Elena Jordana and Ediciones el Mendrugo

A precursor to the better-known 21st century cartoneras (inexpensive books with cardboard covers, originally from Argentina), the Ediciones el Mendrugo also published poetry with handmade images in a modest format from found or recycled materials. Three examples recently came into the Graphic Arts Collection.

[loosely translated from the Living Books site] “…it is worth mentioning a previous history in the publishing world, curiously ignored by those who investigated this popular phenomenon, Ediciones El Mendrugo, by the Argentine poet Elena Jordana, who in the early 70s published books bound with corrugated cardboard, printed on kraft paper (or estraza) and tied with sisal thread, with typography of rubber stamps, where it was necessary to count on heavy typewriters capable of perforating on the stencil (artistic decoration technique), in order to consign the data of title and authorship on the covers, in the aesthetic way of the university flyers.

Each issue was personally distributed by the author herself, on her trips to Mexico, the United States and Argentina. Among the published authors are Nicanor Parra, Ernesto Sábato (who gave up his publication rights so that the text “Letter to a young writer”, with support from the Argentine Society of Writers (SADE), was presented at the 1974 Book Fair), Octavio Paz, Enrique Fierro, Juan de la Cabada, Guillermo Samperio, José Joaquín Blanco and Alejandro Sandoval among thirty writers. As it appears in the journalistic chronicle, each book was made individually among friends, with jugs of wine and songs (Elena herself studied folksong in its beginnings), even some books were accompanied by a jute backpack so readers could wear it more comfortably.”–http://librosvivientes.blogspot.com/2015/11/ediciones-el-mendrugo-precursora-de-las.html

Princeton University Library holds nearly 400 cantoneras, most from the 21st century and so, the addition of these earlier examples of the genre are most welcome. While there are many groups or presses making these books, the majority of our current holdings are from the Eloísa Cartonera.

A history of the movement has been published, which will be helpful in sorting out the participants: Akademia cartonera: a primer of Latin American cartonera publishers = un abc de las editoriales cartoneras en América Latina edited by Ksenija Bilbija, Paloma Celis Carbajal; editorial assistance by Lauren Pagel and Djurdja Trajković (Madison, Wis.: Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, 2009). Firestone Z490 .A37 2009.

Maka C. Dorantes (Maka), Espacio del Espacio (Mexico City, D. F.: Ediciones el Mendrugo/Elena Jordana, n. d. 197?). First Edition. Unpageated (ca. 30 pp.) Graphic Arts Collection in process

MarcoAntonio Montes de Oca, Astillas (Mexico City, D. F.: Ediciones el Mendrugo/Elena Jordana, n. d. 197?). First Edition. Graphic Arts Collection in process

Maka C. Dorantes (Maka), Velamen (Mexico City, D. F.: Ediciones el Mendrugo/Elena Jordana, n. d. 197?). First Edition. Graphic Arts Collection in process

A Key to the Panorama of London from Albion Mills

Now on deposit in the Graphic Arts Collection, thanks to Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986, is a rare engraving: Robert Barker (1739-1806) and Henry Aston Barker (1774-1856), [Key to the panorama ‘London from the roof of the Albion Mills’], ca. 1792. Graphic Arts Collection.

 

Patented in 1787 by Robert Barker, the 365° painted panorama transported spectators into a virtual reality of place and time. Advertisements read: “There is no Deception of Glasses, or any other whatever; the View being only a fair Sketch, displaying at once a Circle of a very extraordinary Extent, the same as if on the Spot; forming, perhaps, one of the most Picturesque Views in Europe.”

In 1791, Barker’s first London show, View of London from the Roof of the Albion Mills, began at the five-story, steam-powered flour mill on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge designed by Samuel Wyatt in 1786 but gutted by fire in March 1791.* After London, the painting toured Europe and many of the brochures or descriptions given to the audiences were printed in several languages.

 

“[Robert] Barker’s Panorama of London from Albion Mill does not survive, although contemporary visual evidence is offered by two descriptive orientation keys and a set of commemorative aquatints. Panorama visitors were given such descriptive keys gratis, not only as souvenirs, but also to inform them of significant sights: they are themselves an important response to Barker’s epistemological anxiety about his painting.

Two orientation keys survive for Barker’s Panorama of London: the first, an undated and cheaply printed [engraving], which can be speculatively dated to 1792, and the second, entitled Panorama de Londres, with the text in French and English, probably issued in Paris c. 1803. –Markman Ellis, “Spectacles within doors’: Panoramas of London in the 1790s” https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/E1354991X0800024X


The panorama’s scenes weren’t what you might expect. One set of the six memorial aquatints can be found at the British Museum, and a mounted set is held at the Government Art Collection, Queen’s Yard, 179a Tottenham Court Road, London [see below].

The British Museum has two versions of the key print, describing one as written in French and Dutch, although it appears to be the same as Princeton’s engraving in English, French, and German.


Robert Barker (1736-1796), London from the Roof of the Albion Mills: a Facsimile of Robert and Henry Aston Barker’s Panorama of 1792-3 / introduction by Ralph Hyde ; keys by Peter Jackson (London: Guildhall Library Publications in association with the London Topographical Society, 1988). Marquand Library Oversize DA682 .B37e

 

“This 360 degree view is taken from the roof of the Albion sugar mills at the S. end of Blackfriars Bridge, to which vantage point Henry Aston Barker was sent to make sketches by his father, Robert Barker, in the winter of 1790-91 … The son’s drawings were then greatly enlarged and painted in distemper on canvas by Robert Barker to create a 1,479 sq. ft. exhibition panorama. This at first was exhibited at … Leicester Square … Birnie’s aquatints of H.A. and R. Barker’s London panorama were prepared and published while it was still on exhibition in Castle Street and testify to the show’s popularity. … Altick records that the six aquatints served as the source for America’s first panorama show. Taken to the United States by a gentleman named Laing, they were copied onto canvas by William Winstanley. The resulting panorama was exhibited in Greenwich Street, New York City, in 1795.”–Ralph Hyde, Gilded Scenes and Shining Prospects: Panoramic Views of British Towns 1575–1900. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale Center for British Art, 1985.

*The fire in the Albion Mills and perhaps Barker’s panorama were the inspiration for
Jerusalem by William Blake [preface to Milton]:
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century

 

Coming up on Wednesday, February 13, 2019, is the third Gillett G. Griffin Memorial Lecture delivered by Dr. Nazera Wright titled “Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century.” The lecture will begin at 4:30 in McCormick Hall 101, followed by a reception in the McCormick lobby. Copies of Dr. Wright’s book will be available for purchase during the reception thanks to our friends at Labyrinth Books. This event is free and open to the public.

 

Talbot database finished

 

A few days ago Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s librarian at Oxford University, announced the conclusion of a six-year project to produce the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné. The database is now open and 18,177 records available at: https://talbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
Included are Talbot photographs from the Graphic Arts Collection and the Princeton University Art Museum. Thanks especially to Squirrel Walsh, Special Collections Assistant IV, and to Roel Munoz, Library Digital Imaging Manager who helped to make our contribution possible.

The database also has a biography and other information. Here’s piece from “Talbot VS Fox Talbot”:

There is every indication that the form of address of ‘Fox Talbot’ was not warmly embraced by the subject himself. In 1823, Henry wrote to his mother from Naples that “I observe you always direct to me Fox Talbot by way of discrimination, but it does rather the contrary. For, the letters are here distributed from different windows, according to the different letters of the Alphabet, and the other day I found no letter for me under T, and accordingly asked for letters for Mr Fox when they immediately produced one from you”. Further evidence that Henry himself had little enthusiasm for ‘Fox’ is revealed in an a letter of 1842 to his mother on the birth of his only son: “You know we had fixed on the name Charles Henry, but if you wish it we can make it C.H.F.T. Constance says she is quite willing.” Even the reluctant offer to incorporate the F. here was not what it appears. It was not a reference to Fox, but rather a homage to his beloved late step-father, Admiral Charles Feilding.

Die Blumen-Monde

Carl, Count Brandis, Die Blumen-Monde. Zwölf Blumen-Bilder nach der Natur photographirt von Carl Grafen Brandis; mit Original-Dichtungen von Felix Dahn, dessen Gemalin und Schwester. [The Flower Months. Twelve Flower Pictures Photographed from Nature with Poems by Felix Dahn, his Wife and his Sister] (Wien: Lechner [1891]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process


While a member of the Amateur Photography Club of Vienna, Carl Brandis prepared 13 heliogravures (including title page) on chine-collé for the Viennese publisher and university bookseller Rudolf Lechner (1822-1895).

Although they appear to be a trompe-l’œil trick, each still life is taken ‘from nature’ with flowers, ferns, and grasses arranged to frame a letterpress poem by Felix Dahn (1834-1912). One arrangement for each month of the year. The loose plates are housed in an elaborate publisher’s cloth portfolio approximately 2 ft tall (64 x 49.5 cm).

In 1893, Brandis received favorable notices for his still-life photography at a Salzburg exhibition, but no other mentions of the artist survive.

Felix Dahn was a German law professor, author, poet and historian. His wife, Therese von Droste-Hülshoff (1845-1929), was also a writer, and a relative of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Dahn’s sister Constanze von Bomhard (1846–1933) was a writer, too, publishing under the pseudonym C. Hirundo.

Exhibition of the Salzburg Amateur Club. On 15 June, it was solemnly inaugurated by Sr. Kaiser Highness Archduke Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Toscana, and surprised the arrangement with its elegance, richness and many really excellent pictures. . . .The number of pictures exhibited is 2000, and since we have only a modest selection here, it may be considered which gigantic production corresponds to this collection. …We can confine ourselves here only to the most outstanding exhibits, and there deserve mention. …; Count C. Brandis with still life. – Photographische Korrespondenz, 30 1893

 

The rescue of Cardinal Vincenzo Maria Orsini, future Pope Benedict XIII, and other miracles

 

Two months after the Saint’s death, Drusilla, wife of Antonio Fantini, fell from a balcony at the height of twenty palms into a court-yard, striking her head against some pieces of iron which were lying on a table; her lower lip was cut through in three places, and her right eye protruded from the socket; both her eyes indeed were so much injured that her sight was entirely gone; her nose was crushed, and her teeth broken, and there was a deep gash in her left hand; moreover, great quantities of blood issued from her mouth, and she was to all appearance a corpse. …

In the meanwhile Antonio Franco, the surgeon, arrived, and when he had examined the wounds and injuries, he gave it as his opinion that it was quite impossible she should survive …

After these fifteen days, … the sick woman was left alone in the house, she recommended herself in her heart to S. Philip, who formerly was her spiritual father; and as she prayed she felt on a sudden a great weight in her breast, and it seemed as though a handkerchief were forced down her throat, and then gradually drawn up again; whereupon her sight was instantly restored, and she saw the holy father vested as a priest, with a glory around his head, and he was holding the handkerchief in his hand all covered with blood; he said moreover, “Do not be afraid, for thou wilt not die this time:” and in an instant she was cured …. [1847 English translation]


Pietro Giacomo Bacci (ca. 1575-1656), Vita di S. Filippo Neri Fiorentino, fondatore della Congregazione dell’Oratorio … con la notizia di alcuni compagni del medesimo santo, aggiunta dal P. Maestro Giacomo Ricci = Life of St. Philip Neri Fiorentino, founder of the Congregation of the Oratory … with the news of some companions of the same saint, added by Fr. Maestro Giacomo Ricci (Rome: Bernabò and Lazzarini, 1745). Graphic Arts Collection GAX -in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a lavishly illustrated edition of the popular hagiography (biography of a saint) of Filippo Neri (1515-1595), first published in 1622 and reissued continuously through the twentieth century.

The artists of the frontispiece, title vignette, and 45 engraved plates include:
Engraved portrait frontispiece by the German engraver Christian Sas (born 1648, active 1660) after the French painter Jacques Stella (1596-1657).
Engraved title vignette of the Virgin and Child on the half-moon and 41 plates are by the Italian engraver Luca Ciamberlano (born ca. 1570) after the Italian painter Guido Reni (1575-1642); three plates are by Sas after Stella; and one (no.45) is by the Italian artist Girolamo Frezza (1659-ca. 1741) after the Italian painter Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674-1755).

Dealers note: New to this edition is a plate (p. 45) depicting the miraculous rescue of Cardinal Vincenzo Maria Orsini, future Pope Benedict XIII, from the rubble of the church of the Annunziata in Benevento during the earthquake that devastated the area in 1688.

Read more about the iconography of the plates: Massimo Leone, Saints and Signs: A Semiotic Reading of Conversion in Early Modern Catholicism (2010) p. 292-300

 

 

 

 

 

A Roma vende i libri per aiutare i poveri = In Rome he sells books to help the poor.

Plan de la justice de Dieu sur la terre

Ç’est ici la jalousie de l’eternel = This is the jealousy of the Eternal

Affligée, tempetée, rejoui-toi, voici ton Roi qui vient t epouser, & se rendre victorieux sur tes ennemis = Sorrowful, Tempted, Rejoice; behold your King who comes to marry, and make himself victorious over your enemies

Quand vous aurez saccagé, vous serez saccagés, car la lumière est apparue dans les ténèbres pour les détruire = When you have ransacked, you will be ransacked, for the light has appeared in the darkness to destroy them.

 

Plan de la justice de Dieu, sur la terre dans ces derniers jours, et du relèvement de la chûte de l’homme par son péché. [Part 2:] Quand vous aurez saccagé, vous serez saccagé: car la Lumière est apparue dans les Ténèbres , signed Jean Allut, Charles Portalès, Nicolas Facio ([Place of publication not identified]: Imprimé par les soins de N. F. [Nicolas Fatio de Duillier], 1714). Graphic Arts Collection 2019 in process

This posthumous collection of sermons by the charismatic Camisard Élie Marion (1678-1713) includes a wonderful allegorical frontispiece to part two. Marion became a spokesman for “the armed rebellion of the mostly illiterate Camisards, clandestine Protestant groups in the mountainous redoubts of the Cévennes, whose strength continued to grow during the first few years of the 18th century.” Their revolt culminated in the War of the Cévennes, which “opposed no more than 3000 Camisards against 20,000 dragoons over a period of two years” (Oxford DNB).

At the engraving’s center a blindfolded woman (representing the true church) is being pulled in four different directions by four priests of Christian religions: Calvinism, Lutheranism, Rome, and Greek orthodoxy. Between the priests four unidentified monarchs draw their swords and stand ready to attack. The above translations are rough and if anyone has a better suggestion, they can be changed.

For more about Marion, see: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/109569

Clarke Garrett, Spirit possession and popular religion: from the Camisards to the Shakers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).  BR112 .G37 1987

The book that “induces a splendid rage.”


Learning from Las Vegas, designed by MIT’s Muriel Cooper, is almost always found on lists of the greatest publications of the 20th century, especially in terms of book design and production. It is priced accordingly.

Imagine the unhappiness and confusion today when someone noticed red flags on the copies held in Princeton University Library: two were missing and/or lost from the rarest large format, first edition and one of the semi-rare smaller second edition, more than most collections have in total.

A deep breath and some minutes later it was confirmed that our library holds 13 copies, only two of which are missing. An embarrassment of riches rather than the opposite.

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press [1972]). Dust jacket, postcard, and prospectus included. Graphic Arts Collection NA735.L3 V4q

 

This winter, Design Observer listed Learning from Las Vegas at the top of their 2018 gift list, noting: “The reissue of Muriel Cooper’s out-of-print masterpiece, Learning from Las Vegas, authored by VSBA, tops my holiday gift list. This facsimile book exists like the original as a fearless object, is a testament to Cooper’s brilliance, and will now save design book connoisseurs thousands of dollars.



Writing for Archinect, Nicholas Korody commented:

“Nearly fifty years ago, Denise Scott Brown, her husband Robert Venturi, and Steven Izenour brought nine architecture students, two planning students, and two graphic design students to Las Vegas. There they studied the famous, if often derided, Las Vegas Strip, discovering a wealth of meaning in its bright signage. Their findings, published four years later in 1972, became one of the seminal texts of architectural theory and influenced an entire generation of practitioners and thinkers.

“Learning from the existing landscape,” Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour begin, “is a way of being revolutionary for an architect.” Perhaps more than anything else, the research methods pioneered in Learning from Las Vegas have changed the way architects practice and study, recasting quotidian landscapes as objects to be analyzed rather than ignored or denigrated. “Withholding judgement may be used as a tool to make later judgements more sensitive,” they write. “This is a way of learning from everything.”

In Learning from Las Vegas, architecture appears as “decorated shed” or “duck”. The former relies on imagery and signage to convey its program. The latter expresses its program and meaning in its form. If much of the then-dominant “late Modernism” eschewed ornament, prior architectures acted more as “ducks”. With the publication of the book, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour helped usher in a return to ornament and symbolism in architecture, as well as a new focus on the architecture of the everyday.

–continue reading at: https://archinect.com/features/article/149970924/learning-from-learning-from-las-vegas-with-denise-scott-brown-part-i-the-foundation

 

Cassandra


Mary Heebner, Cassandra, a poem by Stephen Kessler; images by Mary Heebner ([Santa Barbara, Calif.]: Simplemente Maria Press, MMXIX [2019]). 1 folded sheet (20 panels); approximately 26 x 500 cm folded to 26 x 26 cm + 1 booklet. Copy 10 of 25. Acquired with matching funds provided by the Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019 in process

http://www.maryheebner.com/thework/artistsbooks/cassandra/

The illustrations are adapted from the collage series Veiled/Unveiled (2018). The poem is from “Garage Elegies”, Black Widow Press, 2018.

“Design by Simplemente Maria Press. All text is printed letterpress from polymer plates, typeset in Spectrum MT, by John Balkwill, The Lumino Press, Santa Barbara, California. The images are printed digitally, with some debossing on Legacy Etching cotton rag paper. Individual collage and hand-painting is added to each page by the artist.

The booklet containing the poem, colophon and notes on the mythological Cassandra is handsewn with a Legacy etching cover over Saint-Armand handmade cotton paper.

The accordion structure which opens out over 75 inches, and the booklet rest in a zinc box, made by David Shelton Studios, Santa Barbara, California, with a drawing etched on the lid of the powder-coated box by Joel Sherman, at M Studio, University of California, Santa Barbara.”–Colophon.

 

 Cassandra
With your swampy voice, your electric hair,
rhythm of reeds tideswayed in the rivershallows,
sinuous strings, sidemen on the bank keeping the beat,
you sing bad news with a sound of sweet illusions, of doom
that is not a disaster but merely inevitable, what anyone would expect
if they took a deep look at the evidence everywhere, beauty and truth
entwined with death, cruelty on the loose, tenderness barely enduring
under the lash of chaos muted by coercion—those rules
even the stupid can understand—and out of such murky depths
some lovely myth may rise in song to beggar disbelief.
[selection of text]

Interview with Mary Heebner from Atelier Visit on Vimeo.

Elisabeth Sonrel

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently added two small Catholic missals decorated with chromolithographs in the art nouveau style typical of Élisabeth Sonrel (1874-1951). Her portraits of pretty girls in soft pastels and floral wreaths are instantly recognizable from posters and other nouveau ephemera.

Sonrel only produced a few prayer books with the Tours publishing house known as A. Mame et Fils, under Paul Mame (1833-1903), son of Alfred Mame (1811-1893). Decorated bibles and illustrated books were the shop’s specialty where, according to one source, they published six million volumes yearly.


Missel, avec illustration par Mlle. Sonrel (Tours: A . Mame et Fils, [1900?]). Embossed leather with all-over cross motif within fleuron borders; elaborate gilt inner dentelles and marbled endpapers; in original marbled-pattern slipcase. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

Missel des saintes femmes de France, avec illustration par Elisabeth Sonrel (Tours: Maison A. Mame et fils, 1900). Full morocco binding with four incised bands at the spine and the owner’s applied metal initials on the front board; all edges gilt over marbling; triple embroidered bookmark with metal piece reading “Credo.: In original hinged case with ruched ecru silk lining. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019 in process