Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Stamps, marks, and monograms by George Auriol

George Auriol, Le Premier Livre des cachets, marques et monogrammes. [with] Le Second Livre des monogrammes, marques, cachets et ex-libris. [and] Le Troisième Livre des monogrammes, cachets marques et ex-libris (Paris: Librairie Centrale & Henri Floury, 1901; 1908; 1924). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

“Auriol served as writer, illustrator and editor of the Chat Noir for ten years (1883–93). He produced book covers for the Chat-Noir Guide (1888) and the two-volume Les Contes du Chat Noir (1889–91) as well as 15 programmes for the Chat Noir shadow theatre. From the end of the 1880s the bold colours and flat patterning of his illustrations and typographical designs show the influence of Japanese art.

In 1888 he created his first monograms for Rivière and himself in the style of Japanese seals, and during the next decade he produced hundreds of such monograms for artists, writers and publishers, including Rivière, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Verlaine, Anatole France, Ernest Flammarion and others. In 1901 Henri Floury published the first collection of Auriol’s Cachets, marques et monogrammes, followed by two more volumes in 1908 and 1924.

. . . Auriol’s assimilation of Japanese aesthetics resulted in highly decorative and often abstract floral designs for hundreds of book and sheet-music covers by the avant-garde writers and composers for the publishers Enoch, Flammarion and Ollendorff as well as ornamental typography for Larousse’s encyclopedias (1895–1930) . . . Auriol’s collaboration with the G. Peignot & Frères type-face foundry (1901–5) resulted in the creation of Auriol type styles such as Française Legère and Auriol Labeur.”– Dennis Cate

Illustrated by Brunelleschi

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), La nuit venitienne. Fantasio. Les caprices de Marianne. Illustrated by Umberto Brunelleschi (1879-1949) (Paris: L’edition d’art H. Piazza, 1913). Colophon: Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage cinq cents exemplaires sur papier du Japon signés par l’artiste./ “Achevé d’ imprimer a Paris le 10 Novembre 1913.” Graphic Arts Collection 2015- in process. Gift of Andrea G. Stillman.

Umberto Brunelleschi (1879-1949), Contes du temps jadis (Paris: l’Édition d’art, H. Piazza, 1912). “Achevé d’imprimer le 10 Octobre 1912 par G. Kadar, Paris”–Colophon. “Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage 400 exemplaires sur papier du Japon”–Verso of half-title. Graphic Arts Collection 2015- in process. Gift of Andrea G. Stillman.

Thanks to the generous gift of Andrea G. Stillman, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired two volumes with illustrations designed by Umberto Brunelleschi. Both were published in limited editions by Jules Henri Piazza (1861-1929) under the imprint L’Edition d’Art (The Art Edition H. Piazza and Company). For over 30 years, Piazza issued luxury books in French and English illustrated with reproductions after designs by living artists. We are fortunate to add these two to our collection.

La Lune: ou le livre des poème

Pierre Albert-Birot, La lune, ou, Le livre des poèmes (Paris: Budry, 1924). “Cet ouvrage a été tiré à 326 exemplaires: 26 exemplaires sur Chine … dont un imprimé pour l’auteur, et 25 numérotés de 1 à 25 … [et] 300 ex. sur vergé pur fil Lafuma … numérotés de 26 à 326”–Page [2]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

The artist who in his painting and drawing comes to an understanding of the creative act and produces a microcosm of creation through the form and space of the canvas applies himself as poet to the concrete dimensions of the poem to produce a construction which is at once visual and verbal. It is this which makes an understanding of Albert-Birot’s visual poetry essential for an appreciation of his work as a whole. The fact that he mastered the printing process cannot be reiterated often enough. Creation does not take place only in the mind of the poet, it is received not only in the mind of the reader: creation is concrete, the poem is an object.

The printed space is a practical, functional, mechanical one. The poet and the reader replace it with a “literary or aesthetic space”, an imaginary space, a space of the imagination. Here mechanics and aesthetics fuse to create space which is at once imaginary and material. The superficial visual delight belies deeper bodily sensation just as the sound poems of La Lune explore the archaic noises and rhythms of poetry. This is not experimental poetry for its own sake, nor merely playful audacity in breaking the rules, being willfully “modern”, not a sterile artistic practice in search of something “new”. The relationship between the body of the poet and the body of the poem is fundamental to Albert-Birot’s work as a whole and it is here that it assumes its place in the modern aesthetic as a questioning of the processes of creation and of the place of the self in that creation.”

–Debra Kelly, “From Painter to Poet: the Visual Poetry of Pierre Albert-Birot in La Lune: ou le livre des poème,” in Forum for Modem Language Studies 1996, Vol. xxm, no. 1, p. 50.

For the complete article see: http://fmls.oxfordjournals.org/content/XXXII/1/37.full.pdf+html

Gazette du Bon Ton completed

Gazette du bon ton: arts, modes et frivolities (Paris: Lucien Vogel, 1912–1925). 700 pochoir plates. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize GT500 .G252q

The Graphic Arts Collection holds nearly 200 books and magazines with pochoir (stencil) coloring, assembled primarily by Charles Rahn Fry, Class of 1965. Fry’s collection includes the first half of the French fashion magazine Gazette du Bon Ton, published by Lucien Vogel (1886-1954) from 1912 to 1915 when it was suspended at the outbreak of the First World War.

Each issue contains ten unbound, pochoir colored fashion plates produced by notable artists and illustrators such as Georges Lepape, Pierre Brissaud, Georges Barbier, and Bernard Boutet de Monvel.

Recently, we had the opportunity to acquire the second half of the publication, 1920 to 1925, completing the set of all 70 issues contained in 69 fascicles. These not only include all the original pochoir plates but the advertising supplements as well.

Several changes occurred when the magazine resumed publication in 1920. In particular, it had a second editor, the American Condé Nast (1873-1942). Vogel collaborated with Nast on a pavilion and publication for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. The two men worked so well together that when the Gazette resumed in 1920, Nast provided the financial backing and both men were listed on the masthead. Nast was so taken with the French publication that he began his own American edition called: Gazette du Bon Genre (not at Princeton).

The Complete Collation of the Gazette du Bon Ton is as follows:
No. 1 Undated no volume number (Novembre 1912); No. 2 Undated no volume number (Décembre 1912); No. 3 Undated no volume number (Janvier 1913); No. 4 Février 1913 no volume number; No. 5 Mars 1913 no volume number; No. 6 Avril 1913 no volume number; No. 7 Mai 1913 no volume number; No. 8 Juin 1913 no volume number; No. 9 Juillet 1913 no volume number; No. 10 Aout 1913 no volume number; No. 11 Septembre 1913 no volume number; No. 12 Octobre 1913 no volume number; No. 1 Noël Janvier 1914 no volume number; Février 1914 first appearance of a volume number: 2e Année No. 2; Mars 1914 2e Année No. 3; April 1914 2e Année No. 4; Mai 1914 2e Anné No. 5; Juin 1914 2e Année No. 6; Juillet 1914 2e Année No. 7; Été 1915 2e Année Nos. 8-9.

Recently added: Janvier-Février 1920 3e Année No. 1; Mars 1920 3e Année No. 2; Avril 1920 3e Année No. 3; Mai 1920 3e Année No. 4; Juin 1920 3e Année No. 5; Juillet 1920 3e Année No. 6; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 7; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 8; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 9; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 10; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 1; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 2; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 3; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 4; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 5; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 6; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 7; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 8; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 9; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 10; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 1; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 2; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 3; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 4; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 5; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 6; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 7; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 8; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 9; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 10; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 1; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 2; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 3; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 4; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 5; No month given, 1924. 6e Année No. 6; Mars, 1924. 6e Année No. 7; Avril, 1924. 6e Année No. 8; Mai, 1924. 6e Année No. 9; Juin, 1924. 6e Année No. 10; Juillet, 1924.7e Année No. 1; No month given, 1924-1925 7e Année No. 2; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 3; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 4; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 5; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 6; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 7 (Special issue Le Pavillon de l’Élégance); No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 8; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 9.

Playing Around the World

Jeu du Tour du Monde. Paris, J. Hetzel & F. Didot, [c.1875]. Letterpress and wood engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

In 2011, the Graphic Arts Collection acquired a board game after the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days: https://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2011/01/around_the_world_and_around_th.html.

We recently acquired a publisher’s advertisement for that game in the form of a large printed broadside (75 x 68 cm,) mounted on linen. At the middle of the leaf is a circular version of the game (first published in 1873) although it was actually played in a continuous spiral that led to a center, winning cell. Here, the inside of the circle is filled with a map of the world, together with instructions and rules for the game.

Among other information the advertisements surrounding the game include subscription details for Hetzel’s Magasin Illustré d’Éducation et de Récréation, where Verne’s novels were first published in serial form.

Joseph A. Bodie Photography Studio

What has this collector brought to the Honesdale, Pennsylvania, Photography Studio of Joseph Bodie, to be included while having his portrait taken? Most of the objects in this cabinet card where already in Bodie’s studio but Mr. Chambers (seen here) has clearly chosen to include something else. Is it a new purchase or just today’s newspaper? Let us know your ideas.

Joseph A. Bodie, Sr. (1852-1935), Edward Chambers, ca. 1880. Albumen cabinet card. Graphic Arts Collection GAX2015- in process. Gift of Donald Farren, Class of 1958.

A sad note was included in the Bulletin of Photography in 1912, concerning the Bodie Studio:

This season of the year seems to be pretty well marked with a remarkable number of fires. Not a week has gone by, since the middle of January that we have not had our attention called to at least four or five, which have resulted in serious loss to the photographers. Just the other day W. F. Bell, of I.ulkin, Tex., suffered a loss of $850, with $500 insurance; the Lambert Studio, of Bridgeport, Conn., was damaged to the extent of $75; fire gutted the Charles M. Savage Studio, of Warren, Pa., resulting in $1000 damages; the Notman Photo Studio, of Boston, had a $300 fire; the J. A. Bodie Studio, at Honesdale, Pa., was totally destroyed, the loss of $2600 being only partially covered by insurance; Abel Christensen, of Kent, Ohio, lost $600, when the France Thompson Block burned, on the twelfth; a mysterious blaze in Redlands, Cal., damaged the Burnett Photo Shop, to the extent of $800; a fire starting in the Atlas Photograph Studio, 1719 South Halsted Street, Chicago, Ill., caused a $10,000 fire, as it not only burned the studio, but also two large feather goods stores…

F.V. Chambers, Bulletin of Photography: The Weekly Magazine for the Professional Photographer, Vol. 10, 1912

Les Héros de la ligue

Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704), Les Héros de la ligue. Ou, La procession monacale. Conduitte par Louis XIV, pour la conversion des protestans de son royaume (The Heroes of the League: Or, The Monastic Procession. Led by Louis XIV for the Conversion of Protestants in his Kingdom) (Paris [i.e. Hollande]: Chez père Peters à l’enseigne de Louis le Grand, 1691). 2 preliminary leaves: 24 Mezzotints. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection is pleased to add this volume that contains a satirical poem, “Sonnet. Reponse des refugiez aux persecuteurs,” and 24 caricature portraits representing persons playing an important role in the religious struggles at the time. Several years earlier, on October 22, 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes by signing the Edict of Fontainebleau, which ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches, as well as the closing of Protestant schools.

Each portrait is accompanied by a quatrain. The portraits have been ascribed to C. Dusart, and, with less probability, to L. Gaultier. A set of twelve of the original coloured drawings by Dusart are in the University of Leiden.

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Fête Futuriste, a Cubist Costume Carnival

From 1917 to 1923, Egmont Arens managed the Washington Square Bookshop at 17 West 8th Street and then, 27 West 8th Street, where he also published Playboy A Portfolio of Art and Satire (Marquand 0901.725Q). From 1923, Playboy sponsored a New Year’s Eve costume party at Webster Hall: Fête Futuriste, a Cubist Costume Carnival, which continued on and off throughout the 1920s. This invitation could have been for 1923 or 1928, since in both New Years Eve fell on a Monday.

It is probably 1923 since the evening’s entertainment included a costume revue glorifying the negligees of 1924, with pajamas designed by Nat Lewis (the production opened on Broadway the following March). William Zorach is credited with the decoration of hall and Rockwell Kent helped with the advertising. John Sloan, George Bellows, and Joseph Stella joined Arens’ committee for both the Halloween and the New Year’s celebrations.

Playboy’s Fête Futuriste, a Cubist Costume Carnival, no date (1923?). Graphic Arts Collection
Jessie Tarbox Beals, Washington Square Bookshop, ca. 1918. Gelatin silver print. Museum of the City of New York.

1928 advertisement in The New Yorker.

Beardsley oddity

Curt Moreck [pseudonym for Konrad Haemmerling, 1888-1957], Meister der Erotik in der Kunst (=Master of Eroticism in Art). Aubrey Beardsley. Ein Blatt zu Lukians wahrer Geschichte. Zwei Blätter zu Wilde’s Salomé. Juvenal geisselt das Weib. Ein Blatt zu Lysistrata Vignete … (Privatdruck, MCMXX [1920]). Graphic Arts Collection 2015- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a privately printed limited edition of prints by Audrey Beardsley. This small (229 × 225 mm) volume in a dark green paper wrapper holds five prints from different series and a few pages of text.

The item was ingeniously found by Simon Beattie, who notes that the previous year Haemmerling had produced a new German translation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, which was published, with Beardsley’s illustrations, by Heinrich Böhme in Hanover. Here, Haemmerling writes about sin and sensuality, championing Beardsley’s work for its “way of viewing the world and people with alarming insight.”

Polyorama or Endless Changes of Landscapes

polyorama or endless changes3 Polyorama or, Endless changes of landscapes (London: Hodgson & Company, [ca. 1824]). 16 hand colored lithographed cards forming an interchangeable panoramic landscape view. Graphic Arts Collection 2015-in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired an early lithographic Polyorama, which presumably follows the success of John Clark’s Myriorama. The cards are printed by the English firm Hodgson & Company, which published a number of lithographic landscape views during the 1820s.

‘The formulaic nature of the picturesque landscape had become, by the nineteenth century, a visual cliché, so much so that it was fashioned by John Clark into a children’s game called the Myriorama, a Collection of Many Thousand Landscapes in 1824. Clark followed this first Myriorama of English-like scenery with a second series composed of Italian scenery which made explicit the classical, Claudean antecedents of Gilpin’s picturesque formula. As the suffix ‘orama’ suggests, Clark saw his Myriorama as the domestic counterpart to those large-scale popular landscape amusements, the panorama and diorama.’ –Ann Bermingham, Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and Useful Art (London: Paul MellonCentre, 2000): 107–08.

According to an advertisement in the Bristol Mercury of 17th May 1824, the views were by the Irish artist Frederick Calvert (c.1785–c.1845), who specialized in seascapes and landscapes, and later, also published a series of 39 plates depicting picturesque views of Staffordshire and Shropshire.