Category Archives: History

April 14, 2013

Assassins

By daseger

I have been feeling a bit run down lately, which I attributed first to the typical murky New England spring weather and secondly to the end-of-semester rush, or some combination thereof. Then I realized it wasn’t just fatigue but also a certain sadness, brought on by the fact that I have been lecturing about assassinations all week. Teaching takes its toll! By coincidence, I was covering eras of extreme violence in two of my courses: a survey of the Renaissance and the Reformation and an introduction to European history. In the former, we’re in the midst of the religious wars of the second half of the sixteenth century, while in the latter we’re in the later nineteenth-century Belle Époque, which wasn’t all that belle if you ask me. So in just the last week, I’ve referenced the assassinations of William I of Orange, leader of the Protestant opposition in the Dutch Revolt against Spain (1584), the French kings Henri III (1589) and Henri IV (1610), as well as (jumping forward three centuries) Tsar Alexander II of Russia (1881), U.S. President James Garfield (1881), President Carnot of France (1894), Prime Minister Cánovas del Castillo of Spain (1897), Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary (1898), King Umberto I of Italy (1900) and President William McKinley of the United States (1901). And then I woke up this morning to realize that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on this day in 1865–the icing on the cake.

A pretty somber week indeed, but also an opportunity to explore the comparative natures of early modern and modern assassinations. I know the earlier era so much better, so it is easier for me to comprehend the religious environment that created the motivations and rationales for violent acts. This was a civil holy war between Christianity, and both sides were absolutely certain of the rightness and urgency of their cause. Nevertheless, in an age of divine-right rule, these assassinations were still shocking, particularly that of William of Orange, the first leader to be killed by a handgun.

An 18th century image of William of Silent’s assassination, and variant covers of Lisa Jardine’s 2005 book: The Awful End of Prince William the Silent. The First Assassination of a Head of State with a Handgun. German broadside illustration of the assassination of King Henri IV in 1610, British Museum.

As alarming as these murders were and are, it is the modern assassinations that I find even more chilling; even though they were targeting single individuals, they were seldom personal but rather acts of public relations–the propaganda of the deed. Their frequency is equally chilling: in the last decade of the nineteenth century alone the leaders of nearly every western European nation were struck down, along with poor Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) of Austria, stabbed in the chest with a nail file while she was walking down a Geneva promenade accompanied only by her maid. Clearly no on was safe, and that was the central message that “organized” anarchism meant to convey.

Aroused! Puck Magazine illustration with lady law and order preparing to slay the anarchist snake and President Carnot’s body lying in state, 1894; the front page of the San Francisco Call for September 11, 1898, reporting the assassination of Empress Elizabeth, both Library of Congress.

13 Comments | tags: ephemera, Nineteenth Century, Presidents, Reformation, Teaching | posted in History

April 12, 2013

Ferns of North America

By daseger

Desperate for green, and while I am waiting for my own ferns to pop out of the ground, I have been perusing various botanical books, several of which led me to some spectacular plates published right here in Salem in the later nineteenth century: Daniel Cady Eaton’s The Ferns of North America: Colored Figures and Descriptions, with Synonomy and Geographical Distribution of the Ferns (Including Ophioglossaceae) of the United States of America and the British North American Possessions (Salem, MA: S.E. Cassino, 1877-80) contains 81 beautiful lithographs hand-colored by James H. Emerton and C. E. Faxon. Another Salem surprise; I’m familiar with Cassino, whose diverse publications included everything from Black Cat Magazine to Bleak House, but this Eaton book is really spectacular.

I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised: Cassino was trained as a naturalist before he turned to publishing, and seems to have been part of a New England circle surrounding the eminent Harvard naturalist Asa Gray which included Eaton and also John Robinson, head of the Botany Department at the (then) Peabody Academy of Science, whose somewhat less scholarly Ferns in Their Homes and Ours was also published by Cassino during this same time: the illustrations in Robinson’s book are less detailed and naturalistic (and certainly expensive) than those in Eaton’s, but still charming. Robinson designed the garden of the Ropes Mansion on Essex Street and his own large garden on Summer, right around the corner from my own house. While the former is still there, the latter is unfortunately buried under a parking lot. The Robinson house is still standing, however, and the garden plans are in the Library of Congress: they detail several fern borders similar to the illustration below.

How the Victorians loved their ferns, inside and out! The demand for books about ferns seems to be insatiable in the pre-1914 period, and the production of jardinières impressive. In the Victorian language of flowers, ferns were assigned mystical meanings, but also represented shelter, which might explain some of their interior attraction.

Plates from Shirley Hibberd’s Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste (1870); another recent find: Frances Theodora Parsons’ How to Know the Ferns (1902) with an amazing cover by esteemed binding designer Margaret Nielson Armstrong.

3 Comments | tags: Art, books, Flora and Fauna, Gardens, Graphic Design, Interior design | posted in Design, History, Nature, Salem

April 10, 2013

Alphabet Books

By daseger

A blog post by the British Library on their 15th century “Macclesfield Alphabet Book” set me off on a quest for more of these essential (and decorative) educational texts: I figured that I could assemble a sample chronological collection that would span the centuries, and I was right: this is one literary genre that never went out of style, until now, I think. My portfolio of pages was gleaned from books produced both for learning the alphabet (primers) and learning to write, not necessarily the same thing but I make the rules! The Macclesfield text, for example, was written for professional scribes (or their prospective patrons) rather than children; centuries later the two types of texts merged a bit but still had somewhat different aims. For a better basis for comparison and evolution, I chose the letter D, my first initial.

Alphabet samplers from British Library Add MS 88887, the “Macclesfield Psalter” (c. 1475-1525) and Sloane MS 1448a (later 15th century), and the embellished capital D in BL Harley MS 3885, sixteenth century. I love that the D in the Sloane MS takes the shape of a Tudor Rose.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, alphabet books, or ABCs, are pretty distinct from penmanship or “copy” books; the former were often a religious texts, as in ABC with Catechism, and the latter were strictly secular and far more aesthetically pleasing. Only towards the last part of the eighteenth century do we see more decorative alphabet books, and they get ever more whimsical over the next century, as children’s literature becomes a distinct and profitable publishing category.

Thomas Watson, A Copy Book Enriched with Great Variety of the Most Useful and Modish Hands (1700);William Chinnery, et. al., Writing and drawing made easy, amusing and instructive: containing the whole alphabet in all the characters now us’d, both in printing and penmanship: each illustrated by emblematic devices and moral copies: calculated for the user of schools and curiously engraved by the best hands … (1750); William Tringham, publisher, The alphabet rendered instructive and entertaining (c. 1775), University of South Carolina Libraries’ Digital Collections.

In the nineteenth century, alphabet books were in the capable and creative hands of such prolific illustrators as Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane, publishers like the McLoughlin Brothers of New York issued very specialized versions, and ultimately Man Ray produced an adult variation. Suddenly the alphabet book is a work of art–or was it always?

Pages from from Kate Greenaway’s Alphabet Book (1885), Walter Crane’ Song of Sixpence Picture Book (1909), McLoughlin Brothers & Company’s Baseball ABC Book (1885), and Alphabet Country Scenes Book (1900), as well as the French version of Man Ray’s limited edition Alphabet for Adults (1970).

4 Comments | tags: Art, books, British Library, illustration | posted in Culture, History, Paper

April 8, 2013

Pikemen on Salem Common

By daseger

The annual muster on Salem Common was amplified this year because of Salem’s recent designation as the Birthplace of the National Guard based on the First Muster of 1637, when all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were called to arms on the Common to begin their regular training as a citizens’ militia. So on Saturday there were not only current members of the Massachusetts Guard marching about, but also representative re-enactors of past regiments, including those from the Revolutionary War and the “East Regiment” from 1637. There was a lot of waiting around for everything to begin (and it was freezing, literally) so I passed my time talking to the seventeenth-century guys. After all, you seldom see pikemen on Salem Common. They were enthusiastic and knowledgeable members of the Salem Trayned Band, whose motto is it’s all about the hats.

Commemoration of the First Muster this past weekend in Salem: Members of the Danvers Alarm List and Massachusetts National Guard Regiments enter St. Peter’s Church for a memorial service; The Salem Trayned Band on the Common, the National Lancers on horseback; all in formation, though I wish they were aligned in chronological order!

The pikeman’s role in the so-called “early modern military revolution” is a central but transitional one. Medieval mounted knights and archers were replaced by musketeers and pikemen in the sixteenth century; the slow rate of fire of muskets necessitated that the musketeers be defended from sudden cavalry attack by pikemen, generally the strongest men in the regiment given that their weapons were a sturdy 18 feet long. The invention of the bayonet in the later seventeenth century effectively made each musketeer his own pikeman, and the latter history. I don’t generally pay much attention to military matters in my courses (consigning weapons and tactics to the realm of “boys’ history” and concentrating more on the impact of war), but I do put up a few images from some contemporary military manuals, including Jacob de Gheyn’s Wapenhandelinghe (1607), the “Exercise of Arms”. I’ve also included images of a band of Dutch pikemen from about a century before below, wearing very fancy (but considerably less protective) hats, and pikes and pikemen in their heyday, the English Civil War.

Jacob de Gheyn, Wapenhandelinghe van Roers, Musquetten ende Spiessen (The Exercise of Armes for Calivres, Muskettes, and Pikes), The Hague, 1607; Pikemen in the 1520s in a print by Jan Wellens de Cock (attributed)and in a 1657-8 print by Thomas Nealle, all British Museum, London.

Such a nice day, mixing past and present in the guise of commemorations and military uniforms. The planned flyover by the Massachusetts Air National Guard was canceled due to the budget sequestration, but I think there was enough going on, on the ground.

Groups of Pikemen, past and present: Stefana Della Bella etching, mid- seventeenth century, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, and this past Saturday.

7 Comments | tags: Art, books, Commemorations, Local Events, Seventeenth Century | posted in Current Events, History, Salem

April 5, 2013

Panoramic Papers

By daseger

Last night there was a “scholarly soirée” here in Salem, during which the amazing pictorial woodblock-printed wallpapers of the French manufacturer Zuber et Cie were presented from a variety of perspectives. I learned a lot: certainly too much to put in one blog post! So consider this a mere synopsis. The event, which was co-sponsored by the French American Intercultural Relations and Exchanges (FAIRE), The Bowditch Institute, and Salem Maritime National Historic Site and held at the latter’s Visitors’ Center, featured an array of speakers, who introduced the large audience to Zuber et Cie wallpapers in general and the “Views of North America” (1834) in particular. There were actually lots of introductions, including a very succinct survey of the potential market for these expensive French wallpapers in mid-nineteenth century Salem by SMNHS Historian Emily Murphy and the charming observation of the French Consul General for Boston that the panoramic Zuber wallpaper installed in the dining room of his official residence in Cambridge facilitated conversation (and I suppose diplomacy). Then the soirée was turned over to three panelists, Isabelle Dubois–Brinkmann, Curator of the Musée du Papier Peint, Joanna Gohmann, Doctoral Candidate in Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and James A. Abbott, Curator of the Johns Hopkins University Evergreen Museum & Library , who examined, in succession, the early history of the Zuber firm and its manufacturing processes, the idealized images they produced, and the revitalized interest in their panoramic designs sparked by Jackie Kennedy’s redecoration of the White House in the early 1960s. This last topic is obviously the most accessible: most people would recognize at least the general image of these landscapes from official White House pictures of the Diplomatic Reception Room, in which antique panels (rescued from a doomed Maryland house) of Zuber’s idealized North American panorama were hung with great care.

Pictures of the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House with its Zuber et Cie panoramic wallpaper, 2010 & 1963, and a detail of “Boston Harbor”, White House Museum.

All of the panelists had very interesting things to say, but I was particularly impressed by Ms. Gohmann’s analysis of the idealized images of these manufactured “views” of North America in the 1830s. She pointed out that they were created for the French market more so than the American one, and crafted to portray a perfect American Republic–characterized by the equality, prosperity, and inter-connectivity of all of its citizens–just as French Liberals were trying to create their own ideal Republic. America had to be the model, the way forward, and so things that weren’t so perfect, like SLAVERY, were “whitewashed”, as African-Americans are shown freely intermingling with European-Americans, even in depictions of the South. You see American prosperity in the depiction of Boston Harbor above, and equality and inter-connectivity in the detail from “West Point” below.

Detail from Zuber et Cie’s “West Point”, Myers Fine Art & Antiques Auction Gallery.

Just fascinating. It’s almost Utopian wallpaper, but still projecting a “historical” image. I must brush up on my July Monarchy. And then we jumped forward a century and more to the Kennedy White House, Mrs. Kennedy’s aspirational redecoration, and the key role played by Zuber wallpaper, which was installed not only in the Diplomatic Reception Room but also in the First Family’s private dining room. What was designed as a French galvanizing image become an American one.

The Zuber firm is alive and well, still manufacturing its pictorial and panoramic wallpapers. It’s interesting to see them in a modern setting, emphasizing their timeless style. And for other designs, there is a large digitized collection at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum (including the very popular “El Dorado”, if you want to see an idealized image of South America) and the Down East Dilettante has a nicely-illustrated post on the “Decor Chinois” pattern. There is at least one Salem dining room papered with Zuber panels: the White Silsbee House (1811) at 33 Washington Square, which just happens to be for sale at the moment (so we can take a peek inside).

A more recent print of “Views of North America” in a bedroom, Elle Decor, 2005; The dining room at 33 Washington Square with its Zuber “Les Zones Terrestres” paper, and a detail.

4 Comments | tags: Decorative Arts, great houses, Interiors, Local Events | posted in Culture, Design, History, Paper, Salem

April 3, 2013

Tracing my Tracks

By daseger

Not being a local historian or an art historian, one of the consistent pleasures of writing (and curating) this blog has been the discovery of local artists: I knew of a few well-known Salem painters like Frank Benson before I started blogging, but had no idea there was such a dynamic artistic community on the North Shore during his time, before and after. The vitality of the early twentieth century is particularly notable, given the long-held view that Salem’s “golden age” was a century before. One artist from this era was Charles H. Woodbury (1864-1940), who led his long and productive life in the same general setting that I seem to be living mine, painting scenes that are both familiar and not-so-familiar to me. He was born just south of Salem in Lynn, painted scenes all along the North Shore of Massachusetts into southern Maine (where I was brought up), where he ran a popular and influential art school in Ogunquit (where I held all my summer jobs).

I’m always looking around for Salem scenes, and after I found a few of Woodbury’s etchings of Salem, a search began that opened up his whole world (also my world, a century ago). It wasn’t a difficult search, as the Boston Public Library has a large collection of Woodbury’s prints, many of which it has digitized, and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art has also embraced him: there is a general recognition that Woodbury’s long-running (1898-1940) summer school of painting established the village as one of the preeminent art colonies on the east coast.

Charles H. Woodbury, Old Creek, Salem (MIT Museum Collections), Derby Wharf, Salem (Northeast Auctions Archive), and Old Salem, Boston Public Library, all dated 1889.

Woodbury entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an engineering student but also took courses with Ross. S. Turner, a Salem-based artist who was an instructor in architecture, and after his graduation in 1886 he became a full-time artist and educator, working in all mediums and teaching at Wellesley, Dartmouth, and the Art Institute of Chicago in addition to his summer school. He was also an author, an illustrator, and a commercial artist, producing beautiful posters for various periodicals and the government during World War I. While he is generally identified as a marine or shore artist, I love his images of the built environment: he seems to be trying to capture the old wharves, bridges and buildings, before they disappear, but he also recorded the “new”: a particularly poignant images below is that of the New Bridge in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was torn down just last year. He clearly loved animals, and drew many dogs in detail, cats in considerably less detail, and even elephants!

Charles H. Woodbury, Newburyport Wharves (1889), York Harbor Bridge (1919), the “New Bridge” at Portsmouth (1925), and Elephant (1889), all Boston Public Library.

A comparison of Woodbury’s oeuvre with the bare details of his timeline leaves one with the impression of a very busy man: it is difficult to see how he juggled painting and teaching and what appears to have been a steady stream of commercial commissions. From the 1890s through World War I, he produced lots of ephemeral images–posters, exhibition programs, magazine covers–which fortunately have proved to be not-so-ephemeral.

Charles Woodbury’s posters from the later 1890s, New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Woodbury’s oil and watercolor paintings predominately feature coastal and ocean scenes: there are many subtle images of rolling and crashing waves, sea spray, the meeting of ocean and rock, crests: the movement of water. There are also landscapes, of Ogunquit, the Netherlands, and the Caribbean, where he spent considerable time. Again, given my preference for the built landscape and local scenes, I think my favorite Woodbury oil (so far) is Victory Parade, Boston 1919, which displays a bright April morning in Boston on Tremont Street (???), and the celebration of the end of the Great War. I am almost embarrassed to be discovering Woodbury just now, as from all I’ve seen and read he was quite eminent in his own time. Certainly the fact that he was a subject of a portrait by John Singer Sargent is a testament to his artistic reputation, or at the very least their personal relationship.

Charles H. Woodbury, High Seas and Sunken Ledges, both 1930s, Bonhams Auction Archives and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Victory Parade, April 25, 1919, Boston, Private Collection; Portrait of Charles H. Woodbury by John Singer Sargent, 1921, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

10 Comments | posted in Culture, History, Salem

April 1, 2013

Fool’s Parsley

By daseger

My scholarly, botanical and materialistic interests intersected the other day when I came across a beautiful Arts and Crafts wallpaper print by Charles Francis Annesley Voysey named “Fool’s Parsley”, first produced in 1907. Even though it’s not really appropriate for my 1820s house, I love art nouveau and Arts and Crafts wallpapers in general, and Voysey’s designs in particular. The more I looked at the design, the more it reminded me of Sweet Cicely, one of my favorite plants in the garden, and so it was no surprise to learn that these two plants are in the same family. Though they have a very similar appearance, these herbs have very different natures: while Sweet Cicely “is so harmless you cannot use it amiss” according to the old herbalists, Fool’s Parsley is very, very poisonous. Beauty can be deceiving.

“Fool’s Parsley”, or Aethusa cynapium, in a 1907 wallpaper pattern by Charles Voysey, Victoria & Albert Museum, London and 1856 and 1542 herbals by Constantin von Ettingshausen and Leonhart Fuchs, respectively, Wellcome Library, London.

Fool’s Parsley is often called “Lesser Hemlock” in herbals from the Renaissance onwards, emphasizing its Socratic connection and toxic qualities rather than the evergreen tree. Along with Sweet Cicely, it belongs to the large Umbelliferae plant family, named for and distinguished by its lacy, umbrella-like flowers and including such beneficial vegetables and herbs as carrots, celery, dill, chervil, parsnips, and, of course, parsley. Besides the deprecating designation, there are many stories and anecdotes of poor fools who mistook the poisonous parsley for the passive one and ended up with severe nausea, headaches, and worse. But for CFA Voysey, this lethal plant was as beautiful as a rose, and by all accounts, his very best birds embellish the design.

Trustworth Studios has reproduced Voysey’s design in light and dark colorways; Fool’s Parsley page from an 1893 German herbal, Etsy seller CabinetOfTreasures.

Leave a comment | tags: Etsy, Flora and Fauna, Garden, holidays, illustration, Interior design, Shopping | posted in Design, History

March 29, 2013

Characterizing the Continents

By daseger

In my ongoing quest for anthropomorphic representations of just about everything, I have been assembling emblematic representations of the continents, or at least some of the continents: personifications of Antarctica and Australia remain elusive as the allegorical “Four Continents” became established in Europe in the early modern era. From the commencement of their global expansion in the sixteenth century to the dawn of the nineteenth, Europeans consistently crafted a vision of a primarily feminine, and therefore subordinate, world in their service. The sole exception to this perspective is offered by William Blake’s 1796 engraving Europe Supported by Africa and America, in which Europe is literally being propped up by the other continents, all still represented by women. This is a very modern view presented by the abolitionist Blake, and a rare contemporary acknowledgement that Europe’s prosperity was built on the backs of the “Dark Continent” and the “New World”. Much more representative of this era is the 1755 drawing of the four continents paying tribute to Britannia, a perfect piece of propaganda for the expanding British Empire. Yet this image departs from the traditional feminine portrayal of the continents by depicting the princely Europe and the turbaned Asia as male, and I think the kneeling Africa as well. The bare-breasted American Indian is stereotypically standard. More than a century earlier, these same four continents are bringing their gifts to the Louis XIII, the King of France, and this time is it Asia on bended knee.

William Blake, Europe Supported by Africa and America, 1796, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Anthony Walker, Britannia Receiving the Tribute of the Four Continents, 1755, British Museum, London; Title page to Les Estats Empires Royaumes et Principaites du Monde by Crispijn de Passe the Younger, 1635, British Museum, London.

Whenever or wherever Europa appears, she is always dressed (with the exception of the Blake print), in contrast to her continental counterparts, whose nakedness can convey their lack of civilization and/or morality. While the “Four Continents” allegorical tradition commences in the sixteenth century, I think the seventeenth-century images are the most vivid, and definitely the most Eurocentric in their attitude. The title page to Samuel Clarke’s Geographical Description of all the Countries in the Known World (1657) illustrates an inkling of this attitude, but I think the most flagrant examples are the prints published by John Stafford between 1625 and 1635, with accompanying verse by George Withers depicting the cannibalistic America, the chained Africa, and the faithless Asia. As you can imagine, these are particularly powerful images for teaching: students are shocked into engagement.

Title page to Samuel Clarke’s A Geographical Description.., London: T. Newberry, 1657; John Stafford engravings, 1625-35, British Museum, London.

While I was searching through the sold lots archives of Northeast Auctions for some Salem items (a rather indulgent and time-consuming habit of mine) I came across some emblem mezzotints of Europe and Africa produced in London in 1800 but owned by a Salem family, so apparently admiration of the triumphant and bountiful Europa (as indicated by her ever-present cornucopia) extended over to the New World as well–even in the early years after the Revolution.

“An Emblem of Europe” mezzotint, A. Testi, London, 1800, one of a pair sold at Northeast Auctions, 2009.

1 Comment | tags: Antiques and Collectibles, Art, books, print culture, Renaissance, Teaching | posted in Culture, History

March 27, 2013

Seeing Triple

By daseger

Two things turned my attention to triple portraits: a student essay on Renaissance portraiture as an expression of humanism, and the anniversary (today) of King Charles I’s accession to the thrones of England and Scotland in 1625. I was inspired to look (again) at one of my favorite portraits of the Stuart king, the one and only victim of regicide at the close of the English Civil Wars, and to explore the origins of the subgenre of triple portraiture, yet another Renaissance invention. The famous Van Dyck portrait of Charles, painted in 1635 as a study for a marble bust by Lorenzo Bernini, was both influenced by an earlier composition and influential to a future one: Lorenzo Lotto’s Triple Portrait of a Jeweler, the first triple portrait, was in the King’s collection at the time, and across the Channel, Cardinal Richelieu, l’eminence grise, was inspired to have his own triple portrait painted shortly thereafter.

Anthony Van Dyck, “Charles I in Three Positions” (1635), Royal Collection, London; Lorenzo Lotto, “Triple Portrait of a Jeweler” (c. 1530), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Philippe de Champaigne and studio: “Triple Portrait of Cardinal de Richelieu” (1642), National Gallery of Art, London.

It is interesting that Lotto’s portrait is of an anonymous jeweler, or goldsmith, rather than a “great” man like King Charles or Cardinal Richelieu. It is also more realistic and less impressionistic, and Lotto’s quest for the absolute essence of the jeweler (one perspective is not enough) ultimately gives him more dignity than either the King or the Cardinal, in my opinion. Or it might just be that I know much more about those two!

There is another sixteenth-century triple portrait that I want to include here even thought it’s a bit different–in several ways. It is not like the others in that it is a portrait of three different people, rather than just one person in different “positions” (to use the language of the day), although the artist is definitely playing up their similarity. And appearances are very deceiving in this collective portrait: these profiles do not belong to women, but rather to rather fancifully-dressed (and -tressed) men: the “favorites” of French King Henry III (1551-1589).

“Triple Profile Portrait” (c. 1570). Attributed to Lucas de Heere (Ghent, Belgium, ca. 1534–ca. 1584), Milwaukee Museum of Art.

The triple portrait technique has been used intermittently in the succeeding centuries, to depict both single and collective subjects: the Van Dyck portrait, in particular, has been copied and adapted numerous times, most recently by Hip Hop artist Kehinde Wiley–it really has a life of its own. Norman Rockwell rendered his own self-portrait in triplicate, and also that of Lyndon B. Johnson. Andy Warhol liked the multiple portrait, of course, though went for mere duplication rather than divergent profiles. And to return to royal portraiture (at least another kind of royalty): there were official triple portraits made of both Prince Charles (for the occasion of his 60th birthday) and Princess Diana (in 1987). The latter portrait hangs at Cardiff City Hall in Wales, and was apparently hastily (and temporarily) removed upon the occasion of a visit by Charles and his present wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, in 2005. Just to avoid an awkward “encounter” of sorts.

Andy Warhol, “Triple Elvis” (1963), Fisher Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the portrait painter John Merton (who died just last month) with his triple portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1987. Photo: UPPA/PHOTOSHOT.

6 Comments | tags: Art, Renaissance, Royalty | posted in Culture, History

March 23, 2013

Matrimonial Maps

By daseger

Consider this post a follow-up to last year’s Maps of the Human Heart, the most popular post of my blog so far, by far. I’m not tooting my own horn, but merely acknowledging how very popular maps are in general, and allegorical maps in particular. The other posts I have written about maps have been popular too, but artistic and metaphorical maps much more so than straightforward representations, historic or otherwise. The best allegorical maps fall in the period from the French Revolution to World War One; I think it’s really interesting that once the world was mapped scientifically there was a desire to distort and play with its representation for a variety of purposes, both political and personal.

Matrimonial maps fall right into this period; they are, for the most part, a nineteenth-century phenomenon. While I was searching through the archives of sold lots at Skinner’s site the other day, looking for recent prices fetched by fancy chairs, I came across a matrimonial map that I had not seen before, and that led to today’s post. This watercolor map was apparently painted in 1824, and its $400-$600 estimate was exceeded by a selling price of over $2000. People like maps.

The recently-sold Skinner 1824 map in its frame and close-up, and a similar hand-drawn Map of Matrimony from a nineteenth-century Canadian autograph book, Hudson’s Bay Company Archives.

United States of Agitation! Kingdom of Suspense! Land of Expectation and the Isles of Envy and Spinsters: the often-dangerous terrain and waters of matrimony. Let’s compare these early nineteenth-century matrimonial maps with those that came before and after. Everyone seems to agree that the first matrimonial map, or at least the first published matrimonial map was “A New Map of the Land of Matrimony”, dated 1772. The image below is from Katherine Harmon’s great book You are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination (2004), which is a fount of information, imagery and inspiration, but the original map is in the collection of Yale University Library. The matrimonial fan-map was published in London about a decade later: less treacherous waters here, though there is a desert on one border of the “Land of Matrimony”.

Also from Great Britain is the “Island of Matrimony” charted and published by John Thompson around 1810. I’m not really getting all of the (classical) regional references on this particular map, but the various water bodies have pretty straightforward designations: the Lake Content, Disappointment Harbor, Turbulent Ocean in the south, Ocean of Delights in the north. Everything is measured on the scale of “80 love links to the mile”.

A Map of the Island of Matrimony by John Thompson, Edinburgh (?), 1810. Jonathan Potter, Ltd.

Beware of Divorce Island on the undated Matrimonial Map below, which features a “Lake of Contempt” rather then a “Lake of Content”. The routes toward happy and unhappy marriages are indicated on Philadelphia lithographer John Dainty’s novel & interesting game of matrimony, a more original take on cartographical matrimony.

Nineteenth-century Matrimonial Map, National Library of Ireland; The Novel & Interesting Game of Matrimony, lithographed and published by John Dainty of Philadelphia, Library of Congress.

In the later nineteenth century chromolithography is going to make everything more vivid, including matrimonial maps. The “Map of Matrimony” below, published by C.S. Beeching in London about 1870, retains the regions, references and tone of maps from a century earlier: the island of matrimony lies halfway between the Land of Spinsters and the Country of Single Men, surrounded by wavering waters of introduction, admiration, doubt, and felicity.