On this anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, we present some original etchings and poems by Michael Kuch from the 2002 Falling to Earth, a letterpress artist's book issued in Northampton, Massachusetts by Kuch's Double Elephant Press in an edition of 110 copies. The book is a reaction to the terrifying and tragic collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and the ensuing bombing campaign by the United States. Kuch responds with fourteen poems and twenty-one intaglios. The book's imagery uses the metaphor of falling to examine the human and spiritual costs of violence. Mythological and biblical narratives are evoked in a modern framework to provide perspective on the then raw and recent events. Using the metaphor of falling to evoke the human and spiritual costs of violence, the volume is also frequented by angels, giving a vantage from above.
The copper-plate etchings were printed by Michael Kuch and by Arthur Larson under the artist's tutelage, with Larson printing the text. David Wolfe of Wolfe Editions cast and set the fourteen point Emerson type. The paper is an abaca & cotton blend handmade for this project by Shannon Brock at Carriage House Paper in Brooklyn, New York. A prototype of the binding (below) was constructed by Shoshannah Wineburg and carried out by Barry Spence for this edition. Our copy is another gift from the estate of our friend Dennis Bayuzick.
I was searching for a book in our stacks when I came across this slim, 18th-century play, Cleopatra, by the southern Italian playwright Scipione Cigala, "de'principi di Tiriolo," printed in Naples by Stamparia Gennaro e Vincenzo Muzio in 1736. I don't believe I have seen this book before, and I gather that the publication is relatively obscure, as I could find little on the printer or the author, except that the printer produced a few other obscure publications and that Cigala was born in 1704, published at least two plays, was a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and was a member of the literary Accademia dell'Arcadia under the name of Demalgo Dinosteniese (which also appears on the title page).
I was far more interested, however, in the charming etchings and engraved historiated initials with their animals and putti. We know a little bit more about these. The frontispiece of Cleopatra and the Asp and the portrait of the author after a painting by Italian painter Tommaso Martini (1688–1755) were engraved by the Italian artist Antonio Baldi (c.1692–1768). We don't know who did the lovely copperplate initials, but the headpieces were engraved by Francesco Sesoni (b. 1705), and the etching on the title page is by Andreas Maillar.
Seven Poems pairs poetry by Carl Sandburg and original copperplate etchings by American artist Gregory Masurovsky, designed by the then-director of Associated American Artists, Sylvan Cole Jr., in New York in 1970. It was printed in Paris in a series of unbound gatherings by Pierre Jean Mathan in Times New Roman (designed by Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent) in an edition of 190 copies, with our copy being one of 150 copies on Rives BFK paper. The etchings were printed at Atelier Georges LeBlanc.
Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg was a prolific voice in American poetry from the early to mid-20th century and enjoyed a level of fame usually associated with Hall of Fame athletes and entertainers due to the popularity of his straightforward, layperson-appropriate poetry. This collection is a compilation of poetry from throughout Sandburg’s career, and Masurovsky’s etchings mirror these sentiments. The images are deceptively simple and uncomplicated, matching their accompanying poetry with surreal imagery, while the unbound nature of the collection invites readers to rearrange the order of the poetry. Readers can gather different meanings by reordering the poetry to their hearts’ delight.
This week we highlight the 18th-century discovery of oxygen by the English chemist, theologian, and political theorist Joseph Priestley as recorded in his Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, published in 6 volumes from 1774–86. We hold the first three volumes which were originally published in 1774, 1775, and 1777, respectively. Our three volumes are from various editions, however: Volume 1 is the corrected 3rd edition, 1781; Volume 2 is the 2nd edition, 1784; volume 3 is the 1st edition, 1777. All were published in London by the noted English publisher Joseph Johnson, who remained a close friend of Priestley’s for over 40 years until the latter’s death in 1804.
The “Kinds of Air” noted in the title refer to gases generally. In these volumes Priestley outlines the discovery of several gases: nitric oxide, anhydrous hydrochloric acid, ammonia, nitrous oxide, but most importantly oxygen, which he famously referred to as "dephlogisticated air," or a gas that has the theoretical substance phlogiston removed from it. Phlogiston was believed to be a fire-like element contained in all substances that could be burned, releasing the phlogiston in the air. This was the basis for the longstanding but erroneous phlogiston theory, which Priestley held to for the rest of his life. It appears that the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier and the Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, made independent discoveries of oxygen around the same time as Priestley. It was Lavoisier’s later experiments on oxygen in the 1780s that culminated in the overthrow of phlogiston theory and the establishment of modern chemistry.
The first three volumes of Priesley’s Experiments and Observations include four, fold-out plates of Priestley’s experimental instruments shown here:
The first two are from volume 1 and serve as the frontispiece and the final illustration at the back of the volume (that our former graduate intern Katie famously referred to as the “backispiece”). We show the original copperplate etchings along with reconstructed illustrations found at beautifulchemistry.net/priestley, and with a photorealistic CG reconstruction of plate one. Of plate one, beautifulchemistry notes:
The trough with a platform on one side was essential to [Priestley’s] experiments: collecting gases, transferring gases, and other experiments were all performed inside this trough. Priestley prepared many gases, including nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, some of which were first discovered by him. . . . For gases that dissolved in water, he used mercury to collect them. Priestley carefully studied the physical and chemical properties of many gases. He also discovered that plants could absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. However, he did not study the function of light in this process.
Of plate two, the same website notes:
Priestley improved [Stephen Hales’s] apparatus for preparing gas at high temperature. Through ingenious design, he studied reactions of gases under electrical spark. . . . In 1774, [Priestley] prepared oxygen by heating mercury oxide with a burning glass. He found that oxygen did not dissolve in water and it made combustion stronger. . . . He proposed that the intense combustion inside oxygen was due to oxygen contained no or very little phlogiston and it easily absorbed phlogiston from other substances. As a result, he called oxygen “dephlogisticated air” and nitrogen, which did not support combustion, “phlogisticated air.”
The next two etching are the frontispieces for volumes three and four, respectively, illustrating other equipment used in experiments to test different aspects of air and oxygen, and to produce oxygen from various reactions. These plates indicate that they were prepared by the British engraver James Basire.
On this date July 6 in 1535, English lawyer, author, philosopher, statesman and Lord High Chancellor of England Sir Thomas More was executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England. Best known for his most controversial work, Utopia, about the political system of an imaginary island state, More was Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532. A staunch Catholic, More came into conflict with the King over More’s campaign against the Protestant Reformation and the King’s (and the nation’s) separation from the Catholic Church, eventually leading to More’s resignation from the Chancellorship in 1532. Further conflicts with the King led to More’s imprisonment, charges of high treason, and his eventual execution by decapitation. For his staunch commitment to and defense of his Catholic faith resulting in his death, More was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935 as a martyr, and in 2000 Pope John Paul II declared him the patron saint of statesmen and politicians.
Shown here are pages from two publications. The first is a 1726 edition of The Life of Sir Thomas More by More’s great grandson Cresacre More (1572-1649), published in London by James Woodman and David Lyon. The original edition was published in 1631 without a place or date, but was probably printed in Louvain in what is now Belgium. The frontispiece is from a famous painted portrait of Thomas More by Hans Holbein, here etched in copper by George Vertue.
The second is a two-volume, 1808 edition of More’s Utopia with the original 16th-century English translation by Ralph (or Raphe) Robinson and additional material for this edition by Thomas Frognall Dibdin, printed by William Bulmer for William Miller. Utopia was first printed in Latin in Louvain under the editorship of Erasmus in 1516. After revisions by More it was then printed again in Basel in 1518. It was not until 1551, sixteen years after More's execution, that it was first published in England by Abraham Veale (or Vele) with Robinson’s English translation. The edition shown here uses Veale's second English edition of 1556. We don’t know who did the lithographic frontispiece portrait of Thomas More, but the handsome wood engravings in this publication are signed “Austin” and are most likely by the painter and wood engraver Richard Turner Austin (1781-1842) whose father Richard Austin (1756–1832) was William Miller’s punchcutter.
This week we present this lovely original copperplate etching of a cock fight by the American painter, printmaker, and women’s rights activist Anne Goldthwaite that we happened upon in Part 20 of The Colophon, A Quarterly for Collector & Lovers of Books, printed by the Philadelphia printer of etchings and engravings George H. Esquirell in 1935.
The Colophon was a limited-edition, quarterly periodical that ran from 1929 to 1950 in various series. Part 20 was the last number issued in the original series. “Cock Fight” is one of only four original prints from Colophon that were etchings. Goldthwaite was a Southern artist who drew on Southern themes for inspiration in her artwork. “Cock Fight” is an example of that practice. We are particularly drawn to it because it graphically encapsulates the nature of our entire week!
This week we focus on the experimental equipment used to study electricity from the 3rd edition of The History and Present State of Electricity by Joseph Priestley, printed in two volumes for several London booksellers in 1775. The text is a survey of the study of electricity up until 1766, including Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiments, as well as a description of experiments conducted by Priestley himself. The equipment shown here were all designed and constructed by Priestley and his brother Thomas, and these copperplate etchings were drawn by Joseph Priestley and etched by the London engraver James Mynde. The last image shows a reconstruction of one of the Priestley’s static machines reconstructed from Priestley’s illustration by John D. Jenkins, curator of the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention in Bellingham, Washington.
The History and Present State of Electricity was first published in 1767, going through five enlarged and corrected editions by the end of the century, and translated into French in 1771 and German in 1772. It became the standard history of electricity for over a century. Priestley also published a popular version of this work for the general public titled A Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity in 1768.
This week we present some more copperplate etchings from the French botanist and agronomist Jean-Baptiste François Rozier’s 12-volume agricultural dictionary Cours complet d'agriculture théorique, pratique, économique, et de médecine rurale et vétérinaire; ou, Dictionnaire universel d'agriculture, published in Paris from 1785 to 1805. These agricultural illustrations are from volume 9 of Rozier’s dictionary (S-V), published in 1796. This work was donated to our collection by Lynde Bradley Uihlein.
