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Left: Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950) as a harlequin in Carnaval. 1920. Porcelain figure; 26 x 11 x 10 cm. Graphic Arts TC 012

Allison Delarue, Class of 1928, wrote: “For myself, I believe that Beauty still dwells among the rocks - scarcely to be reached at all and never without labour undreamed of by the average unperverted lover. One makes Beauty rarely then; but the making, however slender and elusive and unsatisfactory for the lover, has the merit of being creative.”

Mr. Delarue left a marvelous collection with Princeton University, including these porcelain figurines. For a complete inventory and finding aid prepared by John Delaney, see his website: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/Visual_Materials/Delarue/Htmls/index.html

Delarue was a staff member of McCarter Theatre (1951-1972), as well as a dance historian and balletomane. He graduated from the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, and later received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Princeton. While pursuing graduate studies at Oxford University, Delarue become interested in the history of ballet in England and studied dance with the Hon. Martin-Haney. Upon his return to the United States, he continued his interest in ballet while serving on the staff of the Cooper Union Museum in New York City.

His collection includes approximately 170 objects relating to the ballet and its history, including porcelain figurines, paintings and portraits, drawings, engravings, costume designs, lithographs, prints, posters, musical scores, and printed books. There are representations, in various forms, of Fanny Elssler, Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerito, Waslaw Nijinsky, and others by such artists as F. Kruger, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joseph Eymer, Paul Cadmus, Faivre, Lerasseur, and others.

“The class of 1879 makes a departure this year in its decennial gifts to the College. It will present an heroic portrait in bronze of ex-President McCosh, executed by Augustus St. Gaudens. The statue, for it is nothing less than this, though executed in relief upon a flat groundwork, has been made from numerous sittings lately given to the sculptor by the venerable Scotchman whose most vigorous work for the college was done while the class of 79 was undergoing its course of instruction … Placed on the wall of the Chapel to the left of the apse, it will be for all time a lasting tribute to the vigorous administration of Dr. McCosh and a worthy record of the best art of the day. (Harold Godwin, “The St. Gaudens Bronze of Dr. McCosh,” Princeton College Bulletin 1, no. 3 1889).

A fire during house parties weekend in 1921 destroyed Marquand Chapel, leaving only the bust intact, which was moved to the collection of rare books and special collections in Chancellor Green Library (now in Firestone Library).

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), James McCosh, 1889. Bronze. Graphic Arts collection.

Attributed to Theodore Lane (1800-1828), The Effusions of a Troubled Brain or Evil Communications Corrupt Good Manners in The Attorney-General’s Charges Against the Late Queen, Brought Forward in the House of Peers, on Saturday, August 19th, 1820 (London: George Humphrey [1821]). Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Cruik 1820.29E.

The caricatures all make fun of Caroline and were commissioned by George IV because he was sick of the fact that about 80-90% of the almost 1000 caricatures of his proposed divorce were pro-Queen. The series begins with the print Honi soit qui mal y pense (above left), which shows forty-two of the plates from this book on view in Humphrey’s shop at 27 St. James’s Street (the same shop owned by his aunt Hannah Humphrey). The first prints are dated January 1821 and the last August 1821, indicating that the book was published one year after the charges were filed and five days after Caroline died at the age of fifty-three.

In 1795, Princess Caroline of Brunswick was married to her cousin, the Prince of Wales, as part of an agreement to settle his debts. They separated soon as their only child was born and Caroline eventually moved to Italy. When her husband was to be crowned King George IV, she returned to London only to have him introduce a bill into Parliament accusing her of adultery so that he could get a divorce. Although the bill failed and public sympathy was with Caroline, she was still barred from the coronation and died not long after under unexplained circumstances.

There are only five recorded copies of this book in the United States and many are incomplete. Besides ours at Princeton, they can be found at Southeast Missouri State University, Columbia University, the Huntington Library, and Northwestern University. The British Museum does not own a copy.

Last year, we posted this twelve-plate panorama in a few images. We now have the complete panorama digitized. If you would like to view the continuous strip, click below. The zoomified image will open in the center of the strip. Either hold the directional arrows down, right or left, or you can move the strip with the mouse. Special thanks go to Paula Brett, Manager of the New Media Center and Beth Wodnick, Digital Imaging Technician for making this possible.

TRY IT! You will not be sorry.

http://www.princeton.edu/~plbrett/library/DukeYork.html

The Tale of Genji (源氏物語, Genji Monogatari) has been called the first novel. It is, at least in part, attributed to Lady Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century. Like Dickens did much later, the story was made public in installments or chapters, rather than as a complete book. Scholars believe that the story was finished by 1021, on 10-20 hand-written scrolls, which no longer exist. Many copies were made and at least one twelfth century scroll contains illustrations.

It would be hard to overestimate the cultural signifigance of The Tale of Genji, a work that has resonated throughout art and literature, in all periods, both in Japan and the rest of the world.

The first printed edition of The Tale of Genji was published in 1654 and includes woodcuts by Yamamoto Shunshô (1610-1682). Known as the Tale of Genji, Jou-oh Edition, our copy is complete with 54 volumes of main text and 6 commentaries, a grand total of 60 volumes.

The International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, posted a complete digitized copy at: http://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/genji/en/genji_list.html

[Genji monogatari] [源氏物語]. Translated title: The Tale of Genji. Written in part by Murasaki Shikibu (born 978?) and illustrated by Yamamoto Shunshō (1610-1682). [Kyoto]: Rakuyō; [Kyoto]: Yao Kanbē kaihan, 1654. 54 volumes and 6 supplements. Graphic Arts (GAX 2011- in process)

Our plate is the frontispiece for volume one, engraved by Pierre Tanje (1706-1761) after a design by the Dutch painter Louis Fabricius Dubourg (1693-1775). A quick check of Princeton University’s copy showed that the plate had not been removed from Princeton’s set and so, we now have two copies of this engraving: one bound and one unbound.

Albertus Seba collected exotic plants, snakes, birds, insects, shells, lizards and other animals. At first, these specimens were part of his profession, used to mix treatments in his pharmacy. But then, collecting grew into a personal obsession. In the early eighteenth century his entire collection was sold to Peter the Great (1672-1725) and moved to St. Petersburg, helping to establish the Russian Academy of Sciences.

For the complete set, see Albertus Seba (1665-1736), Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri Accurata Descriptio (Amsterdam: Wetsten, Smith, Jansson-Waesberg; 1734-65). Rare Books EX Oversize 8607.847e

Engraved by Bernard Picart (1673-1733) after a design by Pierre Gaubert (1659-1741), La défaite de Porus [Defeat of Porus by Alexander the Great at the Battle of the Hydaspes], ca. 1730. Engraving. Graphic Arts French prints

In 326 B.C.E., along the banks of the Hydaspes River, in what is present day Pakistan, there was a battle between King Porus of Paurava (4th century B.C.E.) and Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.E.). Alexander’s men faced an army that included 200 war elephants, which led the first charge. After a long and bloody battle, 3,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry were killed, leaving Alexander and his men the victors. Impressed by the dignity of King Porus, Alexander is said to have made peace with him and given him the kingship of neighboring territory.

Picart created this scene at the same time that he was completing thousands of prints for the massive study Religious Ceremonies of the World (Ex Oversize 5017.247.11f). Professor Anthony Grafton wrote, “In 1723, the engraver Bernard Picart and the printer Jean Frederic Bernard revealed the varied religions of the world to European readers. In seven splendidly illustrated folio volumes that appeared from 1723 to 1737, Religious Ceremonies of the World offered—at least to anyone strong enough to lift one of the volumes and open it—a tableau of the world’s priests and believers, in action.” “A Jewel of a Thousand Facets,” New York Review of Books June 24, 2010.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a similar, large format print of this battle, engraved by Picart but after a design by Charles le Brun (1619-1790). Unfortunately no image has been posted on their database.

See more:
Philip Freeman, Alexander the Great (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011). (Dixon) Firestone DF234 .F74 2011
and
Lynn Avery Hunt, The Book That Changed Europe: Picart & Bernard’s Religious Ceremonies of the World (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). Firestone BL80.3 .H86 2010

With their five surviving children … and 300 books for the college library, the Witherspoons reached Philadelphia early in August 1768. When a few days later they moved on to Princeton, they were greeted a mile out of town by tutors and students, who escorted them to Morven, home of Richard Stockton. That evening the students celebrated the occasion by “illuminating’ Nassau Hall with a lighted tallow dip in each window.

…Witherspoon lived at first in the President’s House (now called the John Maclean House), but after several years he moved about a mile north of the village to Tusculum, a handsome residence he built that still stands on Cherry Hill Road. His route to and from the College is well enough indicated by the street that bears his name.

…Though a man of strong convictions, he showed no inclination to protect his students from exposure to ideas with which he disagreed. The many books he added to the library gave the undergraduate access to a wide range of contemporary literature, including authors with whom he had publicly disputed. In his famous lectures on moral philosophy, not published until after his death and then probably contrary to his wish, his method was to lay out contending points of view and to rely upon persuasive reasoning to guide the student toward a proper conclusion of his own. —W. Frank Craven from Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).

The French actress Sarah Bernhardt designed this inkwell with herself as a recumbent winged sphinx, including the wings of a bat and the claws of a griffin. A pen is meant to rest in the hair and ink in a bowl at her feet, under a pile of books and a skull. The masks of tragedy and comedy are on either side.

In 1873, Bernhardt performed the role of Berthe de Savigny in the melodrama Le Sphinx at the Comédie Française, together with the actress Sophie Croizette (1847-1901) as Blanche. Adapted from the novel Julie de Trécours by Ostave Feuillet (1821-1890), the story includes suicide and death on stage by Blanche, who wore a poison ring in the shape of a sphinx. When Bernhardt toured several plays in 1880, she took over the part of Blanche, with much success. Both in New York City and in London, Bernhardt exhibited a cast of her self-portrait as the sphinx while the show was being performed.

For more on Bernhardt, see the library’s Sarah Bernhardt Collection of newspaper and magazine clippings, theater programs and playbills, photographs, and other material, Rare Books (Ex) TC134: http://library.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/tc134.pdf

Johann Georg Heck, Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature, and Art. Translated from the German, Bilder Atlas zum Conversations Lexicon (New York: R. Garrigue, 1851). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-0014M

Five hundred steel-engraved plates containing upwards of twelve thousand images. Here are a few.

I recommend reading Michael Winship’s recent article “Pirates, Shipwrecks, and Comic Almanacs: Charles Ellms Packages Books in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Printing History (N.S. no. 9, January 2011): 3-16. In it, he discusses the earliest almanacs in the United States and the development of the comic almanac specifically. As well as a few pirates.

In graphic arts, we are fortunate to hold the Sinclair Hamilton collection, which includes a photostat of Noadiah Russell (1659-1713), Cambridge Ephemeris. An Almanack of Coelestial Motions, Configurations, &c. for the Year of the Christian Aera, 1684 (Cambridge [Mass.]: Printed by Samuel Green, 1684). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 5
and
John Tulley (1638-1701), An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord, MDCXCVI [1696] (Boston, N.E.: Printed by Bartholomew Green, and John Allen, for John Usher, and are to be sold at his shop below the Town-House, 1696 [i.e., 1695?]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 6

I prefer American almanacs from the eighteenth century, when the woodcuts become more plentiful, such as seen here with our: John Tobler (1696-1765), The Pennsylvania Town and Country-Man’s Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1756 (Germantown [Pa.]: Printed and sold by C. Sower jun., [1755]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 34.

Winship’s article is available in paper or (soon) electronically at Princeton University and for others, directly from the American Printing History Association: http://www.printinghistory.org/publications/printing-history.php

See also Charles Ellms, Queer Almanac (1836). GAX Hamilton SS347
and
Charles Ellms, Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, or, Historical Narratives of the Most Noted Calamities…(1836). GAX 2003-1740N

The poet, critic, and translator Stanislav Kostka Neumann (1875-1947) founded his first magazine Nový kult (The New Cult) in 1897. In the early twentieth century, Neumann concurrently edited the eclectic magazine Kmen (Clan) and the literary journal Cerven (June). Cerven ran from 1918 to 1921 with masthead mottos like “Proletkult—Communism—Literature—New Art,” publishing the first Czech translations of Apollinaire and Kafka.

According to Derek Sayer’s The Coasts of Bohemia, Neumann was a perpetual enfant terrible of Czech letters. In addition to his own poetry, he was behind two of the key modernist manifestos, both influential in their day, the Almanac of the Secession (1896) and the Almanac for the Year 1914.

See also: Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998). Firestone Library (F) DB2063 .S28 1998

Holbein’s designs were originally cut and printed in 1526 for a dance of death alphabet and then, included in an Old Testament. In 1538, forty-one of the blocks were published under the title Les simulachres & historiées faces de la mort avtant elegamtment pourtraictes, with a bible quote at the top and a poem by Gilles Corozet below. The book was banned but new editions continued to appear every few years.

This 1547 expanded edition includes fifty-seven woodcuts. The artist of the new plates remains unidentified. They are interspersed with Holbein’s designs, with no explanation as to why another artist’s work was included. In addition, three of the plates in the Princeton volume, including the title page, have contemporary hand coloring. Here are a few samples.

Thanks to John Delaney for identifying the instrument hanging at the center as an armillary sphere, described by Ptolemy as a zodiacal instrument of six rings, designed to determine the locations of celestial objects. For more, see www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/armillary.html

Napoleon is in a tree on the right, dressed as a rat wearing a feathered bicorne hat. He says, “I am determined to Beat these brutes in spite of their Teeth” as his soldiers use pincers to pull the bears’ teeth (pull tusk). The French troops had trouble moving through the mud and swamps, arriving late to their positions. The caricature shows them advancing across the River Bug (the signpost reads Bug-Water), in which some are drowning. John Bull is seen as a bull on the hill to the left.

Attributed to Charles Williams (1797-1830), The Battle of Pul-Tusk, 1807. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts British Caricature.

In 1926, Esherick cut twenty-four vignette woodcuts for a volume of poetry by A.E. Coppard, designed and printed by Elmer Adler at the Pynson Printers in an edition of 500 copies. Esherick presented Adler with this signed copy of his Centaur Book Shop print, which was given to the graphic arts department when Adler formed it in 1940.

The colorful story of the Centaur Book Shop is being written by our colleague Lynne Farrington, Curator of Printed Books, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, hopefully to be published soon.

Princeton holds twelve volumes published by Mason, including:
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Song of the Broad-Axe, 1924. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) PS3222 .S63 1924q
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, 1925. Rare Books (Ex) 3822.27.375
A.E. Coppard (1878-1957), Yokohama Garland and Other Poems, 1926. Graphic Arts Oversize 2007-0691Q
Song of Solomon, 1927. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) BS1483 .E7 1927q
James House Jr., Fifty drawings, 1930. Rare Books (Ex) NC1429 .H78
Anthology of the younger poets, edited by Oliver Wells, 1932. Firestone 3588.964
Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005), André Spire and His Poetry, 1933. Firestone Library (F) 3292.84.611
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), No Swank, 1934. Firestone Library (F) 3607.25.3675
Peyton Houston, Descent into the dust, 1936 Rare Books (Ex) PS3515.O7924 D4 1936
Tony sees the World, photographs by Arthur Neustadt; verses by Agnes Crozier [i.e. Grozier] Herbertson, 1936. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) 84315
Stanley Burnshaw, Iron Land, 1936 Annex A 3658.06.349
James Daly (1901-1936), One Season Shattered, 1936. RECAP 3704.827.368

In 1865, the London journal Notes and Queries published this notice, “We are desirous of calling the attention of our readers to The Philobiblion, a Monthly Bibliographical Journal, containing critical notices of, and extracts from, rare, curious, and valuable books. It is published by [George] Philes & Co. of New York, and in this country by Trübner; and in the two volumes already issued will be found a vast amount of matter to interest all lovers of old books.


The New York bookseller and publisher George Philip Philes (1828-1913) also contributed to literary journals under the pen-name of “Paulus Silentiarius.” When he died at the age of eighty five, the only comment made in his obituary was that he was the editor of The Philobiblion. In fact, he wrote and/or edited over forty volumes including How to Read a Book in the Best Way (1873) and Bibliotheca Curiosa: Catalogue of the Library of Andrew J. Odell (1878-1879).

The bookseller, for ready cash will sel
For as much profit as other traders will;
But then you must take special care and look,
You no new title have to an old booke,

For they new title-pages often paste
Unto a book, which purposely is place,
Setting it forth to be th’ Second Edition,
Or Third, or Fourth, with ‘mendments and addition.

When George Cruikshank (1792-1878) published a group of fairy tales using a form of social realism not previously seen by the Victorian public, his friend and sometimes collaborator Charles Dickens (1812-1870) objected. In his journal Household Words (no. 184, vol. VIII, 1 October 1853, pp. 97-100), Dickens wrote a humorous but heartfelt reply, titled “Frauds on the Fairies.” A complete transcript of Dickens’ essay is available at: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva239.html
but here is a taste.

“We must assume that we are not singular in entertaining a very great tenderness for the fairy literature of our childhood. What enchanted us then, and is captivating a million of young fancies now, has, at the same blessed time of life, enchanted vast hosts of men and women who have done their long day’s work and laid their grey heads down to rest.”

“…In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected. Our English red tape is too magnificently red ever to be employed in the tying up of such trifles, but every one who has considered the subject knows full well that a nation without fancy, without some romance, never did, never can, never will, hold a great place under the sun.”

“…We have lately observed, with pain, intrusion of a Whole Hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower garden. The rooting of the animal among the roses would in itself have awakened in us nothing but indignation; our pain arises from his being violently driven in by a man of genius, our own beloved friend, MR. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. That incomparable artist is, of all men, the last who should lay his exquisite hand on fairy text. In his own art he understands it so perfectly, and illustrates it so beautifully, so humorously, so wisely, that he should never lay down his etching needle to “edit” the Ogre, to whom with that little instrument he can render such extraordinary justice. But, to “editing” Ogres, and Hop o’-my-thumbs, and their families, our dear moralist has in a rash moment taken, as a means of propagating the doctrines of Total Abstinence, Prohibition of the sale of spirituous liquors, Free Trade, and Popular Education.”

The Tragedy of Louis Capet: Being a true and authentic narrative of the horrid and barbarous execution of the late unfortunate monarch, Louis XVIth of France, who was beheaded, on the twenty first of January, 1793. [Boston]: Sold next the venerable stump of Liberty-Tree [by Ezekiel Russell, 1793]. Printed and sold by Edward Gray, 1793. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1367

After being removed from the monarchy, Louis was given a commoner’s name, Louis Capet, and under that name was executed on January 21, 1793. The sheet sold for “Two Shilling and Eight per dozen and Four Pence single.” Also included are three poems, entitled Occasioned by the Death of Louis XVIth, On the Decolation of Louis 16, and The Queen’s Lamentation for the Death of her Beloved Louis.

and

At a time when most women barely left their parents house, the British/Italian artist Maria Hadfield Cosway (1759-1838) traveled the world, dined with royalty, inspired her fellow artists, and seduced at least one American president.

Cosway created several drawing series meant to be translated to engravings for wide distribution. These include her designs for Progress of Female Virtues (1800), and its complement Progress of Female Dissipation (1803), as well as a volume of Old Master paintings she spent two years copying at the Louvre, published as Gallery of the Louvre (1802).

Also a pioneer in women’s education, Cosway established a college for young ladies in Lyon, serving as its director from 1803 to 1809. This was followed by a convent school for young girls in Lodi, for which she was named Baroness of the Austrian Empire.

NOTE: The Cotsen Children’s Library has these two volumes copied exactly in pen, ink and wash by Antoinette de Chaponay, around 1810.

See also: Stephen Lloyd, Richard & Maria Cosway: Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion (Edinburgh: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 1995) Marquand Library (SA) Oversize ND497.C75 L55 1995q
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Jefferson in Love: the Love Letters between Thomas Jefferson & Maria Cosway (Madison: Madison House, 1999). Firestone Library E332.88 .C67 1999