What about the author who doesn’t want to be illustrated?

 

At the beginning of Balthasar Anton Dunker’s 1787 collection of etchings designed to “serve the different editions” of Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s Panorama of Paris, there is a notice to the public stating (roughly translated): “The Publishers of this series of little sketches for the Panorama of Paris, have thought it would be very agreeable to the public to see beside the most interesting Chapters of this book, figures which represented to the eyes what Mr. Mercier said with so much elegance & precision.”

The name of the publisher who wrote this note is conveniently omitted since Mercier was explicit in his disdain of painters, sculptors, engravers, and the other visual artists of the day. All eight volumes of Mercier’s book were specifically published without illustrations or decoration of any kind.

In The Unfinished Enlightenment [Firestone PQ265 .S72 2010], historian Joanna Stalnaker notes:

“Tableau de Paris [is] peppered with venomous condemnations of painting and painters. Painting, the ‘idiot sister’ of poetry, is ‘a childish production [un enfantillage] of the human mind, a continually impotent enterprise that is in most cases laughably intrepid.’ And painters are ‘the most useless men in the world, charging exorbitant prices for an art that in no way interests the happiness, tranquility, or even the pleasures [les jouissances] of civil society; a cold and false art of which any true philosopher will sense the inanity.” .

On the other hand, Mercier often equates his writing with painting, stating “I held nothing but the brush of the painter in this work” and referring to his text as “mots-couleurs” or word colors. Dunker must have noticed this and for the frontispiece to his accompanying etchings, the artist begins with a personification of Paris turning away from a physical painting labeled “Tableau of Paris.” The caption: “Let’s put our brushes together! Let’s see black!”

The chapters from Mercier’s book chosen to be illustrated by Dunker are predominantly those dealing with the arts, leading readers to wonder whether the artist is having fun at the author’s expense, rather than simply illustrating him. Perhaps Dunker is the satyr on the frontispiece, peering out at Mercier from behind his canvas.

 

Balthasar Anton Dunker (1746-1807), Tableau de Paris, ou explication de différentes figures, gravées à l’eauforte, pour servir aux différentes éditions du Tableau de Paris (Yverdon: [publisher not identified], 1787). SAX DC729. D765 1787

Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1740-1814), Tableau de Paris (Amsterdam: [s.n.], 1782-1783). ReCAP Ex 1514.635.1782 v.1-8

 

 

Can anyone make out the Latin below?

Abolitionist Sewing Circles


Negro Woman who sittest pining in
captivity and weepest over thy sick
child though no one seeth thee.
God seeth thee though no one pitieth thee.
God pitieth thee; raise thy voice forlorn
and abandoned one; call upon him
from amidst thy bonds for assuredly
He will hear thee.

“Reticule” is the term used by the Victoria and Albert Museum to describe this type of small handbag, usually closed with a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading. Dating from the 1820s, the curators at the V&A attribute the design of the abolitionist reticules to Samuel Lines (1778-1863) and the production to the Female Society for Birmingham, originally called the Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves. While several variant images can be found printed on a similar silk bags, all have the same verse from Hymns in Prose for Children by Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825), first published 1781 (Cotsen Children’s Library English 18 21076).

Women played a major role in the abolitionist movement and formed sewing circles where objects decorated with abolitionist emblems were produced, either for sale or to decorate their homes. Cups and saucers, ewers, pillows, and handbags were just a few of the items produced. While the anti-slavery movement found great momentum in England at the end of the 18th century, by the 1830s the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and other American groups organized similar activities.

The reticule seen at the top is now in the Graphic Arts Collection but here [below] are some of the other versions of this abolitionist bag.

Victoria and Albert Museum National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Library of the Religious Society of Friends

Undergraduate Life at the Hampton Institute

During his years as an undergraduate at the Hampton Institute, Willis J. Hubert (1919-2007) kept a scrapbook, filling it with programs, report cards, newspaper articles, and many informal photographs of his classmates. This enormous volume bound in carved wood boards, 30 x 46 x 7 cm, provides an intimate look at undergraduate life at this primarily black school from 1936 to 1940.

According to his obituary, published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from May 15 to May 17, 2007, Hubert went on to have a distinguished military career in which he achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Not  long after he graduated from the Hampton Institute, he entered the U.S. Air Force and trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field, where Hubert was one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. He went on to be the first African American to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. (New York University) while on active duty, as well as the first to complete the Harvard Business School (Military Co-op) Statistics Training Program.

There are a number of programs from plays and musicals in the scrapbook, including a program for an appearance by the opera singer Marian Anderson.

Hubert studied agriculture at Hampton, so his horticultural club prizes and programs are also included, as well as by-laws of the college Poultry Producers Association.

Also included are a few items from other historically black colleges, which Hubert visited, including Fisk, Howard, and Tennessee State.

The Murder of Ted Smith in 1908

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a set of photographic postcards documenting the “Burning of the Negro Smith.” Two are captioned in white ink. None of them were ever addressed or mailed. The postcards came in a plain envelope marked with the caption in pencil: “Greenville, TX, 28 July 1908”.


The dealer’s note is quoted here in full:

“Ted Smith, aged 18 years old, was accused of raping a young white woman in Clinton, Texas. He was arrested and brought to jail in nearby Greenville. A mob took him from his cell at eight the next morning. Rather than the usual hanging, they covered him under a pile of wood, doused him with kerosene, and burned him alive in the center of town, in front of a large crowd. The postcards depict the horrible scene, with the crowd gathered around the fire. One shows the wood pile, apparently just before the fire started. The last two in the series show Smith’s charred remains after the wood had burned away.

Texas History site notes: From the early 1920s through the late 1960s, Greenville was known for displaying a large sign emblazoned ‘The Blackest Land, the Whitest People,’ across its main street, and the town has a history of racial tension and violence. One of the most notorious events in Greenville’s history occurred on July 28, 1908. Acting on allegations of rape from a white girl, a crowd of over 2,000 people seized a young African-American man named Ted Smith and burned him in the town square.

Despite national outrage, city and county officials refused to prosecute the case and even issued statements in support of the action. Although no issues of the Morning Herald pertaining to Smith’s lynching seem to have survived, the paper reveals a widespread acceptance of such violence in a 1908 article on another case. The article, which deals with the murder of a sheriff in a neighboring county, concludes with the suggestion, ‘The negro escaped but posses of citizens are searching for him. Feeling runs high and a lynching may follow the negro’s capture.’

The lynching of Ted Smith was covered extensively in the Greenville Messenger and the Herald’s rival, the Greenville Evening Banner. These papers provide important sources documenting the culture and history of Greenville and Hunt County. https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/GVMHD/ An extended account can be found in the Waxahachie Daily Light, Wednesday, July 29, 1908″

La tour de trois cents mètres

Detail of photogravure after Louis-Emile Durandelle (1839-1917), printed by Société des imprimeries Lemercier and published by Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) in La tour de trois cents mètres (1900).

 

 

Throughout the construction of the Eiffel Tower, from January 1887 to March 1889, many photographers documented the Tower’s progress as it rose over Paris. By the time of the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the photographs were almost as popular as the site itself.

The most complete record was produced by the firm Delmaet and Durandelle, led by Louis-Emile Durandelle (1839-1917) and Clémence Jacob Delmaet (died 1890), the wife of his former partner who he later married.

As one of the leading architectural photographs of the 19th century, Durandelle established his reputation documenting the construction of Charles Garnier’s Paris Opéra from 1862 to 1875. Durandelle and Delmaet also photographed the reconstruction of the Hôtel-Dieu (1868) and the abbey of Mont-Saint Michel (1874-78), and the construction of the Bibliothèque Nationale (1870), Sacré-Cœur (1877-90), the theater at Monte Carlo (1880) and the Eiffel Tower (1887-89).

In 1889, Delmaet and Durandelle published an elaborate album of 58 albumen silver prints of the construction of the Eiffel Tower and then, one year later he retired, selling the firm to his assistant.

Louis-Émile Durandelle (1839-1917), Travaux de construction de la Tour ([Paris: s.n., 1887-1889]. 58 albumen silver prints from collodion glass negatives. Previously owned by Adolphe Salles, the son-in-law of Gustave Eiffel. Ex 2017-0004E

 


In his biography of Gustave Eiffel, David Harvie writes,

“There had been considerable use made of photography during the tower’s construction, and apart from rather formal engineering records, there are many sequences showing the advancing construction taken from precisely fixed camera positions. The great French architectural photographer Louis-Emile Durandelle, who with his partner Hyacinthe-César Delmaet had photographed the construction of Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera and the basilica of Sacré-coeur in Montmartre, also undertook a long series of painstaking, large-format photographs of the building of the Eiffel Tower.

These photographs were masterpieces of the difficult nineteenth-century wet collodion process, and certainly did not constitute popular or commercial exploitation. … Durandelle’s photographs reignited the claims for the tower’s beauty in a way that natural human observation somehow didn’t, and helped ensure that the controversy over the tower’s presence and its aesthetic qualities would be brought to an end”— Eiffel: The Genius Who Reinvented Himself (2006)

When the Tower was complete and the well-earned celebrations ended, Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) partnered with the Lemercier printers to publish a complete record of the design, engineering, and construction of the project from beginning to end. The two limited-edition volumes were prepared at the author’s expense and distributed free of charge to libraries, universities, and scientific societies. To augment his own documents, Eiffel arranged to have 11 of the Delmaet and Durandelle photographs (and 2 small details) transferred to copper plates and printed in photogravure for the monumental conclusion of these books.


Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), La tour de trois cents mètres (Paris: Société des imprimeries Lemercier, 1900). “Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage 500 exemplaires sur papier vélin, numérotés”–Verso of half-title page. Ex oversize Item 7599347q and oversize item 7599727e.

This was one of the last great projects for Imprimeries Lemercier & Cie, which had been one of the largest of the French publishing houses, known not only for their spectacular lithographs but also for their photogravures (sometimes released under the imprint Héliog. & Imp. Lemercier).

Unfortunately, after the death of their founder, Rose Joseph Lemercier and the rise of photomechanical printing at the end of the 19th-century, the shop was forced into bankruptcy. There is no record of a single individual responsible for the printing of the copper plates.

Albumen silver prints [above and below] from collodion glass plate negative by Louis-Émile Durandelle (1839-1917), published in Travaux de construction de la Tour (1889).

 

Thanks to Eric White, Curator of Rare Books, who acquired these volumes and is allowing them to be used in the upcoming exhibition “Turning Light into Darkness,” documenting our photogravures.

 

This portrait and short life-path of Wilhelm Weber


Dieses Bildniß, und kurtzen Lebens-Lauff, Wilhelm Webers. Dieses Bildniss und kurtzen Lebens Lauff, Wilhelm Webers, gewesenen gekrönten Poeten und Spruchspechers in Nürnberg, verehret die hinterlassende Witwe … Nuremberg, bey mir Anna Maria Weberin, hinterbliebenen Wittiwen, zu finden, bey St. Jacob, [1661]. Graphic Arts Collection 2018- in process

Although Dante never received a laurel wreath during his lifetime, Wilhelm Weber (1602-1661) was honored as Poet Laureate in 1647 at the age of forty-five. Thanks to a recent acquisition, the Graphic Arts Collection now holds two variant broadsides celebrating Weber, both published in 1661, the year of the poet’s death in Nuremberg. The central focus of both are similar engraved portraits of Weber wearing his twelve honorary medals.

Eigentliche Bildnuß, Deß Ersamen Wilhelm Webers... was published by Hans Weber, presumed to be the poet’s son, with a publication line: “Dieses Exemplar ist zufinden bey mir Hannß Weber, bey S. Jacob auffm Hohenpflaster.” The second: Dieses Bildniß, und kurtzen Lebens-Lauff, Wilhelm Webers... was published by his widow Anna Maria Weber, has the publication line: “Dieser Spruch, ist bey mir Anna Maria Weberin hinterbliebenen Wittiwen, zu finden, bey St. Jacob.”

According to Werner Wilhelm Schnabel, “A form of poetry situated outside the world of the cultural elite flourished in the 17th century. One of the best-documented representatives of this genre was the “Spruchsprecher” Wilhelm Weber . . . [who] worked as a journalist and publisher, and also as a contract poet and popular elocutionist.” A spruchsprecher was a spokesperson who recited rhymes, told stories, and spoke at public events, weddings, and New Year’s Day celebrations. More details on Weber and his broadsides can be found in Poets Laureate in the Holy Roman Empire by John Flood (2011).

One of Weber’s own New Year’s broadsides and other publications about the poet can be found in the digital collection of the State Library in Berlin. Too bad there is no broadside to celebrate the 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the United States, Tracy K. Smith, Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of the Humanities, Director and Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University.

 

Eigentliche Bildnuss : Dess Ersamen Wilhelm Webers, gekrönten Teutschen Poeten, und Spruchsprechers in Nürnberg, seines Alters 60. Jahr ([Nuremberg] : Dieses Exemplair ist zufinden bey mir Hannss Weber, bey S. Jacob auffm Hohenpflaster, [1661]). Text ends: So hat gesprochen/ Wilhelm Weber. Graphic Arts Collection Q-000551.

 

Comparing them in size below:

The Constitution in Photogravure

Nestore Leoni (1862-1947), The Declaration of Independence, and Constitution of the United States. Facsimile in Photogravure of the Thirteen Illuminated Parchments, Containing the Text of the Great Documents, and Reproducing in Chronological Order the Portraits of the Presidents, Statesmen, Admirals and Generals, with Illustrations of the Most Important Events and Episodes of American History from its Discovery Up to the Present Time (Roma: N. Leoni, 1910). Provenance: Author’s presentation inscription to H. Blakiston Wilkins, dated 1921. Wilkins was executive secretary to the American Academy in Rome 1919-1921 and also the honorary curator of musical instruments at the Library of Congress. Rare Books Oversize 2006-0207F

 

In 1902, critic Charles Caffin (1854-1918) reviewed Nestore Leoni’s illuminations of The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States recently completed in Rome and on exhibit in New York City. He noted that manuscript illumination had a resurgence during the Renaissance and then continued:

“It was the examination of these latest examples that fired Leoni with the longing to revive the art. Encouraged by Baron Podesta, the curator of the manuscripts in the National Library at Florence, and by the Abate Anziani, of the Laurenziani Library in the, same city, he began his studies, which extended over ten years. His first work was the illumination on parchment of the six strophes of the ‘Canzone di Cina da Pistoia,’ for presentation to Queen Margherita by a group of Florentine ladies”

“…Then [Leoni] commenced the illumination of the Constitution of the United States of America, a work which occupied him ten years. It has been recognized by the highest authorities as combining with extraordinary success the rich color and perfect craftsmanship of the old work with the spirit of modern art.”–Everybody’s Magazine 7, no 1 (July 1902).

Soon after the thirteen illuminations returned to Rome, they were photographed and reproduced in photogravure. The artist self-published a portfolio in limited edition, distributed in conjunction with the New York bookseller George D. Sproul.


Also illuminated by Leoni:
Luigi Luzzatti (1841-1927) and Nestore Leoni, Sulla costituzione degli Stati Uniti a proposito delle miniature di Nestore Leoni (Roma: Direzione della Nuova antologia, 1901).

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Nestore Leoni, Shakespeare’s Sonnets ([New York]: Geo. D. Sproul, 1901).

John Milton (1608-1674) and Nestore Leoni, Comus ([S.l.]: G.D. Sproul, 1902)

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) and Nestore Leoni, The Holy Grail ([New York?]: George D. Sproul, 1902).

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) and Nestore Leoni, Li Trionfi de messer Francesco Petrarcha poeta laureato (Roma: Tipi dell’Unione cooperativa editrice, 1904).

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) and Nestore Leoni, Sonnets from the Portuguese (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909).

Dante Alighieri and Nestore Leoni, La vita nuova : nel sesto centenario della morte di Dante Alighieri (Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1921).

 

 


Darboven


Congratulations to our colleagues at the Princeton University Art Museum, where the exhibition “Hanne Darboven’s Address — Place and Time” opens today. As the press release notes, the show “presents a selection of works that explore how space, time and communication were organized and experienced in 20th-century European culture. Using a variety of techniques for drawing, writing and arithmetical calculation, Darboven reconfigured elements derived from the Gregorian calendar, the postal system and personal correspondence, including picture postcards and handwritten letters.”

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/04/26/place-and-time-exhibition-german-conceptual-artist-darboven-stems-princeton

Work by Darboven (1941–2009) and Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) from Rare Books and Special Collections are included, with additional Darbovens on view in the Marquand Library in McCormick Hall and in the Department of German in East Pyne Hall.

A day of programming will celebrate the opening beginning at 1:30 on Friday, April 26. Poster and schedule: http://german.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hanne-darbovens-address-event-flyer.pdf.

To hear more, watch the Artists on Artists Lecture on Hanne Darboven with Nick Mauss and Ken Okiishi at the Dia Art Foundation from March 7, 2017: https://youtu.be/AUCOcaaVAmM

What Parallèlement Might Have Been

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) and Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), Parallèlement. Lithographies originales de Pierre Bonnard (Paris: A. Vollard, 1900). “Deux cents exemplaires numérotés. Nos. 1 à 10 sur chine chine, avec une suite de toutes les planches sans le texte. Nos. 11 à 30 sur chine chine. Nos. 31 à 200 sur vélin de Hollande.” Copy 67.  Graphic Arts Collection 2011-0160Q. Title page with and without the symbol of the Republic, the privilege from the “garde des Sceaux” at the presses of the Imprimerie Nationale, which was withdrawn.


Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), Parallèlement (Paris: L. Vanier, 1889). Ex copy. Presentation copy to Edmund Gosse with inscription by the author. Rare Books PQ2463 .xP3 1899

 

 

In 1896, the year of Paul Verlaine’s death,  Parisian publisher Ambroise Vollard (1867‐1939) was one of three thousand people who attended the poet’s funeral. Wanting to do something in honor of Verlaine, Vollard contacted his friend Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944, son of Camille Pissarro) and proposed a deluxe livre de peintre with Pissarro’s woodcuts and Verlaine’s poem Parallèlement.

It is thought that Pissarro’s father dissuaded the young artist from working with such controversial subject matter — a series of erotic and religious poems, some involving a love affair between two women — but for whatever reason, Pissarro turned Vollard down.

Pissarro went on to completed woodcuts for a fine press edition of La belle au bois dormant with Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) under his own imprint Eragny Press (among many other projects). Heavily influenced by William Morris, this is probably the style he would have used for Vollard’s edition of Parallèlement, had it been completed.

 

Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944) and Charles Perrault (1628-1703), La belle au bois dormant; &, Le petit Chaperon rouge: deux contes de ma Mère l’Oye par C. Perrault de l’Académie française ([London: Hacon & Ricketts], 1899 ([London: Eragny Press]). Graphic Arts Collection Z269.P95 P47 1899

 

 

Vollard turned to Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) and proposed the same project but this time with lithographs, Bonnard’s preferred medium. The artist was given proof sheets of the letterpress text and experimented with designs across the double page spread before drawing on the lithographic stones. Space had been left for a traditional illuminated letter at the beginning of each section (similar to those seen above) but these were thankfully omitted.

Both volumes were pulled and compared today by the students, demonstrating the radical innovations of Bonnard’s designs and the reason we call Parallèlement the beginning of the modern artist’s book.

Congratulations Student Collectors!

From left to right: Grace Masback ’21; Annabel Barry ’19; Alexander Gottdiener ’19; Rasheeda A. Saka ’20; Kiara Gilbert ’21. Not pictured Lavinia Liang ’18.

 

Last Sunday, the Friends of the Princeton University Library gathered at the newly opened Lewis Arts Complex for their spring dinner and for the announcement of the winners of the 93rd annual Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize. This year, the essays were of such high caliber and the individual collections so compelling that the judges gave out more prizes than any other year in recent memory.

Congratulations to our first prize winner: Annabel Barry, Class of 2019, for her essay “The Emigrant’s Dilemma: Collecting Books About Ireland,” which unravels her act of collecting books about and from Ireland as an intimate journey of discovering selfhood, a journey that eventually brought her to Ireland, merging a literary island with its physical landscape.

Annabel receives a check for $2,000, a certificate from the Dean, and a book donated by Princeton University Press to complement her collection: Ireland’s Immortals by Mark Williams (2016). Annabel’s essay has been submitted to the National Collegiate Book Collecting Competition representing Princeton University. We wish her luck!

There was a tie for second prize, awarded to Grace Masback, Class of 2021, for her essay “The Wonder of the Mile: A Collection and an Enduring Connection,” in which Grace describes her collection of books, videos, drawings, photos, and autographs connected to the history of the mile run, in particular biographies of great milers. Second prize also went to Alexander Gottdiener, Class of 2019, for his essay “Bohemian Waxwing Rhapsody,” that shared with readers his life-long passion for ornithology, enlightened us about the fine nuances of bird species, and gave a connoisseur’s comment on what different field guides to birds each have to offer.

Both Grace and Alexander receive $1,500, a certificate, and a book from Princeton University Press. For Grace this was Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture by Andrei S. Markovits (2010)  and Alexander received All about Birds, A Short Illustrated History of Ornithology by Valérie Chansigaud (2010).

Third prize went to Kiara Gilbert, Class of 2021, for her essay “The Coalescing of Legacies: Herodotus, Pynchon, and Malcolm X,” in which Kiara relates the unflinching trajectory of her personal growth and intellectual maturation shaped by the collection she has amassed with the least resource available to her since childhood. The end result is a collection that reconciles and embraces both classic literature and Black intellectualism, mirroring the collector’s growing sophistication while carving a challenging path towards an in-between space. Kiara receives a check for $1,000, a certificate, and a copy of American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century by Gary Gerstle (2001).

Two honorable mentions were also awarded. The first to Lavinia Liang, Class of 2018, for her essay “In Pursuit of Broken Mirrors: Resisting Essentialism In Contemporary Asian American Fiction.” Lavinia described with painful candor her uneasy relationship with fiction by Asian American authors, in her yearning pursuit for immigrant narratives that are recognizable and comforting. She received a copy of America’s Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893-1945 by Colleen Lye (2009).

An honorable mention also went to Rasheeda A. Saka, Class of 2020, for her essay “The Lost Art: Freeing my Creative Imagination through the Works of Nigerian Authors,” describing a body of diverse and multi-dimensional novels, short stories, and plays by Nigerian authors she has curated, and reflects on how that collection emboldens her own literary voice and liberates her imagination. She was given a copy of Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria by Wendy Griswold (2000).

Prizes were announced on Sunday by Minjie Chen, who will be administering next year’s prize and P. Randolph (Randy) Hill ’72, chair of the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Special thanks to this year’s judges: Minjie Chen, Eric White, John L. Logan, Claire Jacobus, and Kent Cao; overseen by Julie Mellby.

Congratulations to all the winners!