Bober, Landmarks Director

“This book presents yet another form for the portraits. Its pages hold at least one image of each participant who volunteered their time and opened themselves to an exchange with the artist. Through the images touch–something we feel more than see–becomes visible.”

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired this volume, along with the newspaper of commissioned essays, thanks to Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. For more information on this extraordinary project, see https://www.hamilton-landmarks.org/

Ann Hamilton, ONEEVERYONE (Austin, Texas: Landmarks, University of Texas at Austin, 2017). 1 volume (unpaged): no text. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

Tippecanoe and Morton Too

Paper Lantern for the Harrison and Morton Campaign, ca. 1888. 8 panels printed in 5 colors, 23 inches tall, manufactured by Sprague & French of Norwalk, Ohio. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2017- in process

This paper novelty was produced for the 1888 presidential campaign of Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) and his running mate Levi Parsons Morton (1824-1920). Each panel has a different printed image, including portraits of Harrison; Morton; the United States Capital; “Harrison and Morton” superimposed on the United States flag; a log cabin with “Tippecanoe and Morton Too 1840-1888”; and an unidentified young girl. Similar lanterns survive from the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and others.

Norwalk, Ohio’s largest business during the second half of the nineteenth century was Sprague and French, where they produced paper novelties (for advertising) and umbrellas. “Colonel J. H. Sprague, a prominent manufacturer of Norwalk, was born in New York City February 15. 1846 . . . . At the age of fourteen, Colonel Sprague entered Watertown University, and in the same year, in the spring of 1861, though still only fourteen years old, he enlisted in Company A, Nineteenth New York Infantry, as sergeant.

After taking part in the first Battle of Bull Run he was detailed to the secret service department under Colonel Baker, and did duty in the grounds at the White House at Washington, where he became acquainted with Lincoln, also Stanton, Seward and many other men in prominent government positions. . . .

In 1880 [Sprague] was appointed general manager for Piano Harvesting Company of Illinois and in 1887 started his present enterprise, manufacturing umbrellas and novelties. The firm was first Sprague & French, and in 1890 was incorporated as the Sprague Umbrella Company, of which Colonel Sprague is principal owner and president.” –Harriet Taylor Upton and Harry Gardner Cutler, History of the Western Reserve, Vol. 3 (Lewis Publishing Company, 1910)

The company quickly grew to employ over 200 primarily female workers. Unfortunately, in 1890, a cyclone leveled the factory resulting in several deaths.

Arcadio Díaz Quiñones

On October 28, 2016, Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, emeritus professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages, and former director of the Program in Latin American Studies at Princeton University, was given the distinction of Humanist of the Year 2016 by the Puerto Rican Foundation of the Humanities (FPH). Granted annually, this award recognizes Puerto Ricans who, through their life and work, have made significant contributions to the diffusion of humanistic knowledge. The ceremony took place at the Jesús María Sanromá Theater of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, in Miramar.

In addition, the FPH published a limited edition book with two essays by Dr. Díaz Quiñones, entitled Sobre principios y finales or About Beginnings and Endings. The Graphic Arts Collection is proud to have acquired copy 15 from the edition of 250.

The FPH is a non-profit organization affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities and dedicated to exalting humanistic values through the development of programs and activities that stimulate the analysis and dissemination of knowledge related to the Puerto Rican humanistic experience, educational innovation, and social history.

http://www.fphpr.org/es/content/humanista-del-a%C3%B1o-2016

Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, Sobre principios y finales [About Beginnings and Endings] (Naguabo, Puerto Rico: Puerto Rican Foundation of the Humanities, 2016). Copy 15 of 250. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

1743 copper plate engraved by George Bickham

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a copper printing plate (35 x 47 cm) for “The Break-Neck Fox Chase,” designed and engraved by George Bickham, the Younger (ca. 1706-1771), dated June 1743. There are no prints in any institutional collection pulled from this plate. If you find one, please let us know.

The verse, presumably written by the artist, begins,
“By various Turns as Men on Taste refines
Some Foxes hunt, some Women, and some Wine;
Wine gives them Fevers; Women oft the
And Neck or Nothing’s risk’d for every Fox.”

Plate detail

At the time of this engraving, the prolific artist sold his work from two London shops, one at Blackmoor’s Head within the Exeter-Exchange in the Strand, and at May’s Buildings, Covent Garden. Later, he moved west to Kew-Lane in Richmond, teaching and selling from his home. As an added incentive to get his patrons to make the long trip, Bickham advertised that anyone who came (and purchased a print), could see his celebrated female Egyptian mummy.

The plan was successful and preparations were made to build a larger studio with exhibition space. Unfortunately, Bickham died before it was finished and on September 18, 1771, the Public Advertiser announced a sale of the artist’s property. “A piece of ground, 36 feet in front; and 93 feet in depth, where on is now built by the late ingenious Mr. George Bickham, a large commodious Room . . . intended for an exhibition room, forming an octagon in the inside with a large sky-light and gallery to ditto, the angular parts formed for lodging rooms; the whole is very nearly completed and was stopped on account of Mr. Bickham’s death.”

The following year in December 1772, it took four nights to auction off Bickham’s belongings, described as “the remainder of the valuable stock in Trade of the late Mr. George Bickham; consisting of the Whole of his valuable scarce Prints, Drawings, Books of Penmanship, and Letter-press; together with the original Drawings by Gravelot [pseudonym for Hubert-François Bourguignon 1699-1773], beautiful Manuscript Pieces, and other Curiosities collected by the late Mr. George Bickham, sen., including a very perfect Egyptian Mummy and Coffin, in the highest preservation, allowed to be the finest in all Europe, and divers other valuable effects.”

Plate detail

Bingham’s Washington Crossing the Delaware

Washington Crossing the Delaware, From an unfinished painting by G. C. Bingham, between 1856 and 1871. Albumen silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GAX2017- in process.

Yet another find has been made, thanks to the renovation and reorganization of our library. This time credit goes to Steve Ferguson for identifying an albumen silver print of G.C. Bingham’s painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” taken during the many years that the work sat unfinished in the artist’s studio. It is, so far, the only image of Bingham’s painting in its earliest stages and will be extremely helpful to American painting scholars who want to study his composition and process.

“September 14, 1855, Bingham was spending most of his time on portraiture. He had opened a studio in the Grand Jury room of the courthouse at Columbia and was engaged upon a number of portraits. By the fourteenth of November he was in Jefferson City and had taken a room in the Capitol, where he remained for a month or more painting portraits. Incidentally, he exhibited in his studio there the “Verdict of the People.” Early in December he spoke in a Whig meeting in the Capitol. March 14, 1856, he was in Columbia again, engaged upon a historical painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” no doubt inspired by Leutze’s popular representation of the same subject, which it resembles markedly both in composition and in purpose. For many years the picture remained unfinished, and not until eighteen years after its beginning was it actually completed. It is a large canvas, and, like Leutze’s, it is crowded and confused and wholly impossible as far as truth to nature is concerned.” —-Fern Helen Rusk, George Caleb Bingham, The Missouri Artist (1917. Marquand ND237.B5 R8)

One of the changes Bingham made between 1865 and 1871 was to remove the horse and rider behind Washington and replace it with two less active soldiers. In general, the entire background is simplified, giving a stronger focus to the central figures. Below are a few of Bingham’s other changes.

George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1856-71. Oil on canvas. Chrysler Museum of Art, Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., in honor of Walter P. Chrysler, Sr. Posted with the Chrysler’s permission.

“The painting illustrates the historic crossing of the Delaware River by George Washington and his troops. George Caleb Bingham paints Washington seated atop a horse, which forms the apex of a pyramid, with the oars creating the base of the triangular composition. Artists create a sense of stability and balance by using this choice of arrangement. Washington’s huddled men row across the frozen river almost directly toward the viewer. Bingham added minor embellishments to the scene. Washington was unlikely to have been mounted on his horse for the crossing. It would have made the ride too unstable. In addition, the event happened in the early hours of the morning, in the dark. Regardless, the artist is still able to capture the tense and risky crossing occurring on December 25, 1776 in a perilous snowstorm, leading to the Battle of Trenton.”–Chrysler Museum

For more information on George Washington’s campaign, see:
http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/trenton-and-princeton-campaign-washingtons-crossing/

Exiles

Also uncovered during the renovation of the Princeton University Library was this small but important playbill from a French production of James Joyce’s Exiles, held at the Théâtre Gramont, Paris. The play in three acts was written in 1914 and published simultaneously in an English and an American edition on May 25, 1918. To read Edna O’Brien’s review of the National Theatre’s production in 2006, see: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/jul/29/theatre.fiction

To mark the acquisition of the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Collection of Irish Theater, the Princeton University Library mounted the exhibition, Players & Painted Stage: The Leonard L. Milberg Collection of Irish Theater, running October 2006 to April 2007. The show merged holdings from the library, newly acquired Milberg material, and other donations. View the exhibition website: http://milberg.princeton.edu/highlights

See also: James Joyce (1882-1941), Exiles; a play in three acts (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1918). First American edition. Rare Books (Ex) 3807.38.333.1918a

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