Recently in Acquisitions Category

Julie Chen, A Guide to Higher Learning (Berkeley: Fishing Fish Press, 2009)

This latest bookwork “examines the experiential process of acquiring knowledge, on both academic and personal levels. The piece is comprised of 8 sections of rigid square pages that are hinged together in unexpected ways, giving the reader a physical reading experience that mirrors the complex meaning of the content,” writes Ms. Chen. “The book in its fully unfolded form reveals an intricate and fascinating visual pattern of information.”

Flying Fish Press was established in 1987 by Julie Chen and is dedicated to the design and production of books which combine the quality and craftsmanship of traditional letterpress printing with the innovation and visual excitement of contemporary non-traditional book structures and modern typography. For more information, see http://www.flyingfishpress.com/index.html

In April of 1895, there was an exhibition held at the Grolier Club in New York City focused on the engravings of American artist Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886). 350 copies of the catalogue were printed in a large-paper edition in May of that year and circulated to the members of the Club.

A devoted fan of Durand’s work (as yet unidentified) took that catalogue and extra-illustrated it with all the original engravings he/she could acquire. This acquisition will provide Princeton researchers with not only a description of what Durand produced but also a copy of the actual print.

The term extra-illustrated refers to a book that has more prints or illustrations in it than when the book was published. These were usually added by trimming and tipping the prints onto extra pages (or sometimes right on top of the text) and then, rebinding the original text pages with the new plates.

The British term “Grangerizing” has a slightly different connotation, stemming from James Granger’s Biographical History of England (1769), which was published with blank leaves already provided for the reader to fill with prints. Grangerizing became a popular hobby in England and unfortunately, many other books were cut up to provide the extra prints for these homemade editions.

For more information on the difference between the two terms, and more history, see: H. J. Jackson, Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Firestone Library (F) Z1003 .J12 2001

Suzanne Thomas, The Wine (Santa Cruz: the author, 2008). Edition of 150. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process
This miniature book includes a quotation from Homer’s Odyssey (Book XIV): “The wine urges me on / the bewitching wine/ which sets even a wise man to singing/ and to laughing gently/ and brings forth words / which were better unspoken.”

In 1813, printer Robert Harrild (1780-1853) joined the debated raging inside the London printing community as to the use of rollers rather than balls to ink a printing plate. The majority of hand-printers preferred inking balls but Harrild’s demonstration of his new roller was so successful that rollers became compulsory in every print shop throughout the city. Harrild established a company, located at 25 Farringdon Street, to manufacture the rollers and eventually all kinds of printing equipment.

His advertisements boasted: “Harrild and Sons’ Manufacture … have on sale every article connected with printing machinery; type, presses, machines…” Shortly before his death, Harrild’s rollers and Paragon platen press were exhibited in the Crystal Palace during the Great Exposition of 1851. His sons continued to run the company well into the twentieth century.

Graphic Arts recently acquired two of their equipment catalogues: Catalogue of Printing Machinery and Materials with Selected Type Specimens, ca. 1895, and Harrild & Sons’ Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Printers, Bookbinders’ & Stationers’ Machinery & Materials, 1892. Note in particular the machine to fold newspapers.

Thysiastērio tēs leuterias [Altar of Freedom] (Athēnai: “Ho Rēgas” Ekdot. Organismos, 1945). Gift of the Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund. Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage: Contact rbsc@princeton.edu, Oversize D766.3 .T48 1945f.

My sincere thanks to Dimitri H. Gondicas, Executive Director, Hellenic Studies, for finding this graphic depiction of Greece during World War II. Note the remarkable date of 1945. Thanks also to Jeffrey Roueche Luttrell, Leader, Western Languages Cataloging, for his translations.

The French artist Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard went by the name Grandville, which was the stage name his grandparents used. In the early nineteenth-century, Grandville created several hand-colored lithographic books to satirize the bourgeois middle class of Parisian society in the Romantic period. His best, and today the rarest, is Les metamorphoses du jour published in 1829.

The characters of the book have a human body and an animal face, exposing people for the beasts they really are. The preface comments that the artist was thereby able to encompass “both the living picture of social manners and the satire of institutions and prejudices. Truth can circulate with impunity under the very eyes of the men it attacks.”

The first edition was a huge success and quickly went out-of-print. A new edition was prepared in 1854, this time using wood-engraved reproductions of Grandville’s original lithographs. It is unfortunate that most people only know the series through these poor copies.

Princeton’s Les metamorphoses is a complete set of hand-colored lithographs with the extra two plates issued in 1830 in Belgium and then censored. In addition, the book is extra-illustrated with four lithographs in the style of the series: La chasse et la Pêche (1830), La revanche ou le Français du Missouri (1829), Casse nationale sur les terres royales (1830), and Chasse aux ordonnances (1830?).

Princeton also holds a number of books illustrated by Grandville including Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Voyages de Gulliver dans des contrées lointaines (Paris: H. Fournier ainé: Furne et Cie, 1838). Graphic Arts (GAX) 2005-2172N; along with an original preparatory drawing for Gulliver by Grandville in the Cotsen Collection, (CTSN) Framed Artwork 3976

She is holding a torch to symbolize the light mentioned in the title of this volume. In her lap is an open book with the artist’s motto: Nulla dies sine linea (Never a day without a line). Behind her are eight Utrecht painters: Abraham Bloemaert, Gerard van Honthorst, two unidentified, Jan van Bronckhorst, Roelandt Saverij, Joachim Wtewael, and Paulus Moreelse. Apprentices sit at Minerva’s feet drawing.

The manual was meant for a wide audience and so, the text is printed in Italian, Dutch, French, and German. Part one is devoted to proportions; part two to drawing from the male nude; part three drawing from the female nude; part four to figure studies by famous contemporary master including Guercino, Jan Cousin, Abraham Bloemaert, and Roelandt Saverij; and part five focuses on the study of mammals, birds, fish, and insects.

There are only four other copies of this book in the United States. One is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., one at the Getty Research Institute, and two at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Each copy is slightly different in the plates included, their sequence, and the altering of dates. The title pages of part 1-2 in Princeton’s copy have imprint: t’Amsterdam : By Crispijn de Pas, M.D.C.XLIV (altered with pen to M.D.C.LXIV), while the National Gallery of Art’s copy is altered similarly for parts 2-3. Princeton’s copy also has plate dates altered to reflect the addition of a number of prints.

Each of the five parts has its own title page, hence the combined title: La prima-[quinta] parte della luce del dipingere et disegnare, used for the single bound volume. The polyglot book is also known as Van ‘t Licht der teken en schilderkonst and Luce del dipingere et disegnare.

Most of the 225 plates in these volumes were engraved by Crispijn the Younger himself, although the years following the publication of this opus were troublesome for the artist. He had more and more trouble keeping up with demand for his work and in 1645, the artist was admitted to an asylum to be “cured of his insanity of mind.” Although he returned to work, this manual remains his most ambitious project.

The book is dedicated to the city of Utrecht, where his father Crispijn de Passe the elder, had moved for religious reasons. The entire family, father and four children, worked together as artists and print publishers. When the family estate was settled near the end of the 18th century, their work totaled more than 14,000 prints and around 50 print books or illustrated volumes. Princeton is fortunate to now hold 5 rare volumes with prints by Crispijn the younger, and 6 illustrated by Crispijn the elder.

The honour is immortal that remains
Of virtuous artists whose name shall never wither.
Just so with De Passe, the praise the Muses sing
In the vale of Pegasus, of all the wondrous marvels
That he disclosed with his needle,
By etching on the plate, of which Belgica boasts.
So skillfully done, stippled and boldly cut,
As can still be seen up to this very day.
The proof demonstrates the work’s deed to the master’s honour,
Aye, the hand may perish, but the spirit never dies.

This book was designed by Andy Warhol during the 1960s as “a children’s book for hipsters.” The volume, as originally published, included 10 interesting details that have broken or fallen out of many volumes and so, a complete book is extremely rare. These include a silver balloon; a pop-up Hines Tomato Paste can; a pop-up castle (reference to the house in Los Angeles where rock bands recorded); a folded geodesic dome (dodecahedron); a sheet of stamps to be placed in water (presumably tabs of LSD); a paper accordion; a multi-colored pop-up airplane; a paper disc with “The Chelsea Girls” in printed type on wire spring; a 45 R.P.M. flexi-disc with portrait of Lou Reed, which plays an otherwise unrecorded song by Nico and the Velvet Underground; and an illustration of a nose with two colored overlays on a double-folded page. Princeton’s copy is missing the airplane.

Princeton University Libraries hold nearly 200 books about Andy Warhol. To read about what he thought of this period, in his own words, see: I’ll Be Your Mirror: the Selected Andy Warhol Interviews: 1962-1987 / edited by Kenneth Goldsmith (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004) Marquand Library (SA) N6537.W28 A5 2004

Anthony Saunders Morris (1803-1885) must have had great interest in the history of his family because in the 1860s, he began compiling a complete Morris family tree. When he succeeded in documenting nine generations of male decedents, he hired lithographer Louis Haugg (1856-1894), one of Philadelphia’s leading printmakers, to draw the family tree in its entirety.

The result is this massive sixteen-plate panorama of an actual tree (approximately six by five feet), which holds all the names of the Morris family. Note that the men are the branches that continue the lineage and the women the foliage, only good for decoration.

Printed by F. Bourquin and Company on Chestnut Street, it is unclear how large an edition Morris commissioned. No other copy of this print is currently recorded.

If you love printed books, you need to move fast. This is a limited edition, scholarly text by the amazing book designer Mark Argetsinger, published by the press & letterfoundry of Michael and Winifred Bixler, concerning the life and legacy of the English designer and typographer Stanley Morison (1889-1967). It is a double treat, placing such interesting research into such an elegant package.

“The typefaces and ornamental material here printed sprang chiefly from the vision and taste of an extraordinary man, Stanley Morison” begins the preface. We all know the facts. Morison founded the Fleuron Society dedicated to typography, was a staff writer for the Penrose Annual, and a consultant for the Monotype Corporation, where he developed some new and revived some forgotten typefaces. He went on to consult for The Times of London, redesigning the whole paper in 1932.

But if you thought you knew the history of modern type design, think again. Argetsinger’s essay will change your mind about the development of letterform in our time and bring you up-to-date with the effect Morison’s legacy has on printers of today.

He writes

“As much as Morison sought to produce a new design, his achievement stands largely in the series of revivals born from his important scholarship. These classical faces, amounting in Morison’s tally to one or two permanent styles through the span of a century, have stood the years and they still stand today. Creation is a gift given by the gods to a few Promethean individuals. The gift is unsolicitable. Morison strove to be one of these persons, but in an odd modern way, by industrial proxy.”

The book was designed by Mark Argetsinger and Michael Bixler and bound by the Campbell-Logan Bindery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our copy is being catalogued and will be on the shelf for you to read next week.

Edmund Lodge (1756-1839), Portraits of Illustrious Personages of the Court of Henry VIII (London: John Chamberlaine, printed by W. Bulmer, 1812). Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process

This is the second edition of 84 stipple engravings reproducing drawings by Hans Holbein, the younger (1497-1543), with biographical and historical descriptions by Edmund Lodge. It was Queen Caroline (1683-1737), who found the Holbein originals in a bureau at Kensington Palace and asked Richard Dalton (Keeper of the King’s drawings and medals) to have them copied and published. When Chamberlain took over Dalton’s position he also inherited the project. Chamberlain edited and published a folio edition of Holbein’s work in 1792, printed and issued in parts over the next 8 years by William Bulmer and Company, Shakespeare Printing-Office.

For the 1792 edition, Chamberlaine called on Francesco Bartolozzi (1725-1815), to prepare a set of prints. Bartolozzi had developed his own technique of stipple engraving with printed color to reproduce the look of chalk drawings, such as Holbein’s. The folio edition of Illustrious Personages was such a success that a large quarto edition was prepared in 1812 (seen here), using additional engravers working in the style of the elderly Bartolozzi, including Bourlier, Cardon, Cheesman, Cooper, Facius, Knight, Meyer, Minasi, and Nicholls.

Of the 84 portraits, 68 are identified by name. The last 12 could not be identified and are grouped at the front of the book without description. A letterpress index is included in the 1812 edition, seen on the left. In addition, portraits of Holbein and his wife serve as frontispieces to both editions.

The 1559 first edition of Praetorius’s history of the Roman Emperors was published in Latin without illustrations. For the first German edition, Praetorius added over one hundred woodcut portraits of the emperors described, taken from imperial coins and later commemorative medals.

The final portrait is that of Ferdinand I of Prague, who Praetorius met while on a diplomatic mission for the Archbishop of Magdeburg. This may have been a last minute substitute since the earlier text indicates the final portrait is to be Emperor Charles V.

Note the words in the woodcuts are printed white on a black background. It was easier to use a thin knife to cut out the letters than to cut around them. The large areas left in relief, printing black, make for a stronger block that would last through a large printing run. In fact, these same blocks were also used in Georgius Sabinus’ Catalogues Romanorum et Germanicorum Imperatorum in 1561.

Graphic Arts holds books with many types of bindings, including books bound in the skin of cows, pigs, sheep, and other mammals. Recently, we acquired a book described as bound in cat’s paw calf. A quick search revealed several other volumes in the stacks with similar cat’s paw bindings.

Happily, it turns out that “cat’s paw” is a descriptive term for the leather made from young cows not cats. This is a variation of Tree calf or Tree marbled calf. For such bindings, a light-colored calfskin has been treated with chemicals to represent a mottled tree trunk with branches or the marks made by a cat’s paw.

The leather is first paste-washed and the book hung between two rods, which keep the covers flat. The book is tilted so that it inclines upward towards it head. A small amount of water is applied to the center of both covers to form the trunk, then more water is thrown on the covers so that it runs down to the trunk and to a central point at the lower edge. Copperas (a green hydrated ferrous sulfate) is sprinkled in fine drops on the covers, followed by potassium carbonate, which causes the chemical reaction that etches the leather to form a permanent pattern in shades of gray.

This and other binding descriptions can be found in Etherington & Roberts’ Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology available now online: http://cool-palimpsest.stanford.edu/don/dt/dt3574.html or on paper: Graphic Arts GA Oversize Z266.7 .R62q

This mapmaker’s printing case was designed to be used by a government sponsored cartographer when working in the field around the 1860s. The buckram-covered case holds sixty-three brass sorts with a selection of numbers and military symbols. There is an ink pad and twelve glass bottles of ink, some with the label of the Paris manufacturer Dagron & Compagnie.

Thanks for finding this new acquisition go to our map curator John Delaney, whose recent exhibition To the Mountains of the Moon can now be seen through the webpages: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/
maps/websites/africa/contents.html

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), The Great Gatsby (San Francisco: Arion Press, 1984). Photo-engravings designed by Michael Graves. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX), Oversize GA2009- in process

Princeton libraries hold 83 copies of Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, beginning with the first edition in 1925 (not to mention Fitzgerald’s original manuscript). The most recently acquired is a 1984 edition designed and illustrated by Princeton architect Michael Graves, Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, Emeritus at Princeton University.

When Arion Press invited Graves to work on a fine-press edition of The Great Gatsby, he chose to focus on the objects of Gatsby’s world; those things that defined his life and social status. None of the illustrations Graves prepared include portraits of Tom or Nick, or the book’s other characters. Instead they depict Gatsby’s estate and grounds, the furniture, fixtures, landscaping, automobiles, telephones, cocktail glasses, the gas station, and pool.

Princeton’s copy is one of fifty housed in a clamshell box with a terra cotta bas-relief on the cover along with two original drawings by Graves.

Joan Amades and Josep Colomines, Imatgeria Religiosa (Barcelona: Gregori, 1947). Series: Col’leccio de Boixos Populars de Catalunya, I. Religious iconography of Spanish works held in Catalan collections. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process

A New York City housewife, who we call the First Lady of American Advertising Ephemera, Bella Landauer bought her first pieces in 1923. Her collection grew, eventually forming one of the largest in the United States, including tradecards, advertising fans, valentines, almanacs, invitations, telegrams, lottery tickets, and more.

When she was out of room at home, Alexander Wall, director of the New-York Historical Society offered her an unused kitchen on the top floor of his building as a workroom. This provided storage, as well as water to help soak the labels off jars and wash other specimens. While the NYHS kept some of the collection, aeronautical material was sent to the Smithsonian Institution, and other groups to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, and the Baker Library in Hanover.

Princeton owns 16 small books about the collection, including Some Alcoholic Americana. Graphic Arts GAX 2004-3749N; Some American Billheads. Firestone NC1810.L23f; and Some Terpsichorean Ephemera. Annex A 4291.558

We now own a piece of the collection itself, with this scrapbook, holding 263 calling cards (and a few miscellaneous items) including cards from or signed by Palmer Cox, William Cullen Bryant, Henry W. DeForest and others.

Columbia University chemistry professor Ogden Nicholas Rood, Princeton class of 1852, had a passion for the science of color. He published a number of influential books, including Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry (Annex A P94.852.051.05) and Students’ Text-Book of Color (ND1259.R67).

Hood made a number of trips to Europe to do research and to paint. Graphic Arts recently acquired thirteen drawing after bas reliefs made by Hood while in Florence. Writing in The American Journal of Science (1903), Arthur Wright commented, “It may be added that Professor Rood’s work upon [Modern Chromatics] was greatly facilitated by his own experience as an artist. As early as his residence in Munich [ca. 1854-58] he had practiced painting in oil, and attached a high degree of proficiency. He had a great skill in drawing, and became expert in painting in water-colors, some of his pictures having been shown at the exhibitions of the Academy of Design in New York.”

Princeton also owns a small collection of letters written by Rood from New York and Germany, 1843-1902. Manuscripts Division CO602

The nineteenth-century French artist Godefroy Engelmann I (1788-1839) studied painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts but turned his talent to printmaking when he was introduced to the new medium of lithography in 1813. On a trip to Munich, Engelmann purchased a press, stones, and all the equipment needed to set up a studio, which he did in Mulhouse, France, followed by presses in Paris and in London.

Engelmann excelled at color lithography which reproduced the look of chalk drawings and oil paintings for fine art prints. In his twenty years of production, he was responsible for most of the major technical developments of the medium, publishing two important treatises, Manuel du dessinateur lithographe (1822) and Traité théorique et pratique de lithographie (1835-40).

Engelmann’s son Godefroy II (1814-1897) joined the firm in 1837, and merged the business with the publisher Graf to form ‘Engelmann et Graf’. The firm quickly established itself as the leading company in France for the printing of facsimiles of illuminated manuscripts, such as this chromolithographic book of hours.

This tiny folded-paper book or parabaik (also spelled parabeik) came to the department with no attribution or provenance. It is untitled and constructed in the traditional Burmese/Myanmar manner, with the heavy paper cut and pasted into one long strip, then folded accordion style and attached to wood boards. The binding has an identical relief decoration on either side, ornamented with glass facets.

The hand-painted text, written in a round Burmese hand, forms circles around animal figures, astrological symbols, and runes. Although we do not have an expert on campus who has been able to translate this lovely volume, the characters do not appear to form complete sentences, but are perhaps the sounds or syllables that form magical chants or charms.

Untitled book of charms [parabaik], 20th century. Gift of Alfred L. Bush. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process