Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Adding to Firestone Library’s signature moments

3rd floor 26After Giambologna (1529–1608), Mercury, no date. Bronze. Princeton University, Gift of Mrs. Edgar Palmer. PP515.

3rd floor 20While our students are away on their spring break, we placed a few more works of art and science into the newly renovated Firestone Library. Here are images from the last couple days. Note in particular, you can see the bottom of the world as you walk up the stairs.

 

3rd floor 25Anonymous, Terrestrial Globe, Venice, 1631. Hand-painted, 32 inches in diameter, with full metal meridian ring, and printed horizon ring, resting on a short turned column in an elaborate wooden stand of six turned supports and half-ball feet. Rare Books and Special Collections.

 

3rd floor 233rd floor stair

 

3rd floor 22Otis Bass (1784-1861), Samuel Blair, Jr. (1741-1818) and Susan Shippen Blair (Mrs. Samuel Blair, Jr.) (1743-1821), ca. 1812-17. Oil on canvas. Princeton University, Gift of Roberdeau Buchanan. PP52.

 

3rd floor 21Daniel Huntington (1816-1906), John Torrey (1796-1873), 1857. Oil on canvas. Princeton University, presented by a group of alumni in 1916. PP61.

Otherwise known as Man Reading a Newspaper.

 

Hanging a tapestry by John Nava in our 3rd floor reading room

tapestry8Yesterday
tapestry12Monday morning
tapestry16After lunch
tapestry13Unrolling
tapestry17It fits

tapestry14Woven in Belgium
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John and Jennifer

B is for Beckett

Two Titles from emdash web view_Page_10Mary Jo Bang and Ken Botnick, B is for Beckett (St. Louis, Mo.: Emdash, 2012). Letterpress printed artist book, bound in the notched perfect method with hand-stamped lead front cover and spine of handmade, hand-dyed flax by Cave Paper in Minneapolis. 89 p. Copy 10 of 10. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process.

“This is the second collaboration between poet Mary Jo Bang and book artist Ken Botnick, this time publishing a one-line poem by Bang originally published in her collection, Elegy for E. Both projects have employed an unusual and complex printing method which involves moving the type in the bed of the press after each impression, in effect, the type “walks” off the page. When the book is closed the type reads clearly on the edge surfaces of the book as if printed direcctly on the edges themselves. The book is meant to be shown, and stored, on its side.”—prospectus.

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311 Salted Paper Portraits of the United States Congress

mcclees gallery14James E. McClees (1821-1887), McClees’ Gallery of Photographic Portraits of the Senators, Representatives & Delegates of the Thirty-Fifth Congress (Washington: McClees & Beck, 1859). 311 salt prints in black morocco binding with ornate gilt decoration. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

“In presenting this volume to the public,” wrote photographer James McClees in his introduction, “the publisher begs leave to remark that it is the largest collection of perfectly authentic Photographic portraits ever published; containing three hundred and eleven likenesses one-fifth of the size of life, each being a reflex of the features of the subject, and in no instance a copy from a painting or an engraving, and finished in the best manner for Photograph negatives taken by the publisher himself or his able assistant, Mr. Julian Vannerson, an Artist of acknowledged ability and artistic taste.” A long sentence for a lengthy project.

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Graphic Arts Collection recently acquire this superb volume of three hundred and eleven salted paper portraits of the thirty-fifth Congress of the United States, that is, members dating from March 4, 1857 to March 4, 1859 during the first two years of James Buchanan’s presidency. Included are the Senators, Representatives, and Delegates, with their autographs reproduced under their portrait in facsimile, “procured from private letters and registers not written for publication.” This volume was meant to be the first of a series, although no subsequent volumes were every completed.

As a frontispiece, McClees created a photograph of the capitol taken from an original drawing by T.U. Walter, architect of the U.S. Capitol extension. Our volume also includes one additional salt print laid into the front cover of Charles Brooks Hoard (1805-1886), congressman from New York, along with a presentation inscription: “A testimonial of Friendship / Presented by / C.B. Hoard / March 1861.” This is a second portrait, in addition to the one bound into the volume.

McClees’ ambitious project had an extraordinary scope and the end result was beautifully realized. As he claims, it is the first and largest such collection of photographic portraits created in the United States. The images include the key figures in politics leading up to the Civil War, both Union and Confederate, nicely indexed at the front. Notable are the portraits of Andrew Johnson, Jefferson Davis, Sam Houston, Stephen Douglas, and Schuyler Colfax, although the list could go on and on.

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Princeton’s Western Americana Collection also holds the McClees series of portraits made of the Native American Indian delegation: http://pudl.princeton.edu/collection.php?c=pudl0017&f1=kw&v1=mcclees. McClees first opened a daguerreotype studio in Philadelphia in 1845 and in 1851-52 he made daguerreotypes of Indian delegations visiting his studio in Philadelphia. When he perfected paper photography, the McClees studio produced another series of the Indian delegation on paper.

In the summer of 1857, McClees opened a second gallery at 308 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. and hired two additional photographers, Julian Vannerson and Samuel Cohner, to undertake the congressional photography project. They did their best to photograph every congressman, although some failed to show up as scheduled. Eighteen leaves are published with only the signature on the page.

Only five copies of is rare volume are currently listed at institutions: the George Eastman House, the University of Illinois, Indiana Historical Society, Library of Congress, and the New Hampshire Historical Society.

 

Isaac Cruikshank Frontispiece

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cruikshank life of the lateThe Graphic Arts Collection was recently offered the gift of Isaac Cruikshank’s frontispiece for The Life of the Late Most Noble Francis Duke of Bedford, completed March 16,1802. We already have the book, with its frontispiece in place, However, we were thrilled to acquire the duplicate print.

Why? In the Krumbhaar Catalogue Raisonné from 1966, this particular print is described in entry 648: “IC. Oval colored portrait frontispiece, ‘The Late most Nable Francis Duke of Bedford,’ unsigned but inscribed ‘From a drawing by my Father I. Cruikshank’ in GC’s [George Cruikshank’s] handwriting.”

Krumbhaar goes on to say the print was “Bought by me at a Parke-Bernet auction, November 18, 1958, item 142. See also Chubbock, p. 4, no. 22”

 

cruikshank life of the late3The bound-in frontispiece on the left with the inscribed print laid next to it on the right. Thanks to Thomas V. Lange for his watchful eye to catch this treasure for Princeton’s collection.

cruikshank life of the late4Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811), Frontispiece etching for The Late most Noble Francis Duke of Bedford… (London: J. Fairburn, 1802). Inscribed by George Cruikshank. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process. Gift of Thomas V. Lange.

cruikshank life of the late5 Krumbhaar number 648_Page_1

 

The Life of the late most noble Francis, Duke of Bedford : including the speech of the Hon. Charles James Fox in the House of Commons, March 16, 1802 …(London: John Fairburn, [1802]). Rare Books (Ex) 3580.161

Edward Bell Krumbhaar (1882-1966), Isaac Cruikshank; a catalogue raisonné, with a sketch of his life and work (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press [1966]). Rare Books: Reference Collection in Dulles Reading Rm. (ExB) NE642.C82 K7

Folies Bergère Poster

folies bergere posterLucien Baylac (1851-1913), Folies Bergère, Miss Mabel Love, 1895. Lithographic poster. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

The French draughtsman Lucien Baylac (1851-1913) has been referred to as the successor to designer Jules Chéret (1836-1932), along with many others. Chéret’s enormous lithographic posters were wildly successful in Parisian society and by 1881, he was able to transfer the responsibility of his shop to Chaix & Company. Conveniently located on the rue Bergère, Chaix became Baylac’s printer and together, they produced a number of posters for the Folies Bergère. In particular, Baylac designed two featuring the British actress Mabel Love (1874-1953) during her 1895 season performing in Paris.

One of Baylac’s rare 1895 posters was recently found in our vault and gently unrolled by our paper conservator. It will join eight other fin de siècle theater posters already identified in our collection.

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100 years of posters of the Folies Bergère and music halls of Paris [compiled by] Alain Weill (London: Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1977). Rare Books: Theatre Collection (ThX) Oversize ML1727.8.P2 O58 1977bf

Paul Derval, The Folies Bergère; translated from the French by Lucienne Hill. With a pref. by Maurice Chevalier (New York: Dutton, 1955). Mendel Music Library (MUS) ML1727.8.P17 D4

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Stories from Antigua

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Founded in 1990, Libros San Cristobal La Antigua is a small hand bindery and press located in the Aldea Santiago Zamora, Sacatepequez, Guatemala in Central America. The directors, Christopher Beisel and Grove Oholendt, are “dedicated to the elaboration and publication of small hand printed and hand bound limited editions on subjects related to Mesoamerica.”
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Over the last two dozen years, they have published books on a wide spectrum of topics related to indigenous and ancient arts of Mayan civilization. Most include woodcuts designed and cut by Guillermo Maldonado including their most recent volume Prosa de Antigua (Stories from Antigua), with text by Rafael Vicente Alvarez Polanco.
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Prosa de Antigua contains twelve stories by Alvarez Polanco selected by his daughter Ana Victoria Alvarez Najera and printed in Spanish and English by Felipe Bucú Miché at Libros San Cristóbal. Maldonado’s woodcuts were printed by E. Rocael López Santos and hand colored by Grove Oholendt and Carlos Bucú Miché. The volume is leather bound by Sergio Bucú Miché and housed in a slipcase made from Libros San Cristóbal’s own amate bark paper.

 

Rafael Vicente Alvarez Polanco, Prosa de Antigua, with woodcuts by Guillermo Maldonado ([Guatemala]: Libros San Cristobal, 2013). Copy 17 of 125. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Special thanks to our friend Alfred Bush who helped transport the volume to Princeton.

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Les Illuminations

leger illuminationsArthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), Les illuminations. Lithographs by Fernand Léger, preface by Henry Miller. Lausanne: Éditions des Gaules, 1949. One of 395 copies. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process

leger illuminations2During the Second World War, the French artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955) lived and worked in the United States, teaching for a brief time at Yale University. He returned to France in 1945 and worked on several livres d’artistes late in his career. In 1948 Léger sent a series of drawings to the American author Henry Miller (1891-1980), who wrote The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder (Ex 3857.19.386) to accompany Léger’s circus imagery.

Although the artist decided not to use this piece, Léger went back to Miller the following year and requested that he write a preface to his next project, Les Illuminations. Miller agreed and his text is reproduced in facsimile of his own handwriting.
leger illuminations5The prose poems of Les Illuminations were written by Arthur Rimbaud between 1873 and 1875, and partially published in La Vogue in 1886. Léger chose a selection of these poems to include with 15 of his lithographs, 6 of which were stencil colored under the direction of the Swiss publisher Louis Groschaude.

leger illuminations4One of the poems Léger chose to use was Parade, which has been translated as:

“Sturdy enough jesters. Several have exploited your worlds. Devoid of need, in no hurry to make play of their brilliant faculties or their knowledge of your conscience. How ripe they are! Eyes dazed like the summer night, red and black, tricolours, steel pricked with golden stars; features deformed, leaden, pallid, on fire; hoarse-throated frolickers! A cruel swagger of faded finery! – Some are young – how do they view Cherubino? – endowed with frightening voices and dangerous resources. They’re sent out soliciting in city streets, decked out in disgusting luxury.”

Among Léger other book project are J’ai Tué (1918) and La Fin du Monde Filmée par l’Ange Notre-Dame (1919) both by Blaise Cendrars; Lunes en Papier by André Malraux (1921); and Liberté by Paul Éluard (1953). To read more, see Renée Riese Hubert, “The Books of Fernand Léger: Illustration and Inscription,” in Visible Language, 23, no. 2/3 (spring/summer 1989), p. 255-79 (Firestone Library (F) Z119 .J88).
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Sindbad Reaches America 1794

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“My father left me a considerable estate, most part of which I spent during my youth,” begins the history of Sindbad the sailor, “but I perceived my error, and called to mind that riches were perishable, and quickly consumed by such ill husbands as myself. I farther considered, that, by my irregular way of living, I wretchedly mispent [sic] my time, which is the most valuable thing in the world.”

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Elizabeth Newbery (1746-1821) first published this account of Sindbad the sailor from her London shop in 1784 (Cotsen Eng 18, Newbery 5017). There is no record of who made the woodcut illustrations to accompany the story. Ten years later, a pirated edition turned up for the first time in Boston, Massachusetts with the same cuts under the publisher Samuel Hall (1740-1807).

The brothers, Samuel and Ebenezer Hall began printing in Salem, Mass. from 1768 to 1775, the third printing press in the colony of Massachusetts. After the death of his brother, Samuel moved the firm to Boston where he published books and newspapers for adult and juvenile audiences. A nice biography of the “printer/patriot” has been posted at: http://tarquintarsbookcase.blogspot.com/2010/05/samuel-hall-printer-patriot-part-1.html and additional information can be found in Isaiah Thomas’s The History of Printing in America (1810):

“In April, 1789, [Hall] began printing, in the French language, a newspaper, entitled Courier de Boston. This was a weekly paper, printed on a sheet of crown in quarto, for J. Nancrede, a Frenchman… a bookseller in Boston; but his name did not appear in the imprint of the paper. Courier de Boston was published only six months. After Hall relinquished the publication of a newspaper, he printed a few octavo and duodecimo volumes, a variety of small books with cuts, for children, and many pamphlets, particularly sermons. He was a correct printer, and judicious editor; industrious, faithful to his engagements, a respectable citizen, and a firm friend to his country. He died October 30, 1807, aged sixty-seven years.”
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The History of Sindbad the Sailor: Containing an Account of His Several Surprizing Voyages and Miraculous Escapes (Boston: Printed and sold by S. Hall, No. 53, Cornhill, 1794). Woodcut frontispiece and six full-page illustrations, one for each of the seven voyages. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

Satire on gout continued

dissertationes7Dissertationes de laudibus et effectibus podagrae quas sub auspiciis… ([Brün?]: no publisher, [1715]). Illustrated by Johann Georg Gutwein. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

At the back of our newly acquired satire on gout is a proclamation, making fun of scholarly diplomas and professional certificates.  This one congratulates the man who has acquired gout. Our colleague recently did a rough translation of the text, which is too good not to share.

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Translation of Podagra Decree:

We, by just misfortune deputy-general or governor, also at present delegated representative of the world-renowned monarch Podagra, the rightfully elected sovereign of those whose human bodies, through immoderate wrath, too ardent love, and superfluous wine, &c.    Do present to all faithful members of our upright society, first of all our greetings and good will, and thereby give you to understand, how credible and very disagreeable it has seemed to us, that very many people are usurping our ancient and legitimately acquired privileges and liberties, illegitimately and presumptuously, by lying in bed – under the pretext of Spanish cramps, foot-corns, magpie or hen eyes, erysipelas, gall-foot, strain or sprain, also pain in the limbs, rheumatism, tumors, fire-plaint, gout, cold and hot fluxes, heating and freezing of the balls of the feet and of the toes, faulty clipping of the toenails, rupture of the roots of the toenails, tight shoes and boots (to say nothing of other fictitious diseases) – by lying in bed, that is, for four, five, six, and even more weeks out of the year, in the greatest discomfort, forming the most repulsive facial expressions and loathsome gesticulations, and afterwards tending to their bodies with light food and drink, and making use of felt boots, open-toed shoes, crutches, sedan chairs, litters, cushions, solutions of salt in scented waters, known as “coolness” – – – and by the light of the new moon, with special ceremonies and prescribed bleedings, taking other medicines as well:

Meanwhile they express themselves with the greatest impatience, ire, scolding, cursing, rapping, flinging [of objects], gnashing of teeth, unbearable screaming, with outpourings of desperate utterances, but especially also an extraordinary fear, indeed even sometimes because they notice a feeble little fly advancing towards them in bed; no less do they, when walking in the street, seek out the broadest stones [to walk upon]; and in all things they show themselves to us in the same way. Although all these are Podagrian qualities and characteristics, these people are nevertheless unwilling to confess to it [their true condition], but rather put a brave face on matters in a stiff-necked way, admitting nothing; On the contrary, they proceed against us with outrage and insults, ashamed of our world-renowned name, refusing to be incorporated into our praiseworthy society, and to remit the proper yearly shilling or membership dues. But because this runs immediately counter to our queen and to her dear sister Chyragra [gout of the hand], as co-regent in honor and respect, and as such can in no way be thought to be permitted any longer:

So do we specially, by published command, hereby amicably call on all our faithful members (for the maintenance and propagation of our highly respectable Podagrian Society) to discreetly keep a watchful eye on those recently afflicted and overstimulated and practicing under false pretexts, so that the names of these people, whoever they are, may be made known to us and to our most highly privileged chamber, without fail, as we have charged our expediter, von Polsterberg, with all cases. Those, however, who show themselves to be disobedient in this matter, we command earnestly, and on penalty of 10 pounds of flint-oil (of which [?] any member of our well ordered chamber suffering at any time from the aforementioned infirmities, shall be obliged to be given over to be shod with iron nails or with shoes lined with hedgehog-hide) that they should report to our Cripple-Chancellery within 14 days at the most after being accused, to register there as is befitting, to pay the usual fine, and then to swear an oath of allegiance, and according to the nature of the qualities taken up by the charge then to be discussed, also after the accomplishment of such tasks as are to be performed by the youngest member, they shall duly receive and take charge of the box with all its appurtenances, according to ancient custom and heritage; thereby you will prove your obedience and indebtedness, whereas we on the other hand make you participants in all our most highly bestowed privileges and liberties, and remain, with special grace, well disposed towards you.

Given in our old New-City Featherburg the first day of the New Moon, in the current year.

Bernhard Ouch-Woe, Count of Crippledorf, Baron of Plaint-Feet, Hereditary Lord of Crutchberg, Governor. Screambinus Suffer-House, of Painfield and Ach-House, Secretary. Anxietus of Cushionberg, Expediter.