Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Gillray’s Sale of English Beauties and Books

When the London book and print dealer William Holland announced the sale of a new print by James Gillray entitled The Sale of English Beauties in the East Indies, he also listed the books available for sale in his shop. This is interesting because within Gillray’s print is a box of books that has been shipped to India along with a group of prostitutes. Since Holland’s partner, George Peacock, was a dealer in adult books such as Fanny Hill, this may have been an early example of product placement.

The copy of this print in the Graphic Arts collection is unfortunately damaged in the bottom left corner, obscuring the text on the box by the auctioneer. Happily, the British Museum’s print is complete, and we can read the titles of the books included in this shipment. The box is inscribed: For the Amusement of Military Gentlemen. Crazy Tales; Pucelle; Birchini’s Dance; Elements of Nature; Female Flagellants Fanny Hill; Sopha; and Moral Tales.

Princeton University on the left and British Museum on the right.

Here are a few of the titles that Gillray imagined would have been included ‘for the amusement of military gentlemen.’

After nearly 25 years, another print/book dealer Thomas Tegg commissioned a new edition of Gillray’s print by Thomas Rowlandson. The great British caricature historian Dorothy George

notes in her Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires that a decision was made to include only the first, second, and fourth book titles given in Gillray’s print; that is, Birchini’s Dance, the Female Flagellants Fanny Hill, Sopha, and Moral Tales are no longer being shipped. Perhaps the books were out-of-print?

Rowlandson’s version above. This is the beginning of a longer paper. Any comments are welcome.

Letters to Anna

Brody Neuenschwander, Letters to Anna. Photos by John Decoene and drawings by Peter Jonckheere (Belgium: Neuenschwander, 2014). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process. Gift of Alfred Bush.

“The freedom of the book format is astonishing,” writes Brody Neuenschwander, Class of 1981. “The order of the pages continues to change, bringing new combinations into being. Of course, you have to settle on a final order at some point. Or perhaps not. Books do not have to be bound…”

Neuenschwander’s new book Letters to Anna is a good example of a successful unbound book. Together with photos by John Decoene and drawings by Peter Jonckheere, the 120 pages can be rearranged to produce new texts.

Completed in 2014, Neuenschwander’s artists’ book is sold to raise money for children at risk, through a program run by the King Boudewijn Foundation in Belgium. Special thanks go to Alfred Bush for his generous gift to the Graphic Arts Collection.

Engraved musical tutors “rendered easy”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a Collection of Seven Musical Tutors, for Instruction in Playing the Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon or Fagotto, Violin, Violoncello, and German Flute (London: [1800-1830s]). Each of the seven engraved booklets run approximately 30 pages with covers and advertising included. A label on the front board is lettered in gilt “T. Eaton/ 1834.” Here are a few examples.

CDV of Bible

Nineteenth-century cartes-de-viste were most often portraits of celebrated figures who posed at the commercial studios of local photographers. They sat or stood holding various books or other personal effects to indicate their occupations and interests. Seldom do we see the objects of affection on their own, such as with these three CDVs of a large Bible taken at the People’s Popular Photograph Rooms, in Bridgeport Connecticut, ca. 1860-1870.

In trying to identify the book in the photographs, Steve Ferguson had the good suggestion to look at the first edition of Luther’s German translation of the Bible posted by the Special Collection Division of the University at St. Andrews Library.

http://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/new-acquisitions-hand-coloured-1589-luther-bible/

Created in the early 16th century, the binding is similar, as are the illustrations by Jost Amman and his workshop. I have yet to find a collector in Connecticut who might have owned such a bible in the 19th century.

If you have other suggestions, we would be grateful to hear them.

Stella’s Pastorales

“In 1667 Claudine Bouzonet Stella published Les Pastorales, a set of sixteen prints of rural subject-matter which have been called the chefs d’oeuvre of the pastoral genre in seventeenth-century France. Besides the charm and attractiveness of the scenes and figures, the quality of the drawing and the excellence of the prints themselves, perhaps the key success of the Pastorales was their reworking of traditional bergerie subject- matter in a modern classical idiom. It was a formula that was to last, and without Claudine’s set of prints the profusion of pastoral imagery in the 18th-century would be almost unthinkable.” –Jamie Mulherron, “Claudine Bouzonnet, Jacques Stella and the Pastorales,” Print Quarterly 25 (2008), pp. 393-407.

It is thrilling to announce that the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a complete set of Stella’s Pastorales, bound in contemporary vellum. We join Harvard University Library as the only collections recorded by OCLC to own this set in the United States.

The acquisition adds significantly to our holding of work by this important female printmaker (see https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2014/12/15/where-are-the-female-printmakers/). Here are a few of her beautiful prints.

Claudine Bouzonnet Stella (1636-1697) after Jacques Stella (1596-1657), Les pastorales (Paris: Par Claudine Stella, aux Galleries du Louvre, 1667). Complete suite of 16 engravings in contemporary vellum binding. “Extrait dv privilege” letterpress printed on verso of title page. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

Kunstschaetze der Mittelalterlichen Sammlung zu Basel

Kunstschätze der Mittelalterlichen Sammlung zu Basel (Art Treasurers in the Medieval Collection in Basil). Text by Wilhelm Wackernagel, ‘head of the collection’ with photography by Jakob Höflinger (Basel: Georg, [1864]). Four portfolios with wrappers. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

The graphic arts collection’s acquisition of this rare, complete set of Swiss photographs will make them, for the first time, available for research in an American collection. Its twenty-two albumen silver prints by the photographer Jakob Höflinger (1819-1898) are mounted on stiff boards and in good condition. The acquisition not only adds to our research holdings in early photography but also documents the medieval art in Basil during the nineteenth century.

Panorama photographic de Portugal

Augusto Mendes Simões de Castro, Panorama photographico de Portugal (Coimbra [Portugal]: Typographia do Paiz, 1871-1874). 4 v. in 2. 48 gelatin silver prints. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Purchased with the support of the Maxwell Fund.

The introduction to this book points out that the arts and culture of Portugal are not well-known in other countries and so, these volumes are meant to promote the country’s artistic treasures. Forty-eight parts were issued over four years, each containing one original albumen photograph by the Portuguese artist Carlos Relvas (1838-1894). The scenes included city views; principal monuments, churches, chateaus, and castles; landscapes; and a few portraits. The first two books include descriptions by various authors, while the images in the last two have no identification.

Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley are the only other American institutions with a copy of these volumes. Here are a few images.

Industrious Fleas

Monsieur Auguste Reinham’s Curious and Amusing exhibition of industrious fleas (broadside), [London, 1852]. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014- in process.

Reinham’s flea circus on Leicester Square was one of many such entertainments in the mid-19th century. This rare broadside announces a troop of 100 fleas, which have been “taught to go through a variety of Performances truly wonderful…”

The program featured two fleas enacting a duel with swords “deciding an affair of honour”; a sybil or fortune-teller flea who promised to answer the visitor’s questions in six different languages; and California fleas digging, washing, and sifting for gold. A railway train of ten carriages (along with flea passengers and their luggage) was pulled by a single flea weighing 5000 times less than the train. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the acts.

Here is a video of a 1950 flea circus from Birmingham: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/flea-circus

In the United States, Professor Roy Heckler was the sole trainer, keeper, and curator of Hubert’s Museum on 42nd Street where he ran a flea circus from 1925 to 1956. After that, he packed the circus into one suitcase and moved to Sarasota, Florida.

For another view, borrow the video Midnight Cowboy. Located at Mendel Music Library (MUS) (DVD 208 ). The museum appears briefly.

Jonathan Swift and tipping

Alfred Mills (1776-1833), Dean Swift and the Post Boy, February 3, 1806. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014- in process

The text below this caricature reads:
“A Gentleman employed a Post Boy to carry a present of a Turbot to Dean Swift, who seldom gave the bringer anything for his Trouble, the Boy knowing this delivered it in an awkward & careless manner which discomposed the Doctor, who thereupon determined to teach him good Manners: “sit down in my Chair” said he “and suppose yourself to be the Dean and I will represent you” – on which the Dean delivered the Turbot and Message with great Politeness, – “well done” said the Boy “you are a very civil Fellow, here is five shillings for you and pray give my Compliments to your Master” – the Dean took the Hint, smil’d at the Joke, and rewarded him with half a Guinea.”

Note the manuscript on the table is Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, who was Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World: In four parts by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships. [3rd ed.] (London: Printed for Benj. Motte, 1726). Rare Books (Ex) PR3724 .G7 1726c

Patent Steel Pens

“Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, made for his own use pens from steel watch-springs. In 1816, he sold his invention to J. Alexander of Birmingham, who started the manufacture of steel pens. At first they were a luxury but about 1830 they came into extensive universal use.” —Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, v. 6 (1917). Here is an early advertisement for Alexander’s firm. Today, Birmingham is home to the Pen Museum: http://www.penroom.co.uk/