2015 Fall 40:2

Fall 2015 Volume 40 Number 2 ATLANTIC C ABLE BROADSIDES AND LITHOGRAPHS 1856-‐‑1866 By Bill Burns Several prints were published in New York in 1858, including the above colorful piececco of toba advertising, produced by Sarony, Major & Knapp for Atlantic Cable Fine Chewing Tobacco. Image credit, Bill Burns. Telecommunications may seem an unlikely subject for mid-‐‑19th century broadsides and lithographs, but in the 1850s the prospect of crossing the Atlantic Ocean with a telegraph line seized the popular imagination. During the ten-‐‑year course of the enterprise, at least thirty prints on the topic were produced in Britain, America, Canada, and France. Until recently there has been little information recorded on these prints, which despite their widespread sale at the time are now found only in very small numbers. Some were described and illustrated in “An Atlantic Telegraph: The Transcendental Cable” (Robert Dalton Harris & Diane DeBlois, Ephemera Society 1994), but most were known only through archive catalog entries at various institutions. The Atlantic Cable project originated in 1854 with Cyrus West Field, a retired New York paper merchant who was independently wealthy at age 35. Introduced by his brother to an engineer seeking funding for a telegraph line across Newfoundland to connect to the mainland via Nova Scotia, Field conceived of the possibility of continuing the circuit with an undersea cable from Newfoundland to Ireland. This would reduce the three-‐‑week transit time for messages between North America and Europe to just a few hours. The then-‐‑ (continued on pages 6-‐‑9) Fall 2015 2 Volume 40 Number 2 AHPCS News Letter Copyright © 2015 Save the Date for the 2016 American Historical Print Collectors Annual Meeting! Society 94 Marine Street Farmingdale, NY 11735-‐‑5605 www.ahpcs.org Volume 40 Number 2 – Fall 2015 Robert Newman, President James Brust , 1st Vice President James Schiele, 2nd Vice President Lauren Hewes, Secretary Charles Walker, Treasurer Nancy Finlay, Regional Activities Chair John Zak, Membership Chair; Past President Sally Pierce, Imprint Editor The AHPCS 2016 Annual Meeting will be held in Santa Jackie Penny,News Letter Editor Fe, New Mexico from Wednesday, May 11 through Sunday May 16, 2016. A preliminary schedule will be forthcoming in Directors: the Winter 2016 issue. The organizers, Peter and Chagit Marshall Berkoff Heller, will have programs and costs per-‐‑person available. Allen W. Bernard La Fonda Hotel, Santa (in Fe the middle of the historic Robert Bolton district) will be the host hotel. Contact Desiree Quintana, Donald Bruckner sales manager, 800-‐‑523-‐‑5002 to make your reservation. The Michael Buehler cost is $160 a night, those attending the conference can get Jourdan Houston the same preferred rate threedays prior and three days after; Mike McKenzie the nearest major airport is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Erika Piola Eric Terwilliger Above: Hyde, Helen.Teasing the Daruma, 1905. Color Woodcut.New Rosemarie Tovell Mexico Museum of Art,Gift of Mrs. Hallie Hyde Irwin and Mr. Edwin Fraser Gillette, 1943. Editor’s Note: The AHPCS News Letter is published engraving tools, comments on personal or museum quarterly with occasional supplements. Deadlines for collections, exhibits and publications. The editor information are the 10th of January, April, July and reserves the right to make any changes without October with publication dates of the 1st of February, prior approval. Send contributions to May, August and November. Please allow three weeks [email protected] for delivery. For members wishing to place a classified Any prints of the American scene that are 100 or more advertisement, the cost is $25 for 1/3 of a page and years old will be considered. News items are always $50 for 1/2 a page. Send check and copy to: desirable, as are articles about little-‐‑known engravers AHPCS, 94 Marine Street, Farmingdale, NY 11735-‐‑ and lithographers, shops, remarks about unusual 5606. Your ad will appear in the next issue. Fall 2015 3 Volume 40 Number 2 Archival Item of Interest to Members By Philip Weimerskirch with special thanks to Sandra Markham The first lithographic shop in America was established in New York by William Armand Genet Barnet and Isaac Doolittle. They lived in Paris for several years and learned lithography there; no one knew, however, just how and where they learned to print lithographs. I recently learned that there are some letters from Barnet and Doolittle to Benjamin Silliman. For those interested in the citation, it is Silliman Family Papers (MS 450), Series II, General Correspondence, Box 21, Folder 56 (additional letters are in Folders 1-‐‑4); they are at the Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives. Of all the letters in the box, one mentions lithography (although not the word itself). According to the letters’ contents, it appears Doolittle was spending time doing shopping forSilliman . The letters from France are all on the subject of minerals, specimens and copies of French journals. The papers also have a few letters from the Pendleton brothers (of the first lithographic shop in Boston). Of interest is the letter (picturedabove ) from New York, dated [8] October 1821. In it Doolittle writes: “It was not with Mr. Senefelder that we learned the art, he has no establishment of his own – we know him and have from time to time received some practical instruction from him – but it was in the establishment of Count DeLasteyrie (the first who introduced it in France) that we worked.” De Lasteyrie established the first commercial lithographic shop in Paris. Lasteyrie had sent a lithographic stone and ink to Samuel Latham Mitchill, who was then living in Washington, D.C., long before Barnet and Doolittle moved to New York. "ʺThe art"ʺ referenced in this letter could only have been lithography. Alois Senefelder invented it, and Count Charles Philibert de Lasteyrie introduced it to Paris. Earlier Godefroy Engelmann introduced it to Mulhouse in Southern France, so de Lasteyrie was not the first person to introduce it to that country. Senefelder moved to Paris at some point, in part to supervise the translation and publication of the French edition of his manual of lithography. Fall 2015 4 Volume 40 Number 2 WEB RESOURCES OF NOTE TO MEMBERS: America’s River: Images of the Hudson from The William The family of William and Ruth Diebold donated a significant collection of books, prints, maps, and other ephemera to Historic Hudson Valley. This important collection spans two hundred years and documents nearly every aspect of Hudson River Valley art, history and culture. The online exhibition, entitled America’s River: Images of the Hudson from The William and Ruth Diebold Collection marks the first time that a selection of these objects will be available for study, thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. William (Bill) Diebold was an active member of the AHPCS and served on its board; he had an unparalleled collection of prints of the Hudson River. More information, including the online exhibition, is available at: www.hudsonvalley.org/education/americas-‐‑river Right: The Statue of "ʺLiberty”-‐‑ Viewing the Harbor from the Torch. Colo red engraving.Gift of the Heirs of William and Ruth . Diebold Free Early Photography Reference Fixed in Time, a free guide to dating Print for Sale daguerreotype, Offering a beautiful top 50 LFPrint C&I ambrotype & tintype originally purchased from the Philadelphia Print mats and cases, is now Shop in 2004: available. Fixed in Fanny Palmer. "ʺ'ʹWooding Up'ʹ On The Time by Sean William Mississippi."ʺ Currier & Ives, 1863. Large Folio. Nolan illustrates over 17 7/8 x 27 3/4. Superb color. 1 1/2"ʺ margins top 700 cases and mats from 1840 to 1870, and & sides. Very faint old stains in sky. Otherwise, provides dates for each style. Dates are based excellent condition. C:6776. New Best 50: #23. on analysis of over 3,000 objectively dated daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes; it is Asking only $14,000, call Mark at the fruit of over two years of research. The PDF can be downloaded at 864-‐‑848-‐‑3802 www.facebook.com/fixed.in.time.book. You don'ʹt need to be a member of Facebook. The expanded edition provides illustrations and dates for approximately three times as many case and mat designs as the first. Half plate, quarter plate, and ninth plate designs are now included. A print-‐‑on-‐‑demand physical copy of "ʺFixed inTime"ʺ is available through lulu at: www.lulu.com/content/ paperback-‐‑book/fixed-‐‑ in-‐‑time/17096341 Fall 2015 5 Volume 40 Number 2 A Visit to Richard O. Hathaway'ʹs Memorial Sculpture By Sue Rainey When in Montpelier, Vermont, AHPCS members who knew Dick Hathaway will enjoy visiting the-‐‑ life size bronze statue of him seated on a bench outside the main building of the Vermont College of Art. Hathaway was the auctioneer at the benefit auctions at our annual meetings for twenty-‐‑five years, beginning in 1980. A professor of American history at what was then Vermont College, he was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about American historical prints. After his death in 2005, colleagues, former students, and friends combined forces to support the erection of a memorial to him-‐‑-‐‑a sculpture by Bridgette Mongeon. Many AHPCS members contributed to this effort, encouraged by John Zak, who matched the amount donated.The statue was unveiled in 2008. Above: AHPCS member Sue Rainey, and her friend Lois Eby (left) visit Dick Hathaway in Montpelier,. Vermont The Tales of an Audubon-‐‑phile By Charles Walker On our way to the annual meeting in New Orleans, Carol and I stopped at the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, an AHPCS member institution. The exhibition “Drawn to Life: Audubon’s Legacy” featured the museum’s extensive collection of Audubon’s art including pastels, engravings, lithographs, printed books and manuscripts.

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