Graphic Arts

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Doctor Botherum, the Mountebank, 1800. Etching with hand coloring. Graphic Arts, British caricatures, drawer 5

Joseph Grego (1843-1908), Rowlandson the Caricaturist (London: Chatto and Windus, 1880). Graphic Arts Collection (GARF)

In Joseph Grego’s narrative-style catalogue raisonné of Thomas Rowlandson’s prints (volume 2, p. 3), he speculates,

from the bustle and life visible on all sides it would seem that the period is fair time, when the rustics and agricultural population of the vicinity in general flock into the town, holiday-making. A travelling mountebank has established his theatre in the market-place; … while his attendants, Merry Andrew and Jack Pudding, are going through their share of the performance … The rural audience is solidly contemplating the antics of the party, without being particularly moved by Dr. Botherum’s imposing eloquence, these vagabond scamps being frequently clever rogues, blessed with an inexhaustible fund of bewildering oratory, and witty repartee at glib command.

Throughout the crowd, Rowlandson offers other forms of quackery and charlatans, with almost everyone either deceiving or being deceived.

Grego then speculates that Dr. Botherum is a caricature of Dr. Bossy (or Boosy or Bosey), a celebrated German mountebank, who practiced theatrical acts of healing in London. Bossy was said to have been the last of the respectable charlatans. He set up his small stage alternately in Covent Garden market and at Tower Hill, arriving to both in a chariot wearing colorful clothes. Bosey attracted large crowds for awhile but as he grew older, his audiences grew smaller and he ended his days selling potions and pills in the open-air markets of Yorkshire.

See also Leslie G. Mathews, “Licensed Mountebanks in Britain,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 19, no. 1 (1964): 30-45.

William Thackeray was not only a nineteenth-century writer but also a graphic artist with a talent for caricature. He owned these three volumes of The Mirror and was inspired to make twenty-four small drawings at the ends of chapters and in the margins of stories.

Thanks to the research of Christopher Edwards, we know that the volumes were mentioned in the short catalogue issued by Henry Sotheran in February 1879, as “Relics from the library of the late W.M. Thackeray, comprising books of no great value in themselves, but enriched by numerous characteristic drawings, executed with remarkable skill and taste.” These three small volumes and their marginalia were priced at two pounds, five shillings, one of the higher prices in the catalogue.

Thackeray’s volumes were eventually donated to University of Aberdeen by A.A. Jack (1869-1946), professor of English at the University, but have since been deaccessioned. Happily, they now reside in graphic arts and can be viewed Monday to Friday in our reading room.

See also: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), Album of sketches and drawings, [183-?], in the Robert H. Taylor collection of English and American literature, Rare Books Manuscripts Collection (MSS) RTC01 (no. 145)

Henry Trumbull, History of the Discovery of America (Boston: J.P. Peaslee, 1828). Illustrated with hand colored wood engravings by Abel Bowen. Graphic Arts, Hamilton 446.

The Boston printmaker Abel Bowen (1790-1850) has been listed in this blog before. The graphic arts division holds nearly ninety books illustrated by the artist. This volume contains three prints, one of which is the remarkable fold-out of “A View of Col. Johnson’s Engagement with the Savages (commanded by Tecumseh) near the Moravian Town, October 5, 1812.”

While crude, the print give a vivid account of the war between the native Americans led by Tecumseh (1768?-1813), chief of the Shawnee, and the U.S. cavalry led by Colonel Richard M. Johnson (1780 or 81-1850). These same three cuts are also found in the 1819 edition of the book published in Boston by Stephen Seweel and in editions published in Boston by George Clark in 1822, 1830, and 1831.

Tecumseh was a widely respected war chief, whose given name was actually Tecumtha or Tekamthi, meaning Celestial Panther Lying in Wait. In 1795, he refused to sign the Treaty of Greenville, which ceded much of present-day Ohio to American settlers. Instead, Tecumseh attempted to form a confederacy of tribes for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as a permanent boundary to white settlers. He did not succeed. During the War of 1812, he fought to support the British and received a commission as brigadier general.

For more information, see Colin Gordon Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America (New York: Viking, 2007). Firestone Library (F), E83.775 C355 2007

The French/Dutch publisher and printmaker Bernard Picart specialized in book illustration, either for his own publications or for others. While Picart trained initially in Paris, establishing a studio on Rue St Jacques, au Buste de Monseigneur, in the late 1690s he found more work in the Netherlands. Picart turned Huguenot and settled in Amsterdam around 1711.

This print is one of several Picart published anonymously in the folio volume Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid or The Great Mirror of Folly, released in Amsterdam within months of the 1720 economic crashes of the stock markets of England, France, and the Dutch Provinces. The book was published without an author or a publisher listed, although many now connect the volume largely to Picart.

The British Museum describes this print as

“satire on the financial crisis in Paris in 1720; shows a street scene in the Rue Quinquempoix, a large crowd of people are pushing a cart with Fortuna, the cart is pulled by six allegorical figures representing various investment schemes, in the sky a figure of Fame is disappearing, and a devil is blowing soap bubbles; in the right background there is an office for selling shares in the left background there are three buildings with inscriptions ‘T’Ziekenhuis’ (Hospital), ‘T’Gekkenhuis’ (Asylum) and ‘Arm-Huis’ (Poor House),with engraved French and Dutch titles, inscriptions, and French and Dutch verses two columns”.

Frans De Bruyn (Reading “Het Groote Tafereel Der Dwaasheid”, Eighteenth-Century Life, XXIV (Spring 2000), pp.1-42, nn.30, 31) points out that the scene is in Amsterdam, not Paris, where the “English” or “French” coffee-house frequented by speculators was known as the “Quinquempoix.”

While this poorly colored print was found loose in our French prints drawer, the complete volume can also be seen at Graphic Arts GAX Oversize 2006-0014F

The galleries at Firestone Library are only used for collections owned by Princeton University. This saves us from the controversy facing the New Museum of Contemporary Art and its decision to exhibit a large amount of work from the private collection of one of its trustees.

This decision has not only led to a flurry of articles but the cover of the November Brooklyn Rail is devoted to William Powhida’s wonderful graphic satire of the principal characters involved. Powhida’s drawing is reminiscent of the newspaper covers printed in the early twentieth-century at the New York World. See: Nicholson Baker, The World on Sunday: Graphic Art in Joseph Pulitzer’s Newspaper, 1898-1911 (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2005). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize 2005-0624Q. I hope this trend continues.

For more information on Powhida, see http://www.williampowhida.com/

For more on the Brooklyn Rail, see http://www.brooklynrail.org/

For more information on the exhibition controversy, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/arts/design/11museum.html?_r=1

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Controversy-over-New-Museum-s-plans-to-show-trustee-s-collection/19659

Before the laser printer, before the Xerox, and before the carbon copy, there was the mimeograph machine. In 1876, Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) filed a United States patent for autographic printing by means of an electric pen. A second patent further developed his system to “prepare autographic stencils for printing.”

Albert Blake Dick (1856-1934) licensed the patent and began manufacturing equipment to make stencils for the reproduction of hand-written text. In 1887, the A.B. Dick Company released the model “0” flatbed duplicator selling for $12. It was an immediate success. Dick named the machine The Edison Mimeograph.

Dick’s hinged, wooden box, measuring 13 x 10 ¾ x 4 ½ inches, has a large stenciled label on the top reading “The Edison Mimeograph invented by Thomas A. Edison, made by A.B. Dick Company, Chicago, Ill.” A series of patents are noted on the label, the last dated 1890. Inside the box are a printing frame (missing the screen), inking plate, ink roller, a tube of ink, and a tube of waxed wrapping paper. One container is empty, perhaps for a stylus and/or other writing tools.

A description of the process reads: “To prepare a handwritten stencil, a sheet of mimeograph stencil paper is placed over the finely grooved steel plate and written upon with a smooth pointed steel stylus, and in the line of the writing so made, the stencil paper will be perforated from the under side with minute holes, in such close proximity to each other that the dividing fibers of paper are scarcely perceptible.” This stencil was placed in the frame and when inked, produced a copy of the hand-written text on paper below.

The Edison Mimeograph Machine (Chicago, Ill.: A.B. Dick Company, ca.1890). Gift of Douglas F. Bauer, Class of 1964. Graphic Arts GA 2009. In process

In 1879, the American expatriate James Abbott McNeill Whistler received a commission from the Fine Art Society of London to complete a set of twelve etchings in Venice. Whistler left for Italy in September but rather than a three month sketching trip, the visit lasted fourteen months. During this time Whistler etched, primarily in drypoint, around fifty copper plates.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Nocturne: Palaces, 1879-1886. Etching and drypoint. Second Venice Set. Gift of David McAlpin III, Class of 1920. Graphic Arts GA 2005.02168

Back in London, Whistler began to print from these plates, inking and wiping each impression personally. The “First Venice Set” (exhibited in December 1880 and published 1881) consists of twelve prints chosen from the fifty designs, each trimmed by Whistler to include his butterfly signature tab at the bottom. A “Second Venice Set,” consisting of twenty-six views, was released five years later. Whistler continued to print these plates until his death in 1903.

In 1975, a complete set of the Second Venice was generously donated to graphic arts by David Hunter McAlpin III (1897-1989), Class of 1920. McAlpin worked as a lawyer and investment banker but his true passion was for collecting. He amassed one of the earliest collections of photography in the United States (now the core of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Princeton University collections). In addition, McAlpin gathered an impressive set of old master prints, now divided between the library and art museum collections.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), El ultimo prologo de Jorge Luis Borges (Buenos Aires: Ediciones “Dos Amigos”, 1990). Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage. Oversize 2009- in process

“It has occurred to me that complete works are an error of commercial or academic origin,” wrote Borges in the prologue to this volume, “A man has a right to be judged by his brightest page, not by the distractions of his pen or his casual correspondence. I would like to be judged by the nine texts that follow or by the echo of those texts in memory.”

Eduardo Mayer published this trilingual edition in honor of the Argentine writer, essayist and poet. Borges chose the texts, which appear in Spanish, French, and English. Illustrations are by Josefina Robirosa (El Muerto), Rodolfo Ramos (Ulrico), Roberto Páez (La Espera), Norma Bessouet (La Muralla y Los Libros), Alica Scavino (La Intrusa), Gabriela Aberasturi (Fragmentos de un Evangelio Apócrifo), Vechy Logioio (La Luna), Julio Pagano (Utopía de un hombre que esta cansado), Libero Badii (Fue en Ginebra) and Luís A. Solari (Avelino Arredondo) The book concludes with an epilogue by Horacio Zorraquín Becú.

We are fortunately to have received the donation of another Bernhardt Wall (1872-1956) etched book, joining the eight already in rare books and special collections (see earlier post). It is a fine example of Wall’s publications, in which he not only drew the etchings for his books, but also printed and bound them.

Wall was an avid researcher of American history. He published biographies of several American presidents and various American writers, including Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Taft, Henry Coolidge, Sam Houston, Mark Twain, Thomas A. Edison, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson. This is his biography of Washington Irving.

For more information on Wall, read Francis J. Weber, Following Bernhardt Wall: 1872-1956 (Austin, Tex: Book Club of Texas, 1994). Graphic Arts (GAX) Oversize 2005-0466Q

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George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Triumph of Dr. Jenner …, ca. 1807. Pencil drawing. Inscribed in ink: “Triumph of Dr. Jenner - the inventor of vaccination - & his friends. The [illegible] is on the top of the old College of Physicians on Warwick Lane - [illegible] suggested by old John Birch, surgeon of ‘St. Thomas’s’ and who was a strong anti-vaccinist.”

Early in the nineteenth century, the British public was divided as to the benefits of a small pox vaccine. This sketch by George Cruikshank refers to Edward Jenner (1749-1823) who was a strong advocate for vaccination and John Birch (1745?-1815) who was anti-vaccination. A group of figures with joined hands dance in a circle as a skeleton plays a stringed instrument. One of the figures on the left carries a coffin. On the back of the sheet, Cruikshank wrote some notes around a self-portrait. This drawing has not been matched to any published print.

The vaccination debate led to a number of satirical drawings. James Gillray (1757-1815) published an anti-vaccine print in 1802, depicting cows sprouting and leaping from vaccinated patients. In 1808, the year the government finally established a National Vaccine Institute, Isaac Cruikshank (1756-1811) published an engraving supporting Jenner entitled “Vaccination against Small Pox, or Mercenary & Merciless spreaders of Death and Devastation driven out of Society.”

George Cruikshank illustrated several articles on vaccine quackery in the humorous periodical The Scourge including “The Cow Pox Tragedy” and “The Examination of a Young Surgeon.” See, The Scourge, or, Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly (London: W. Jones, 1811-1814). Graphic Arts Collection (GA), Cruik 1811.2

According to the book The Double Elephant Folio, chapter G “The Copper Plates,” John James Audubon (1785-1851) had his engraver Robert Havell Jr. (1793-1878) prepare and ship the set of 365 copper plates for The Birds of America to the United States in 1839. Double elephant refers to the enormous plate size of 1016 x 678 mm. The plates survived a warehouse fire in 1842, about which Audubon wrote “They have indeed passed through the great fire of the 19th ulto but we are now engaged in trying to restore [them] to their wonted former existence; although a few of them will have to be reingraved for use, if ever the work is republished in its original size at all.”

After Audubon’s death, his wife took charge of the plates. An advertisement was published in 1870 offering 350 plates for sale, although no buyer was found. A 1908 article by Ruthven Deane indicates that the plates were eventually stored with William Dodge, Princeton class of 1879, who gave a number of them to the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution and Princeton University.

Happily, The Double Elephant also contains an inventory to the 78 plates that are currently known to be held in public or private collections (the rest were presumably sold for scrap). Princeton is fortunate to hold plate no.56 Red-Shouldered Hawk; no.101 Raven [above]; no.417 Maria’s, Three-toed, Phillips’s, Canadian, Harris’s, and Audubon’s Woodpeckers; no.422 Rough-legged Falcon (Rough-legged Hawk); and no.434 Little tyrant fly-catcher; Blue mountain warbler; Short-legged pewee; Small-headed fly-catcher; Bartram’s vireo; Rocky mountain fly-catcher [below].

Waldemar H. Fries, The Double Elephant Folio: the Story of Audubon’s Birds of America (Amherst, Massachusetts: Zenaida Publishing, c2006). Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF), QL674.A953 F74 2006

The German artist-activist John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfelde, 1891-1968), created images in photomontage using labels, newspaper ads, photographs, and engravings. These were cut, assembled, and re-photographed (by Janos Reisman) for half-tone reproduction. Heartfield himself was not a photographer but a collage artist who prepared the work for commercial reproduction. George Grosz said he and Heartfield invented photomontage “in my South End studio at five o’clock on a May morning in 1916.” (George Grosz, “Randzeichnungen zum Thema,” Blätter der Piscatorbühne, Berlin 1928). Unlike other reproductive work, the published half-tones are usually bought and sold as Heartfield originals.

Heartfield joined the German Communist Party in 1918 and remained sympathetic to these ideals throughout his life. His younger brother, Wieland Herzfelde, founded the publishing house of Malik Verlag where leftist writers were championed, such as American Upton Sinclair who sought to expose social injustice and economic exploitation through his writing. Heartfield created many of the dust jackets for his brother’s publications.

Heartfield’s cover designs involved two images, one for the front cover and one the back, interrupted by a separate spine element. The two images for Sinclair’s Das Geld schreibt depict a group of writers as puppets of the state on the front and the family of German writer Emil Ludwig (1881-1948) on the back. Ludwig, who was himself persecuted by the National Socialist Party, threatened to sue Malik for defamation of character. As a result, the faces of the Ludwig family, including the dog, were punched out on all unsold copies. Princeton now owns both the censored and the original uncensored copies.

Heartfield was eventually forced to leave Germany in the 1930s but thanks in part to Berthold Brecht, was able to return in 1950 when he worked primarily in theater design.

Below, see two of the color variations Heartfield created for Oil! (Petroleum), Sinclair’s novel recently translated to film as There will be Blood, by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Daniel Day Lewis. Heartfield tried the design both in green and in gold, representing both paper money and hard currency.

For more, try this volume on bindings and dust jackets of Berlin Publishing Houses: Anne Buschhoff, Blickfanger: franzosische Plakate um 1900 aus der Sammlung der Kunsthalle Bremen (2000) Marquand (SA) NC 1807.F7B872 2000. Blickfanger can be translated “eye catcher.”

Magdalena Dabrowski, “Photomonteur: John Heartfield,” MoMA magazine no.13 (Winter/Sprint 1993): 12-15.

Peter Selz, “John Heartfield’s ‘Photomontages’,” The Massachusetts Review 4, no. 2 (Winter 1963): 309-36.