Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Clément Pierre Marillier

“The Juggler,” from Émile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

“For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others do not attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue more extraordinary still, — that of attracting at a distance, and without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and floating on a bowl of water. Much surprised, we did not however say, “He is a conjurer,” for we knew nothing about conjurers. Continually struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out of it.

When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that we thought we would endeavor to copy it. Taking a perfect needle, well magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck’s bill. We placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece of bread. We saw that some time or other we might observe the direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water. But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a suite of proofs (before lettering) for engravings designed by Clément Pierre Marillier (1740-1808) as illustrations for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s books, Émile and La Nouvelle Heloise. The volume includes twenty-seven engraved plates, including a portrait of Rousseau, along with a letter from Marillier to “Monsieur le Préfet” at Boissie la Bertrand, dated February 17, 1808, concerning Marillier’s nomination as mayor of the town.

Here are a few more examples of Marillier’s designs.

Levi Strauss 1915 Advertising

Levi Strauss & Company [lithographic advertising brochure die-cut and folded into the shape of a pair of blue jeans]. San Francisco: Levi-Strauss & Co., [1915]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a very rare trade catalogue from the Levi Strauss company. The outside is color printed in the color of blue denim with red stitching and brass rivets. The inside is a multiple-sided color lithograph depicting men, boys, and children (no ladies) wearing jeans and other denim clothing, at various activities.

The center panel features the “Complete factory in operation in Palace of Manufactures – Panama Pacific International Expo,” which helps date the piece to ca. 1915. The middle inside section shows the famous Levi’s trademark logo and states: “Levi Strauss & Co., San Francisco, Cal., Manufacturer of Two Horse Brand Overalls, Koveralls, and Koverall nighties. 75 cents the suit. Everywhere a new suit free if they rip.”

Levi Strauss introduced blue jeans in 1873. In 1915 the firm received the highest award for waist overalls at the Panama Pacific International Expo. The complete story of their company is posted here: http://levistrauss.com/our-story/

The Vote Album

The Vote Album ([London?]: Women’s Freedom League, no date [ca. 1910]). Album with 20 green paper leaves cut to house postcards. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a rare copy of a postcard album sold by the Women’s Freedom League at the height of the “Votes for Women” campaign. The faded white and gold central panel contains the title The Vote Album with a design attributed to Eva Claire showing the Suffragists at the door of the State, which is barred and bolted against them. Seeking entrance are the Women of the Nation: graduates in academic dress standing side by side with working women.

This particular album once belonged to Mrs. Louisa Thomson-Price (nee Sowdon, 1864-1926). She was the daughter of a Tory military family but from an early age rebelled against their way of thinking and became a secularist and a Radical. She was impressed by Charles Bradlaugh of the National Secular Society (NSS) and in 1888, married John Sansom, who was a member of the NSS. Thomson-Price worked as a journalist from around 1886, as a political writer (then a very unusual area for women), and drew cartoons for a radical journal, Political World. She was also a member of the Council of the Society of Women Journalists. After the death of her first husband in 1907 she married George Thomson Price.

Thanks to Ed Smith and Elizabeth Crawford for their research on the album, repeated here.

Price was an early member of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL), became a consultant editor of its paper, The Vote, and then, a director of its firm: Minerva Publishing. Price took part in the WFL picket of the House of Commons and was very much in favor of this type of militancy. In her will she left £250 to the WFL and £1000 to endow a “Louisa Thomson Price bed” at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.

When she died Thomson-Price was living at 17 Belsize Park Gardens, Hampstead, and her will was witnessed by Edith Alexander, a professional nurse who ran a nursing home at that address. Also living there were Miss Edith Alexandra Hartley and Miss Martha Poles Hartley, the latter being the elder sister of the father of the novelist, L.P. Hartley. It is assumed that after Mrs. Thomson Price’s death The Vote Album remained in her home and was taken over by Miss Alexander as a place to put her own postcards, none of which have any suffrage relevance.

See also: Marion Holmes (died 1943), The A.B.C. of votes for women ([London]: Women’s Freedom League, [1912?])
And
Teresa Billington-Greig (1877-1964), Suffragist tactics (London: Women’s Freedom League, [191-]).

An Early Comic Strip, 1841

Thomas Onwhyn (1814-1886), A Railway Adventure that Mr. Larkin Encountered with the Lady of Captn. Coleraine. Showing the Power of Platonic Love (London: Ackermann & Co, no date [ca . 1841]). Etched concertina with 20 plates. Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process.

The first railroad line from the London Bridge to Brighton opened in 1841 and Onwhyn’s book was published in conjunction with that event. The artist is best remembered for his pirated illustrations to works by Charles Dickens, under the pseudonym Samuel Weller.

See also:
Thomas Onwhyn, The Child’s Own New Scrap Book of Pictures by Peter Pallette (London: Dean & Son, 11, Ludgate Hill, [between 1857 and 1865]). CTSN Eng 19Q 7013

Thomas Onwhyn, Illustrations to the Pickwick Club edited by “Boz”; by Samuel Weller ([London]: E. Grattan, 1837). Rare Books: Morris L. Parrish Collection (ExParrish) Dickens 758

Thomas Onwhyn, Nothing to Wear (London: Rock & Co, 1858). (Ex) 2014-0549N

Roméo Simonon, part two

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the printing archive of Roméo Antoine Simonon (1888-1954), whose engraving and die-stamping firm R. Simonon & Cie was located at 170 rue Saint Maur, Paris, during the first half of the twentieth century. This second post shows a little more of the collection.

There are several notebooks and files of the trade cards, logos, monograms, and stationery designs created at Simonon & Cie. At first glance, clients included hotels, cosmetics, restaurants, and professionals from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and South America.

Simonon also made original drawings for illustration, advertising, posters, and other decorative arts projects. Large and small designs in pen and ink, charcoal, and pencil can be found, although the projects are not labeled and it will take some time before the designs are identified and documented.

Roméo Simonon, printer

Highlights include both finished work and working proofs, original sketches, printing blocks, and much more. According to the firm’s trade card R. Simonon & Cie could design, engrave, and die stamp cards, letterheads, envelopes, and embossed labels. The artist’s own cigar box of engraver’s tools [above] includes various burins, burnishers, punches, etching needles, and small hammers.

Roméo Simonon was the son of the Belgian engraver Jean Simonon (1847-1916) who began his business at Tilff, near Liege. Jean and his wife, Françoise Veck Simonon, had three children, two girls and Roméo, who was called Meo. At some point the family moved to Paris and the atelier at 170 rue Saint Maur was established.

The Simonon collection includes thousands of samples, proofs and documents from the firm’s decorative arts business. Because so little is known about trade printers, research will be needed to separate Simonon’s own work from the samples he collected made by others. In the archive are examples of embossed labels for perfumes, cigars and confectionery; restaurant menus; greetings cards; visiting cards and business stationery.

This collection demonstrates the methods used by commercial engraving firms. For instance, there are a large number of ‘calcques gelatine,’ with designs scratched on transparencies for transfer to copper or steel plates and blocks. Thanks to the wide market Simonon served for business stationery, we can also get an idea of the Parisian business community at that time and the related trades.

This collection was purchased in the 21st century from the Simonon family by the booksellers Rogers Turner. Some sort of order had been given to it by grouping similar material into envelopes of various sizes. Additional work will be needed to fully understand Simonon’s contribution to the decorative and commercial arts of the period. More will be posted in the coming days.

A group of Simonon’s embossed labels are held in a perfume box with the Parfums Fontanis emblem printed on top. Rene Lalique is credited with the design of that logo for the famous decorative arts exhibition in Paris in 1925 but it is possible Simonon’s firm produced the labels. The Gal-Madrid label above was also for an art deco perfume company in the 1920s.

Donald Trump, The Magazine of Poetry

Donald Trump, The Magazine of Poetry (Upper Montclair, NJ: Henry Wessells, Temporary Culture, 2016). Edition: 126. Graphic Arts Collection GA2016- in process. Gift of John Bidwell.

Temporary Culture is the imprint of Henry Wessells, Princeton University Class of 1983. He was inspired to create Donald Trump The Magazine of Poetry by Tom Disch’s Ronald Reagan The Magazine of Poetry (London: John Sladek and Pamela Zoline, 1968). Rare Books RECAP-91154631.

Wessells tells us that it took fifty burning marshmallows, thinking about how to illustrate the piece on page 1, before he got the front cover. Temporary Culture has an instagram page http://instagram.com/temporaryculture where there are a couple of clips of readings from the launch on the web. Temporary Culture also produces the Endless Bookshelf http://endlessbookshelf.net.

On the left Brendan C. Byrne and on the right, Henry Wessells at the book launch.

Students of American History: Can you identify these prominent Americans?

number 1
number 1 and 2
The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired an album of twenty rare American Antebellum portraits. Only a handful of the sitters have been identified, such as Samuel Houston, the Texas politician. Can you recognize the others? Please post your replies below or send them to jmellby@princeton.edu.

These photographs were taken in the very early days of photography on paper, in the New York City studio of Johannes De Witt Brinckerhoff (1812-1889) at 505 Broadway (present day Soho). The sitters either lived in New York or traveled there in the late 1850s or early 1860s to have their portraits made specifically by Brinckerhoff. They had the time and money to do so, so these would have been prominent figures in social and business circles.

Although the purpose of this album is uncertain, extra prints of these sitters may have been kept for a sample book to promote the photographer. According to William Welling’s Photography in America (SAPH TR23 .W44 1987) Brinckerhoff “was among the first to exhibit along with his daguerreotypes, proofs of photographs on paper made from collodion negatives, which led to his being employed in giving instructions to many daguerreotypists, who were flocking to [New York City] for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the new art.”

number 3 and 4

New York Tribune January 4, 1889

Johannes De Witt Brinckerhoff was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey on April 15, 1812 to Jacob Brinckerhoff and Mary G Smith. He married Caroline Augusta Saville and had one son, James Saville Brinckerhoff. Johannes passed away on January 2, 1889 in New York City.
number 5 and 6
number 7
number 8
number 9 and 10

number 4
number 11 and 12
number 19
number 13 and 14
number 15 and 16
number 2
number 17 and 18
number 18
number 19 and 20
Johannes De Witt Brinckerhoff (1812-1889), Brinckerhoff’s Heliographic Likenesses, Developed in Colors from Nature, at the St. Nicholas Gallery… New York [title from label on front pastedown] ([New York City: Brinckerhoff, ca. 1856]). 20 mounted salted paper prints. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

Ahí Va El Golpe (There Goes the Punch)

Ahí Va El Golpe (Mexico, 1955-1956). 20 issues: numbers 5-9,11-21,23-26. Letterpress and lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Under the direction of Alberto Beltrán Garcia (1923-2002), this Mexican satirical magazine flourished for only two years. Beltrán was an active member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (The People’s Print Workshop or TGP, see: http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0012) then later, worked as deputy director for graphics for the newspaper El Día. On his own time, he drew, printed, and self-published several journals including Ahí Va El Golpe (There Goes the Punch) and El Coyote Emplumado (The Feathered Coyote).

We are fortunate to have acquired 20 rare issues of the first, ephemeral publication from the 1950s. Each issue has only four to six pages, primarily caricatures. Fellow TGP member Leopoldo Méndez contributed several illustrations.

Am I Not a Man and a Brother

For the 1,000th post on this weblog, we are pleased to share the acquisition of a medal bearing the abolitionist design of a kneeling slave in chains. On one side is the text: “Am I not a man and a brother,” and on the other side, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you. Do ye even so to them.”

Manufactured around 1790, probably in London, the medals were issued to promote the message of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. They replicate the Jasperware (unglazed porcelain) medallion produced shortly after the Society was formed in 1787 by Josiah Wedgwood’s Staffordshire pottery firm. The image, attributed to sculptor Henry Webber and prepared for production by modeler William Hackwood, quickly became the iconic symbol of the Society and appeared in books, prints, broadsides, plates, tapestries, and more.

Princeton University Art Museum holds one of the Wedgwood medallions.Slave, 1787. Porcelain. Manufactory: Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, English, established 1759. Trumbull Prime Collection, y1937-37

The library has many examples of this iconic symbol, including an embroidered sampler:
https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2014/02/27/anti-slavery-sampler/

See also: Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, At a meeting held for the purpose of taking the slave trade into consideration: resolved, that it is the opinion of this meeting, that the slave trade is both impolitic and unjust … ([London: s.n., 1787]). EX Lapidus 4.17 and 4.17a

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