The Lives of Dolls in the Album des jeunes Demoiselles by Edmond Morin

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Edmond Morin, the nineteenth century French painter, watercolorist, and engraver, illustrated children’s books for the leading French publishers Hetzel and Hachette.  He also created comic strips for the periodical Le semaine des enfants  like “L’ Histoire de la queue d’un chien,” in which a boy tried to defend his dog from a giant lobster. Cotsen has some nice examples of Morin’s lithographed picture books, including an alphabet, a book of trades, and editions of Perrault’s fairy tales and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

Morin’s Album des jeunes demoiselles (Paris: Aubert & Cie, ca. 1845?) is full of pictures of fashionably dressed little girls fishing, being ambushed by geese, drinking milk from a bucket, circle-dancing on the grass, and tending flower gardens.  The beautiful hand-colored lithographic plates were produced by the same firm who printed  the works of Daumier and other famous satirists of the day.

Dolls appear in many of the plates. Here the carriage waits for Madam, who is escorted down the stairs by two young ladies.  It looks like a lovely afternoon for a drive.

Album des Jeunes Demoiselles. Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie., [ca. 1850]. (Cotsen 9869)

The tall, slender doll in a pink gown and modest white cap makes her devotions kneeling before a chair.   A pair of girls observe her.  They whisper approvingly, “See how good she is,”  but their ensembles suggest they pay far more attention to their clothes than the states of their souls .

This doll is dwarfed by her  crib with the rose canopy.  She dozes, oblivious to the girls working hard overhead on her trousseau.A carefully dressed doll artfully propped up on the sofa, is an excellent subject for a sketch.Polichinelle goes down on one knee to propose marriage to the doll he simply cannot imagine life without.  The girl in the yellow hat looks as if she worries that the match will not be especially advantageous.  He is so ugly.  And his shoes are atrocious.Are the girls taking turns playing the school mistress, so they all have a chance to discipline the poor doll?  Surely none of them have ever been guilty of neglecting their lessons and made to wear the donkey’s ears…

 

A Brief Story of Noah’s Ark and the Renaissance of Handmade American Paper

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[And so it was in the year 1977… Brookston Indiana: Twinrocker Handmade Paper, 1977]. (Cotsen 96522)

While rehousing a number of prints and original artworks I came across this curious piece. It’s a custom-made card (in the shape of Noah’s ark when folded along the seam) that tells a silly story full of animal puns in which Noah deprecates Japheth into working on the Ark; “in the year 1977.”  The illustrations consist of pairs of animals stamped in burgundy and blue ink, complete with the dove and olive branch in the top left. The card is signed “All the best, Kathryn and Howard Clark,” whom I first assumed were  friends of Mr. Cotsen’s.

Cotsen 96522 text

But upon closer inspection of the item and further research into its provenance, I discovered more fascinating facts about this really unique work! The paper is deckle- edged and clearly handmade (complete with the papermaker’s watermark to the left of the elephants). If this fact wasn’t already obvious from the paper’s appearance and texture, it was definitely brought home after I discovered just who Kathryn and Howard Clark are. When printmaker and fine artist Kathryn Clark discovered that all fine handmade paper was being imported from Europe, she and her industrial designer husband Howard Clark sought to build and establish the first fine papermaking mill in America since the nineteenth century. The Clarks are the founders of Twinrocker Handmade Paper (thus the logo resembling symmetrical rocking chairs). Established in 1971, and operating out of rural Brookston, Indiana since 1972, Twinrocker Handmade Paper is largely responsible for a renaissance of fine American handmade papermaking.

Cotsen 96522 watermark

Here at Cotsen, we’re just happy to have an excellent example and early artifact of this important legacy.

For more about Kathryn and Howard Clark, American papermaking, and Twinrocker Handmade Paper, visit this article by the American Printing History Association and Twinrocker’s own website.