Winter | Cotsen Children’s Library

Our next exhibition is right around the corner! This one will celebrate all things cold, frozen, and snowy. Opening on December 20th and on view until March 26th, “Ice and Snow,” will feature wintry scenes from Cotsen Children’s Library that celebrate the season.

Advertising for our show is provided by none other than Fall and Winter themselves. The above images have been blown up for display in the exhibition cases in preparation for the show:

These images have also been sourced from the collection. The original prints were created by the Czech illustrator Helena Zmatlíková (Praha : Odeon, c.1968) titled, in both Czech and French, Podzim : L’Automne and Zima : L’Hiver (respectively).

Our blow-ups measure 54 X 55 inches and old man Fall and old lady Winter have come a long way since they were found as prints pasted on 12 x 15 inch drywall panels:

Podzim: L’Automne. Praha: Odeon, 1968. (Cotsen 40757)

Zima: L’Hiver. Praha: Odeon, c1968. (Cotsen 151645)

So come see Podzim and Zima before they are taken down to reveal the real surprise. Join us in the Cotsen Children’s Library from 9-5 on weekdays and 12-5 on weekends starting December 20th for a celebration of Winter!

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Special thanks to Squirrel Walsh, RBSC Imaging Services Coordinator for the excellent digitization of the original items (and many more!), and to Barbara Valenza and the rest of the Princeton University Print and Mail Services team for the awesome job (that they always do) making our collections larger than life and entertaining my unorthodox print requests. . .

If you’re like us, your office is freezing and your commute is worse, and you’re just about fed up with the “polar vortex”. With all this cold weather almost everyone is frankly, sick of winter. But did you ever stop to think about how poor Sir Winter himself feels? After all, he’s just doing his job (and doing it well this season) but he receives so much scorn.

So here’s a picture book story to warm your heart a little and perhaps remind you that Old Man Winter, for his part, has it bad too:

We’ll just have to wait and see what the groundhog says on Sunday about the arrival of the infant Spring (as if you won’t be watching the Super Bowl instead). Hopefully we’ll see him soon!

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Images and text from: “Sir Winter,” in Laughter Book for Little Folks (New York: James Miller, [ca 1880]), p. 11-13. Cotsen 5847

Laughter Book consists of five publications, including reprints from earlier English editions of Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter and Konig Nussknacker.

The source for the images of “Sir Winter” is from the artist Moritz von Schwind’s “Denn Weihnachten hat der Winter gebracht,”published in Die Fliegende Blatter 6 (1847), nr. 124, s. 27.

Reference: Ruehle, Reiner, Boese Kinder (1999), 767.

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Tag Archives: Winter

New Exhibition “Ice and Snow” Opening December 20th!

The Trials of “Sir Winter”