Disappointingly Muddy @disappointinglymuddy - Tumblr Blog

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Peter Harrison Asleep, 1905, John Singer Sargent

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An Angel Appears to Baalam (detail) - Gustave Doré, 1880.

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The Night Mare - 1824 engraving based on the original by Fuseli c1782

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enchantedbook

'Metzengerstein' by Hermann Wogel, 1884

enchantedbook

'The Ransack of the Castle' by Alexandre Desenne, 1926

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The Calling of Samuel (1877) - Gustave Doré

The Drawings of Franklin Booth, one history's best practitioners of pen and ink.

#lithograph #penandink #illustration #golden age of illustration

desimonewayland

Letters from a pictoral alphabet by Antonio Basoli, 1839

Collection of Teatro Alla Scala, Milano

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Staff Pick of the Week

À la Poupée

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is generally regarded as the first Gothic novel. The first edition was published anonymously in 1764 by Thomas Lowndes in London, followed in quick succession by a second edition published by Lowndes and William Bathoe in 1765, this time with the Walpole’s preface acknowledging his authorship, and a third edition published by Bathoe alone in 1766. Several more editions were published before the end to the 18th century, and honestly, the republishing frenzy hasn’t really abated much since.

The first illustrated edition was an Italian translation published in London in 1795.which included seven, color copperplate engravings of scenes from the story. These same plates appeared the next year in an English-language edition published in London by Edward Jeffery. We hold the second Jeffery edition of 1800, which includes the same color plates, shown here. When I first saw these prints, I automatically assumed they were hand-colored plates, as printing by color separation was not successfully accomplished in the West until the 1830s. I have learned since, however, that they are in fact color prints done through a process referred to as à la poupée, an early technique of intaglio color printing where different ink colors are carefully applied to desired areas of a single plate, with one pass through the press to create a color image. The term, which translates as “with the doll,” refers to the “doll” or ball-shaped wad of cloth used to apply the color.

The plates were engraved by Scottish engraver Andrew Birrell from drawings by “a lady.” The “lady” was Anne Millicent Clarke, the daughter of Ann Radcliffe, a leading author of gothic fiction in the 1790s. You can read much more about the history of the prints and their publishing in this article. Our copy is bound in a contemporary full-leather binding with lovely marbled endpapers, also shown here.

I was so taken with learning about this process – something I should have learned years ago – that I just had to share.

View more of our Staff Picks.

– MAX, Head, Special Collections.

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Leopold Zinnögger

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The roses were drawn from nature and painted by Leopold Zinnögger with brief botanical identification(s) by D. Rössig, Linz the 1st of December (1)828", bound book with 61 rose watercolors and their botanical identification, including "Rosa centifolia - The hundred-leaved Rose", "Rosa cerea - The simple waxy yellow rose", "Rosa Burgundica - Burgundy rose", "Rosa virginiam simplex - The simple Virginian rose", preface (foreword) signed by Leopold Zinnögger, as well as two figural pencil studies, one signed and dated Leopold Zinnögger (1)831, 31 x 19.5 cm, book 32 x 21 x 3 cm, signs of usage, (BH)

(Linz 1811-1872) "Die Rosen nach der Natur gezeichnet und gemahlet von Leopold Zinnögger mit kurzen botanischen Bestimmung(en) von D. R

The present work is an early work by the Upper Austrian painter Leopold Zinnögger. Zinnögger was 17 years old when it was written. His father had a nursery in Linz, which evidently aroused the young man's interest in botany at an early age. In order to scientifically deepen the practical knowledge, the young artist probably studied the book "The roses drawn from nature and colored accompanied with short botanical determinations" by D. Rössig. This book was published in 12 parts, even translated into French, with a dedication to Anna Feodorovna, nee Duchess of Saxony Coburg-Saalfeld, published in Leipzig 1801-20 by Friedrich Gotthelf Baumgärtner. The panels were (among others) etched and hand-colored by Luisa von Wagenheim. It is not clear how Zinnögger got hold of a copy. In any case, one copy was already in the private library of Emperor Franz I before 1807 (from 1835 Primogenitur-Fideikomiss library, from 1921 ÖNB). The book with the carefully colored plates served Zinnögger not only as a botanical work of views, but also as a template for his first drawings and watercolours. It is striking that the young artist reproduced the roses mirror-inverted, they differed in size and extent in some cases, but also made small deviations in the thorns, leaves and buds. The biggest difference, however, can be seen in panel no. 25 with the fruits of the rose. There are also a few small deviations in the text, which Zinnögger adopted by and large. It is known that Leopold Zinnögger went to the Academy in Vienna with his friend Johann Baptist Reiter in 1830 and also shared an apartment and studio with him. Until 1832 he studied at the flower painting school. In 1836, Zinnögger won the coveted Füger Prize with a gouache painting of flowers, which he also exhibited at the Academy in 1837. However, when his application for a travel grant to Holland was not approved in the same year, he returned disappointed to Linz, where he took over the management of his father's nursery. He directed the focus of his interest to scientific botany and devoted himself to plant breeding in collaboration with the botanist Johann Baptist Duftschmid. He was able to achieve some successes in orchid research. From 1849 to 1862, Zinnögger was a drawing teacher at the k.k. State High School. Later he gave private lessons and ran a photographic institute. He was also a co-founder of the Upper Austrian Art Association, in whose exhibitions he regularly took part from 1851 as a painter and later also as a photographer. Zinnögger created more than 320 flower pictures and plant watercolors, which are characterized by a particularly scientific accuracy. The present work represents an early work before the Academy period and thus the first known work in Leopold Zinnögger's oeuvre.

barcarole

A manuscript of Mendelssohn’s Schiflied (Reed Song), from his Op. 71. Mendelssohn and his wife Cécile spent the winter of 1844-5 in the Frankfurt area, where Cécile had been born. While there Mendelssohn made a copy of a song he had composed in 1842: Schilflied (Reed Song), which sets to music words by Nikolaus Lenau. Not only did he write it out in his best hand, he also illustrated it with a meticulous watercolour which depicts the song’s opening line: ‘On the lake’s unruffled surface rests the moon’s fair beam.’ It was a present for his friend Henrietta Keyl, the wife of a Frankfurt wine merchant.