Recently in Prints, Drawings, Paintings Category

How do you store fragile prints that are five or more feet long and nearly three feet wide? Unfortunately, the past solution was to roll them up and store them on top of various cabinets, in the few inches between the furniture and the ceiling. Keeping the prints “out of sight” was not the best idea, as no one was aware of the water damage being done by a leak. We have now rescued a number of these fine art prints, many by the artist Leonard Baskin, and saved them from further decay.

Thanks to our Special Collections Paper Conservator, Ted Stanley, they are being washed one-at-a-time because of their enormous size. We are rehousing them in large, flat folders stored on oversize shelves. Here’s an example of before and after.

By the time the Irish playwright John O’Keeffe (1747-1833) wrote his most famous farce Wild Oats; or, The Strolling Gentlemen in 1791, he was already a celebrated author. Within two years, the Old American Company in New York City staged a production and an American edition of the play was printed by T. and J. Swords for Manhattan bookseller and stationer John Reid. To decorate the volume, American engraver Cornelius Tiebout was commissioned to create a frontispiece (seen here).

According to the historian D. M. Stauffer, Tiebout was the “first American-born professional engraver to produce really meritorious work, …significant for his role in introducing the English method of stippled portraiture to America.” Like many early printmakers, Tiebout apprenticed to a silversmith where he learned to carve in metal. Further training with the British artist James Heath led to his expertise in stipple engraving.

It is notable that Tiebout chooses to illustrate one of the humorous supporting characters rather than the leading man. His print offers a full-length portrait of the Quaker Ephraim Smooth and quotes his lines, “Why dost thou suffer him to put into the hands of thy servants, books of tragedies, and books of comedies, prelude, interlude, yea, all lewd. My spirit doth wax wrath.— I say unto thee, a play-house is the school for the old dragon, and a playbook the primer of Belzebub.”

For a contemporary production of Wild Oats, see:

Other sources on Tiebout: W. Dunlap: A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (New York, 1834); American Engravers upon Copper and Steel, 3 vols (i-ii, New York, 1907; iii, Philadelphia, 1917), i, pp. 271-2; ii, pp. 520-33; iii, pp. 271-84 [vols i-ii by D. M. Stauffer, vol. iii by M. Fielding]; N. E. Cunningham jr: The Image of Thomas Jefferson in the Public Eye: Portraits for the People, 1800-1809 (Charlottesville, VA, 1981) [disc. of Tiebout’s Jefferson prts, incl. newspaper advertisements and publishers’ corr.]; W. C. Wick: George Washington, an American Icon: The Eighteenth-century Graphic Portraits (Washington, DC, 1982) and G. W. R. Ward, ed.: The American Illustrated Book in the Nineteenth Century (Winterthur, DE, 1987).

When William Heath published a satire on Sir Francis Burdett’s opposition to Gale Jones’s imprisonment, Heath represented Spencer Perceval and his associates as a hydra or monster with multiple heads. It is a strong visual image but Heath was of course not the first to use the device. Knowing who he stole it from is complicated since the caricaturists borrowed and stole their parodies quite freely.


Surely Heath was reading Samuel Tipper’s magazine The Satirist or Monthly Meteor, in which Samuel De Wilde presented another variation of the scene in The Opposition Hydra, or Brittania’s Worst Foe. This might be the most immediate inspiration for Heath.


Or perhaps it Thomas Rowlandson’s The Champion of Oakhampton, Attacking the Hydra of Gloucester Place, published on March 15 1809? Especially with the subtitle he added from Horace’s Epistles, “Bellva Multorum es Capitum!!” (Thou Art the Beast of Many Heads).

And what about Rowlandson’s 1784 print, The Champion of the People, in combination with James Gillray’s St. George & the Dragon two years earlier?

It’s hard to say.

Here are a few others.

In moving furniture last week, several rolls of paper were found, having fallen behind a cabinet perhaps ten years ago. No damage was done and we now have three enormous woodcuts back in the collection of the Puerto Rican master printer Lorenzo Homar where they belong.

Each of the prints includes a long quote. The first is a poem by Tomas Blanco (1900-1975) entitled “Unicornio en la Isla.”

Isla de la palmera y la guajana
con cinto de bullentes arrecifes
y corola de soles.
Isla de amor y mar enamorado.
Bajo el viento:
los caballos azules con sus sueltas melenas;
y, con desnuda piel de ascuas doradas,
el torso de las dunas.
Isla de los coquís y los careyes
con afrodisio cinturón de espuma
y diadema de estrellas.
Isla de amor marino y mar embelesado.
Bajo los plenilunios:
Húmedas brisas, mágicas ensenadas, secretos matorrales…
Y el unicornio en la manigua alzado,
listo para la fuga, alerta y tenso.

Thank you to the Susana Torruella Leval, 1993 Acting Director and Chief Curator, El Museo del Barrio, for her translation of the two quotations in this woodcut from speeches given by Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965) in 1930:

Nationalism is not merely the restoration of its lands to Puerto Rican hands, nor the salvation of its commerce and its finances; it is the nationality that stands to redeem its sovereignty and to save for its people their superior values of life. Colonization is the nullifying and the absorption of our moral forces that God entrusted to this land. If to one madman a people denies its personality, * also denies its capacity to verify any form of legal transaction. If to one people its personality is denied, also denied is its capacity to rule its own destiny and we are placed at the level of an irresponsible madman.
Ponce, 5 October 1930.

Puerto Rico has the right to its independence because when the agreement of Paris was signed, by which the United States took possession of the island, Puerto Rico had already enjoyed international recognition of its sovereignty and it is for this reason that Spain did not have the right to cede it in as much as the United States did not have the right to acquire it.
28 June 1930

Former U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) is remembered by many for his effective negotiations during the Cold War and his support of South Vietnam after the Geneva Conference of 1954. Here at Princeton, he is also remembered as a member of the Class of 1908, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and an active participant in the American Whig-Cliosophic Society debate team.

On May 15, 1962, his family was invited to Princeton University, along with dignitaries including former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, for the dedication of the John Foster Dulles Library of Diplomatic History. His portrait, painted by William F. Draper in 1959, was proudly featured at the event.

Today, thanks to the beautiful work of painting conservator Paul Gratz, our portrait of Mr. Dulles is cleaned and repaired and back on the wall of our Dulles Reading Room. Sincere thanks also to our colleagues at the Princeton University Art Museum for their help in transporting and hanging the important work.

To read “Remarks at the Dedication of the John Foster Dulles Library of Diplomatic History,” in Princeton University Library Chronicle 23, no. 4 (summer 1962), see: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visualmaterials/pulc/pulcv23n_4.pdf

The graphic arts collection holds nearly 2800 prints and drawings donated by Dickson Queen Brown (1873-1939), most British caricatures from the 18th and 19th centuries. A great deal has been written about the artists he collected but little about the collector himself. Here are some facts from his class profile.

Brown was born in Pleasantville, Pennsylvania on April 2, 1873, the son of Samuel Brown, president of Tide Water Oil Company. He attended the Hamilton School in Philadelphia and Phillips Exeter Academy, before entering Princeton in 1891 and graduating four years later. While at Princeton, Brown was a member of Whig Hall, Klu Klux, Valhalla, Tiger Inn, and President of Republican Club.

After Princeton, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1898 with degree of B. S. Electrical Engineering. From 1899 to 1900, Brown studied at the Royal Mechanical Technical Hochschule, Berlin, before joining the family firm. Working his way up through numerous positions, Brown was ultimately named President of Tidal Oil Company and President, Associated Producers Company (producing oil and operating in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Mexico).

“… the older Independents of the Pennsylvania Oil Regions were still “fighting the civil war” so far as Standard Oil was concerned. We remember reporting a dinner at the Union League Club at the invitation of Robert D. Benson, president of Tide Water, a mild-mannered gentleman. We had come to know him at his office at 11 Broadway from the windows of which he and his co-executives, Robert McKelvy and Dickson Q. Brown, could not help but see “26 Broadway” headquarters and symbol of Standard Oil across the street. They were sons of Bryon David Benson, David McKelvy and S. Q. Brown, founders of the Tide Water and famed builders of the first interstate pipeline from the Pennsylvania oil fields to the Atlantic seaboard.”

“Having lost out in winning control of Tide Water, John D. Rockefeller had gone ahead with his Northern and Southern tiers of lines to carry oil to his tidewater refineries. At the Union League dinner, Benson gave his personal recollection of the alleged Standard Oil-inspired raid of Tide Water’s annual meeting of January 17, 1883, held at Titusville. The “Taylor-Satterfield” (Rockefeller) faction, opposing the “majority Benson” faction, elected itself to control of the company. Benson vividly recalled his father rushing to Titusville, taking him along. There was no elevator in the building and the offices were on the second and third floors. The main stairway was barricaded with heavy planks and guarded by a force of Benson men. Benson pere and fils joined the defenders.”

“The enemy, it turned out, made no physical attempt to take the offices, contenting themselves with carrying the case to court. The speaker recalled the anxiety of officers and employees sweating out the verdict of Judge Church at Meadville who heard the argument of the old management - the arrival of a telegram from his father, reading, “Thank God, a just judge reins in Crawford County, ” meaning that Judge Church had declared “the pretended election void.”

“Since the fight for control in Titusville in 1883, the success of the company has been unbroken, ” Benson finished proudly. The clicking of the pipeline dispatcher’s telegraph key as you entered Tide Water’s offices bore him out. But the Bensons, McKelvys and Browns were not forgetting. Many old-time Independents would not be caught dead talking to a Standard Oil man.”

From The story of the American Petroleum Institute by Leonard M. Fanning.

David Hess was a Swiss artist and soldier in the Dutch army. He conceived of a series of anti-French caricatures and negotiated with ‘Humphries’ in London to engrave and print them. This work is assumed to have been accomplished anonymously by forty-year-old James Gillray, at the height of his fame as a caricaturist, and issued in a bound edition of 1200 copies. Three years later, a new edition was released in Venice, with the descriptions translated from Dutch to Italian and printed alongside the French.

We also acquired Revolutions-Almanach von 1799 (Göttingen: Johann Christain Dieterich, 1799), in which six plates are reproduced (stolen?) in a much reduced format. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2013-0210N

Years later in The Athenaeum (London, 1886) the Hess/Gillray publication was still remembered. “The French Revolution had a profound effect upon satirical art, made it fierce as well as furious, and partially renewed that savage and brutal spirit which prevailed in the lifetime of Luther and during the Thirty Years’ War. But it likewise gave new life.”

“The Revolutions - Almanack of 1799, by David Hess, has some unusually good cuts, including one on Bruderschaft in “Hollandia regenerate,” which represents the “brother of mankind” being assailed by his neighbours, who pull his hair, punch him, throttle him, tear his coat, and knock his head with a chair. Meanwhile the heraldic seven arrows are trampled underfoot and a cat tears them to pieces.”

“Hess was a clever satirist whose works must have increased many a man’s resolution to resist the new doctrines. His prints retain considerable value to this day, and should be studied by those who wish to understand the history of opinion at that time. …Of his prints against Napoleon M. GrandCarteret writes:”

“‘Souvent aussi, ces compositions, toujours bien exécuteés, voient leur intérét augmenté par le souffle de liberté qu’elles laissent entrevoir, par cette protestation d’une ame indigneé qui jette, en 1815, un cri de victoire strident, Enfin! et dès lors Hess semble considérer sa mission de combattant du crayon comme terminée.’”

A recent move uncovered this Japanese folk painting, named for Ōtsu, the capital city of Shiga Prefecture, Japan, where this genre of painting originated. The designs were accomplished by anonymous artists and become extremely popular with merchants and tourists traveling between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto along the Old Tokaido Road. In other cultures, the paintings might be called outsider art or naive art. In Japan, they are called Ōtsu-e.

The paintings fall into several standard categories include beautiful women, warriors, ogres, and Buddhas and other religious icons. The graphic arts collection holds several Ōtsu-e, including this traditional Fuji Musume (Wisteria Maiden) possibly from the Edo period (1615-1868).

Our colleagues at the British Museum note, “The ‘Wisteria Maiden … was one of the stock subjects of folk painters in Ōtsu since the seventeenth century. It enjoyed a new vogue in the nineteenth century after the theme was adapted in 1826 for the Kabuki stage, as a dance sequence in which the young woman came alive out of an Ōtsu painting.”

Congratulations to Volker Schroder, Associate Professor of French and Italian, who was just awarded a David A. Gardner ‘69 Magic grant for the research and development of an exhibition celebrating Versailles and the tercentenary of the death of Louis XIV (1638-1715). Thanks to the Council of the Humanities and especially to our magic benefactor, Lynn Shostack. Prof. Schroder will develop “Versailles on Paper,” using prints and books in the Graphic Arts Collection, as well as rare books from Firestone and Marquand Libraries. The opening is scheduled for February 2015. A special issue of the Princeton University Library Chronicle is also planned.

“On the 18th of April, 1651, the young Louis … paid his first visit to Versailles. He was then thirteen years of age, and had been king for eight years. He came to hunt in the woods, and … to sup at the chateau of his father, a building of moderate size, constructed on three sides of a court, with a pavilion at each corner, and surrounded by moats with stone balustrades. The site of that chateau and of its moats is now covered by the great central projection of Louis’s palace.”

“During the next ten years … [he] did little in the way of building or embellishment until 1662. From 1662 to 1669 he adorned the park and gave magnificent fetes there. In 1669 he decided to enlarge the chateau, but he was not to carry out his purpose without encountering opposition.”

“[Jean-Baptiste] Colbert was then superintendent of buildings as well as of finance, and Colbert’s hobby was the Louvre. He set himself resolutely against the king’s project, and did not hesitate to speak his mind. “Your Majesty knows,” he wrote to the king, “that apart from brilliant actions in war nothing marks better the grandeur and genius of princes than their buildings, and that posterity measures them by the standard of the superb edifices which they erect during their lives. Oh, what a pity that the greatest king, and the most virtuous, should be measured by the standard of Versailles.”
—from James Eugene Farmer, Versailles and the Court under Louis XIV (1905) Firestone DC126 .F23 1905

Vicki Principi recently found this print in the theater collection, which matches the imaginary group of British scientist posted a few days ago and the imaginary group of American authors posted several years ago. The printed title is Shakespeare and His Friends, but it is better known as Shakespeare and His Contemporaries.

The print reproduces John Faed’s 1851 painting of the same title, depicting Shakespeare at the Mermaid Tavern in London for a meeting of the Friday Street Club (named for the tavern’s address). Sir Walter Raleigh founded the group but Shakespeare was not a regular member.

Seen with Shakespeare and Raleigh are Thomas Dorset; Josuah Sylvester; William Camden; John Selden; Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher; Francis Bacon; Ben Jonson; Samuel Daniel; John Donne; Henry Wriothesley Southampton; Robert Cotton; Thomas Dekker; and Thomas Sackville Dorset.

See an extended essay on the Mermaid:
Michelle O’Callaghan, ‘Patrons of the Mermaid tavern (act. 1611)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/95279, accessed 7 April 2013]

Seven untitled engravings [Etudes de chevaux de bataille blesses (Studies for Wounded Warhorses)], 1600s
Etched by Jan van Huchtenburgh (1647-1733)
after Adam Frans van der Meulen (1631 or 1632-1690)
after Charles Le Brun (1619-1690)
GC070 Dutch Prints Collection

The Graphic Arts Collection holds seven prints believed to be part of the ten studies described as Etudes de chevaux de bataille blesses related to various battle scenes by Charles Le Brun (see Bartsch 44. Hollstein 44)

We also believe these studies might have been referenced for such large-scale prints as our Untitled [Defeat of Porus by Alexander the Great at the Battle of the Hydaspes], engraved by Bernard Picart (1673-1733), based on a work by the architect Thomas Gobert, ca. 1730.

Below are a few of the isolated studies of horses in battle and then, a few comparisons with the finished print. Note, the horses are laterally reversed in the final image. What do you think?

The Flemish painter, Frans van der Meulen (1632-1690) specialized in battle scenes. Charles Le Brun brought him to Paris around 1662 to work on designs for Louis XIV.

“The fact that Le Nôtre and Le Brun were to be found at the siege of Valenciennes in 1677 is perhaps less unlikely than it might seem. Louis himself wrote to Colbert to say that ‘Le Brun and Le Nôtre arrived this morning with Van der Meulen. I am very glad that Le Brun will see the disposition of this siege because it is very fine.’ Le Brun and the Fleming Adam Frans van der Meulen could be classed as war artists. Shortly after his arrival in France, Van der Meulen was commissioned to paint a series of views depicting Louis’ military successes.”—from Ian Thompson, The Sun King’s Garden: Louis XIV, Andre Le Notre and the Creation of the Gardens of Versailles (2006) Firestone SB470.L4 T56 2006

Originally trained as an attorney, James Sayers (active 1748-1825) drew the first British caricature using the symbolism of a comet (later copied many times). His print was released on February 18, 1789, the day before the scheduled third reading of the Regency Bill, which would take power away from George III (1738-1820). Happily, the King’s porphyria had begun to recede in January and by early February, various politicians were leaving Charles Fox (1749-1806), and returning to the side of King George and William Pitt (1759-1806).

Sayers’s comet is headed by the Prince of Wales, a possible allusion to Louis XIV, the Sun King. Here, it is George III who is the unseen sun. Riding on the tail of the Prince are Richard Brinsley Sheridan; Fox; William, 3rd Duke of Portland; Sir Grey Cooper; John Warren, and several others.

The text of the print, which is difficult to read, has been transcribed by the British Museum:
“A Return of the Comet which appeared in 1761 [1762] is expected this Year and to be within our horizon from the month of Octr 1788 to Augt 1789 but is expected to be most -visible (if it forces itself upon our Notice) in the Winter months Febry & March ——— vide Dr Trusslers Almanack…”

“…Sr Isaac Newton asserts That the Tail of a Comet is nothing else than a fine Vapour which the Head of the Comet emits by its heat that Heat the Comet receives from the Sun and the magnitude of the Tail is always proportional to the degree of heat which the Comet receives, and Comets which are nearest to the Sun have the longest Tails———”

A recent search on Amazon.com uncovered 105 books, videos and recordings teaching you how to win at lotto or other types of lotteries. In 1751, when Austria introduced a national lottery, there was a similar outpouring of books teaching the secret of picking numbers.

Based on the lotto di Geneva, Austria’s game consisted of 90 numbers and each one became connected with an animal or an object or an action. A person’s dreams might provide the basis of the winning number. Princeton libraries already hold several dream books used to decode dreams in order to play lotto but recently, we acquired this wall chart for the convenient study and selection of lottery numbers.

The chart has 90 squares and each one offers four images or terms connected to that number, thereby charting 360 symbols. The number 40, for example, might relate to a rooster, a flowering plant, a swimmer, or a letter.

See also:
George Wither (1588-1667), A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne: Quickened with Metricall Illustrations, Both Morall and Divine: and Disposed into Lotteries, that Instruction, and Good Counsell, May Bee Furthered by an Honest and Pleasant Recreation (London: Printed by A. M. for Richard Royston, 1635). Rare Books (Ex) N7710 .W68 1635q

Brother Richard Betts Scudder, Class of 1935 (1913-2012)
Brother Edward Wallace Scudder Jr., class of 1935 (1911-2003)
Parents Edward Wallace Scudder, class of 1903 (1882-1953) and Katherine Hollifield Scudder (1885-19 )
Grandparents Wallace McIlvaine Scudder (1853-1931) and Ida Quimby (1857-1903)
Great Grandparents Edward Wallace Scudder, class of 1844 (1822-1893) and Mary Louisa Drake (1823-1890)
Great Great grandparents Mary Stillwell Reeder (1797-1883) and Jasper Smith Scudder (1797-1887)
Great Great Great grandparents Mary Stillwell (1776-1806) and Amos Reeder (1770-1855)

Charles Williams wasn’t the only British caricaturist to pick up on the symbolism (Williams made three caricatures on the subject). James Gillray (1756-1815) completed a print the same month, followed by one by Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) in May.

Owners of this rare set of seventeenth-century French engravings are encouraged to cut them up. Once carefully trimmed, four prints link together to form a circle, approximately 46 inches in diameter, with the final plate dropped into the center to complete the picture.

Engraved by Gérard Audran (1640-1703), these scenes from the old and new testament were designed and frescoed by Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) on the cupola of the chapel at the Château de Sceaux. The house was built in 1670, not far from Paris by the French minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) inside a park laid out by André Le Nôtre (1613-1700). Fifty-five year old Le Brun finished two frescos in 1674.

Seven years later, Audran engraving, printing, and published Le Brun’s circular design. The title in the Inventaire du fonds français (17e - vol. 1) reads Coupole de la Chapelle de Sceaux. Triumphe du Nouveau Testament sur l’Ancien (Triumph of the New Testament over the Old Testament or Triumph of the New Law.)

Gérard Audran (1640-1703) after Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), Set of five plates, known as Triumph of the New Testament over the Old Testament, 1681. Etching and engraving. GA 2012.01256-01260.
1. “Car. Le Brun Regis Pictor primarius, udo tectorio pinxit in Capella Castelli vulgo de Seaux, Girardus Audran aeri incidit, 1681.” Depicts angels bearing the Ark of the Covenant.
2. “Le Pere Eternel porte sur les ailes des Anges, prononeant ces paroles au baptesme de Iesus Christ, voicy mon fils bien aime &c.” Depicts God the Father on the wings of angels.
3. “Peint a fraisque dans la voute de la Chapelle du Chasteaux de Sceaux.” Depicts the adoring angels.
4. “Pater Aeternus sedens super pennas Angelorum, haec verba in Baptismate Iesu Christi proferens, Hic est Filius meus dilectus &c.” Depicts the baptism of Jesus Christ.
5. Untitled [center section was perhaps not meant to be cut apart]

Print:
Designed by Sir John Gilbert (1817-1897); Drawn by Frederick John Skill (1824-1881) and William Walker the Younger (1791-1867); Engraved by William Walker and Georg Zobel (1810-1881); Printed by J. Brooker. The Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain Living in the Years 1807-8. Published by William Walker, London. 4 June 1862. Stipple engraving. 65 x 111 cm (25 ½ x 44 in). Graphic Arts Collection GA2013- in process.

Book:
William Walker (1791-1867), Memoirs of the Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain living in the years 1807-08 (London: W. Walker & Son, 1862). “Originally compiled for the purpose of accompanying the engraving of The Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain Living in 1807-8, assembled at the Royal Institution, to which the outline at the commencement of this work is intended to serve as a key.” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

“We are glad to be able to inform our readers, that a large engraving has just been completed by Mr. Walker, of 64, Margaret-street, Cavendishsquare, in honour of the men of science who have done so much towards the establishment of our present commercial prosperity.”

“This work, which may well be called historical, represents fifty-one illustrious men, living in the early part of the present century, assembled in the Upper Library of the Royal Institution. The picture is divided into three groups, and comprises authentic portraits of our greatest inventors and discoverers in astronomy, chemistry, engineering machinery, and other departments of science.”

“The grouping of so large a number of figures must have been a difficult task; this has, however, been successfully accomplished by John Gilbert, the designer of the original picture, who, by a skilful combination of various attitudes, has given both grace and ease to the figures represented.”

“Among those present are Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), discoverer of hydrogen and the decomposition of water; John Dalton (1766-1844), discoverer of atomic theory; Humphry Davy (1778-1844), discoverer of sodium, potassium, barium, and magnesium; William Herschel (1738-1822), discoverer of Uranus; Edward Jenner (1749-1823), creator of the smallpox vaccination; Count Rumford (1753-1814), the American science teacher named Benjamin Thompson, who founded the Royal Institution; and James Watt (1738-1819), inventor of the steam engine.”

See: Archibald Clow, “A Re-examination of William Walker’s ‘Distinguished Men of Science’,” Annals of Science, xi (1955), pp. 183-93
and the extended essay in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.princeton.edu/view/theme/97115?backToResults=list=yes|group=yes|feature=yes|aor=8|orderField=alpha

For eighteen years, the French printer and engraver Philippe Pigouchet (active 1488-1518) and the printer Simon Vostre (active 15th century) worked together to produce hundreds of Books of Hours for the European public. According to Sandra Hindman, Parisian printers turned out more than 1,775 editions of Books of Hours from about 1475 to 1600.

Princeton University Library owns six bound copies published by Pigouchet and Vostre, with as many as 16 large metalcuts along with other illustrations. The Graphic Arts Collection holds a set of leaves, ten metalcuts, which have been removed from a 1496 edition. Here are a few examples.

GC110 Bookleaves, 15th century. Graphic Arts Collection

Catholic Church, Ces presentes heurues a lusage de Romme (Paris: Philippe Pigouchet for Simon Vostre, August 2, 1493). Rare Books: South East (RB) EXI 5942.247

Catholic Church. Horae secundum usum Romanae Curiae (Paris: Philippe Pigouchet, for Simon Vostre, 17 Sept. 1496). Rare Books: South East (RB) EXI 5942.247.12

Catholic Church. Ces presentes heures a lusaige de Rome … (Paris: Philippe Pigouchet for Simon Vostre, 4 Nov. 1497). Rare Books: William H. Scheide Library (WHS) 5.3.4

Catholic Church. Incipiunt hore beate Marie virginis secu[n]dum vsum Sarum … (Paris: Phillipe Pigouchet for Simon Vostre [1498?]). Rare Books: South East (RB) EXI 5942.247.13

Catholic Church. Les presentes heures a lusaige de Rom[m]e fure[n]t acheuez le xvi. iour de Septembre, lan Mil LLLL.iiii.xx. et xviii. pour Simon Vostre, libraire demourant a Paris a la rue neuue nostre dame a lymage sainct Jehan leuangeliste ([Paris: Philippe Pigouchet, for Simon Vostre, 16 Sept. 1498]) Rare Books: South East (RB) EXKA Incunabula 1498 Catholic Church

Catholic Church. Ces presentes heures a lusaige de Rōme sōt au lōg sās req̄rir & ont este faictes pour Symō vostre Libraire: demourant a Paris a la rue neuue nostre dame a lenseigne sainct Jehan leuangeliste par Philippe pigouchet (Paris: P. Pigouchet [1502?]). Rare Books (Ex) BX2080 .xA2 1502

See also: Jules Renouvier (1804-1860), Des gravures sur bois dans les livres de Simon Vostre libraire d’Heures, par Jules Renouvier; avec un avant-propos par Georges Duplessis (Paris: Aubry, 1862). Marquand Library (SA) NE1200.V5 R29.

“Perhaps the most charming objects in Professor Friend’s collection are the two sketchbooks by the Venetian artist and stage designer Domenico Fossati (1743-1784),” writes David R. Coffin, Class of 1940 for the Princeton University Library Chronicle.

“The small sketchbook … has on its first folio the date “4 Febrajo 1784,” the year of Fossati’s death, but there is evidence that it was used by him earlier. A pocketbook of thirty-eight folios, most of the sketches are hasty ones for stage sets done in ink, but scattered among the stage designs are some wonderful details of rococo ornament done in pencil or in a gray-blue wash with a brush.”

“The larger notebook …, with forty-two bound folios and two smaller loose sketches pasted in at the end, commences with a large series of very finished drawings, many of them magnificent in their choice of colored washes. Perhaps the most striking of these is an underworld scene, and still other designs are exotic in character, combining the wonderful curves of late rococo decoration with elements of chinoiserie.”

The scrapbooks are part of TC020, a collection of theatrical drawings given by Professor Albert M. Friend, Jr., Class of 1915 (1894-1956). The collection consists of some sixty-two single sheets of drawings and two double leaves, the latter probably from sketchbooks of the Austrian theatrical designer Josef Platzer (1751-1806). Along with the Fossati sketchbooks, there are also drawings by Juvara, Sacchetti, Bernardino Galliari, Minozzi, and others. Here is a checklist: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/ga_pdf/TC020checklist.pdf

Albert Mathias Friend Collection of 18th-century Set Designs, 1700s. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) TC020

View William Heath and his Print Dealers in a larger map

In order to better understand the activities of the British caricaturist William Heath, I created a google map of his dealers from 1808 to 1840. Control/click on the link above to see a larger view. Although it is often repeated that he worked exclusively with Thomas McLean, Heath was doing business with many of the print and book shops around town.