The Lions of the New York Public Library Never Looked Like This

by Stephen J. Gertz

The Fox and the Grapes.

No, that's not a wolf whistling at the hubba-hubba behind him.

Patience and Fortitude, sculptor Edward Clark Potter's marble lions that majestically flank the entrance to the New York Public's Library's classic Beaux-Arts building at Fifth Avenue and 42d Street in Manhattan, will never be confused with Jean-Baptiste Oudry's figures flanking the fountain in his illustration to Jean de La Fontaine's Le Renard et les Raisins. They kept their clothes on.

A traditional tale from Aesop, The Fox and the Grapes tells the tale of a fox who desires what he cannot have, luscious grapes beyond his reach. In La Fontaine's hands it has become one of most popular of Aesop's fables, and the story gave rise to the English idiomatic expression, "sour grapes" - embitterment by what another has that you cannot have. As related in Phaedra, the point is, "The glorious despises what he cannot have."

Oudry's grand designs for the illustrations to La Fontaine's tales are the most popular and acclaimed. The designs began life as tapestry and were adapted to print by engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin.

Patience and Fortitude™ were carved by the Piccirilli Brothers after Potter's models. Though they carried various nicknames since their debut in 1911, New York Mayor  Fiorello La Guardia gave the male lions the names that have stuck; he felt that those qualities were what New York needed the most to endure and survive the Great Depression.

Nude maidens as NYPL sentinels would certainly have caught attention but, no matter how dignified and proud as those in The Fox and the Grapes, the fable's message, however apt during severe economic distress, was not the positive, ennobling sentiment needed to get New Yorkers through the day. Through the night, perhaps, but not in broad daylight.

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LA FONTAINE [Jean de]. Fables choisies, mises en vers. Paris (Desaint & Saillant/ Durand), 1755-1759. Four octavo volumes (421 x 285 mm). I: (2), xxx, xviii, 124pp. II: (2), ii, 135, (1)pp. III: (2), iv, 146pp. IV: (2), ii, 188 pp. Frontispiece and 275 full-page plates hors texte, after Jean-Baptiste Oudry by Charles-Nicolas Cochin, engraved by Cochin himself, and Aliamet, Aubert, Aveline, Baquoy, Beauvarlet, Cars, Choffard, Dupuis, Flipart, Galimard, Le Mire, Moitte, Radigues, Surugue, Tardieu, Teucher, and numerous others. Bound in the first volume, the portrait of Oudry by Tardieu after Largillière (“found in some copies but not integral” per Ray). 

Ray 5. Cohen-de Ricci 548-550, supplement 280. Portalis 483-489. Girardi (1913). Rochambeau 86. Tchemerzine VI.390f.. Sander 1065. Brunet III.753. Graesse IV.73. Guilmard p. 150. Cicognara 1125. Bland (1958) p. 209f.. Blumenthal, Joseph: Art of the Printed Book 1455-1955 (New York, 1973), p. 29. Regency to Empire 41. Opperman, Hal: J.B. Oudry (Fort Worth, 1983), p. 146f.

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Image from La Fontaine courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd., with our thanks.
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A French Almanac for Americans, 1802

by Stephen J. Gertz

Almanac americain pour l’année 1802 was a French almanac for the American market, a literary miscellany preceded by a calendar that was modeled on successful French and German versions of the period.

Within are four stylish hand-colored neoclassical Parisian costume plates “très gentiment coloriés” (Grand-Carteret).

There are also three engraved portraits, of Lavater, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (after Peale).

The almanac includes an essay on Johann Kaspar Lavater; La France toujours la même: Dialogue; Histoire de Pérourou, ou du raccommodeur de soufflets, écrit par lui-même; La perruque blonde; an extract des voyages du Chevalier de Chastellux, by the major general who fought in the American Revolutionary War with the French expeditionary force; etc.

To hammer the point that France and the United States share Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité the stipple-engraved allegorical frontispiece depicts Lady Liberty feeding the American eagle, with the American flag and French revolutionary cap in the distant clouds. Liberty crushes monarchy under her right foot. The inclusion of the extract from the writings of Chevalier François-Jean de Chastellux, third in command of the French forces at Yorktown, serves as a reminder that without France the Americans would not have defeated the British, secured their independence, elevated French fries to All-American status and sacrificed Idaho as an unofficial department of France with the Potato Growers of Idaho represented in the French Parliament.

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Almanac americain pour l’année 1802. A Philadelphie [Paris], [1801]. Octavo. (26), 224pp. Stipple-engraved allegorical frontispiece. Seven engraved plates hors texte, four hand-colored costume plates, and three uncolored portraits. Engraved title-page.

Publisher’s hand-colored engraved boards with ornamental border, with antique vases (different on each cover) within medallions and ornamental borders.

Grand-Carteret 1373. Shaw & Shoemaker 42. Drake, M. Almanacs 10572.

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Images courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd., with our thanks.
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Public Amusements in Paris With Gustave Doré

by Stephen J. Gertz

A remarkable and very important suite of lithographs from early in Doré’s career, Les différents publics de Paris contains twenty-one original lithographs, superbly colored by a contemporary (publisher’s?) hand.

The series depicts Parisian society at the circus, the theater, the public garden, at magic performances, a puppet show in the park, a reading in the imperial library (this is a particularly famous Doré image), and at the amphitheater of the medical school, among other settings.`

“These twenty lithographs are studies of massed humanity, ranging from audiences at the great Parisian theaters to the crowds at a wrestling match or a Punch and Judy show. Without exception they are striking in conception and fertile in detail... each of Doré’s scenes is based on close observation, and the album provides valuable testimony to the manners of the day."

“[‘Les Travaux d’Hercule’] and the more imposing albums which followed [Les différents publics de Paris] remain too little known even among Doré’s ardent admirers because of their great scarcity. They show the artist at his most engaging, bearing witness to a lively sense of humor, now broad, now sophisticated, which was muted in his later illustrations” (Ray p. 327).

“All three of these lithographic albums are rare. Most copies were long ago taken apart to sell the lithographs individually.

"There are also full-color versions of the Ménagerie and Publics, and those are particularly desirable” (Dan Malan,  Gustave Doré, Adrift on Dreams of Splendor. A Comprehensive Biography and Bibliography).

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DORÉ, Gustave. Les différents publics de Paris. [Paris]: Au Bureau du Journal Amusant, n.d. [1854]. Lithographic printed title and 20 contemporary hand-coloured lithographic plates, all mounted on stubs. Oblong quarto (262 x 350 mm.).

Ray: Art of the French Illustrated Book 241; Rahir: Bibliothèque de l’amateur, 404; Beraldi VI.30; Leblanc 90.

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Images courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd., with our thanks.
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Vivid Criminal Slang on the City Streets of France

by Stephen J. Gertz

L'Argot de "Milieu" was a groundbreaking and influential dictionary of criminal and low-life French slang, born of the fascination with crime and criminals that had swept early 20th century France in the wake of modern advances in forensics  that had allowed, for the first time, the tracking, apprehension, and prosecution of criminals using scientific methods.

Author Jean Lacassagne (1886-1960), who also wrote under the pseudonym, François Seringard,  was the son of the great Lyon forensic criminologist, Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1924), was head of the Lyon prison medical service, and took a lifelong interest in the darker side of human nature, conducting many studies of French criminal subculture. This book was reprinted and revised several times but the first edition, with its striking color illustration by French painter, illustrator, and engraver André Dignimont (1891-1965, and known for his stylish erotica), is scarce.

Lacassagne fils became the doctor of a regiment during the First World War, and received his Ph.D. in 1916. He was also one of founders of l'Association républicaine pour favoriser les études médicales 1923-1924, becoming one of the most active members.  He became a knight in the Legion of Honor in 1925.

As Clinical Director at Antiquaille he was a specialist in venereal diseases, treating prostitutes and detainees. In 1945 he received a medal from the prison for twenty five years of service.

Like his father, he was extremely interested in criminal anthropology.  He published articles and books inspired by his meetings and correspondence with criminals. He observed their tattoos, studied their slang, investigated their history, psychology, and collected their reminiscences.

Writer of the Preface, Francis Carco, fantaisiste poet, novelist, and art critic, published several works in Parisian argot depicting the street life of Montmartre. 

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 LACASSAGNE. Docteur Jean. L'Argot du "Milieu." Préface de Francis Carco. Paris: Albin Michel, n.d. [1928]. First edition. Octavo (186 x 119 mm), xxii, 293, [1] pp. Pictorial wrappers, illustrated by André Dignimont.

Reprinted in 1935, 1948, 1951, and 1955. The edition of 1935 reproduces the original wrapper illustration but with the title text design revised.

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Images from L'Argot du "Milieu" courtesy of Justin Croft Antiquarian Books, with our thanks.

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Hollywood Goes to the Library

by Stephen J. Gertz

The staff of the Greene County Public Library of Ohio has put together an entertaining video montage of library scenes from film and television. 

It includes footage from Seinfeld, Sesame Street, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, The Golden Girls, No Man of Her Own, The Shawshank Redemption, Philadelphia Story, Philadelphia, Harry and the Hendersons, Party Girl, Ghostbusters, Clean Shaven, Phineas and Ferb, The Music Man, Mr. Bean, Shadow of a Doubt, The Breakfast Club, Only Two Can Play, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Twisted Nerve, The Man Who Never Was, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, JAG, The FBI Story, Wings of Desire, Se7en, Harry Potter, With Honors, All the President's Men, and Strike Up the Band. 

Check it out:

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With thanks to our friends at LISNews for the lead.
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Planet of the Monkey-Men, 1827

by Sam Simian

Sam Simian is the former proprietor of Darwin's Body Shop in the former Leopoldville in the former Belgian Congo ("Ubangi, We Fixy") in  the current Africa. Now, having made his fortune in used Mongolian auto parts, he is master of all that he surveys from his eponymous hilltop castle overlooking California's central coast.

I'm not happy about all that I survey. At the moment, I'm surveying Monkey-ana, or Men in Miniature.

It's a suite of twenty-four mordantly satiric caricatures by Thomas Landseer (1795-1880), brother of Edwin Landseer (1802-1873), the famed painter of horses, dogs, and stags, and captioned with quotations from Shakespeare, Pope, etc.  It is one of the few works engraved by Landseer after his own designs, was originally issued in six parts, each with four etchings, bound in pictorial wrappers reiterating the engraved design of the title-page, on chamois-colored paper, and  originally published in 1827. Its engravings depict human men as members of my family.

How do you spell condescending? Remove the mask and all humans are monkeys? I don't think so. Remove the mask and all humans are even more human than you thought, and it ain't pretty. Thank Hanuman, the Monkey God, for masks (though the last syllable of his name is a scandal).

You wanna parody the vices of men, fine by me; it's more fun than a barrel of humans with pistols and a bottle of Jack Daniels and less dangerous. I resent, however, the choice of my brethren as somehow, somewhere below humanity on the tree of life yet ripe for close comparison. From my branch the view is the other way around. If Darwin was right and men are descended from monkeys, then it's time for us monkeys to do the right thing, travel back in time, commit mass suicide, and stop evolution in its tracks. You think we wanted our legacy to be genetic ancestors of Glenn Beck?

In 1971 I dropped LSD. Ten hours later, as it wore off, it seemed to slowly drain from my head, descend my torso, run down my legs and exit my big toes into a pool on the floor. Twelve hours after that I saw an  aging macaque in Pucci and pearls walking a Pomeranian on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. I wasn't sure whether the leash was attached to the dog or the dowager and who was taking who for a walk. It did my heart good, though, to see a monkey mocking a denizen of The Bistro, the dearly defunct hangout for Hollywood primates past their prime.

Suffice it to say, if you're going to depict a kangaroo court kindly depict kangaroos.

I've just about had it in general with anthropormorphic literature and art, and I'm not alone. Some of my best friends are butterflies and they're still pissed-off at Grandville for what he did to them in Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Airs. A pear I know takes Charles Philipon's caricature of his great-great-great-great grandfather as Louis-Philippe personally. Whatever you do, don't bring up Varin's L'Empire des Légumes to an eggplant. Purple with rage is all I can say.

If you want to satirize a despot don't look to monkeys for inspiration.  King Kong was a gentle giant who loved blonds and whose only political gripe was with NYC authorities for approving the Empire State Building without provision of a single piton or Alpine cock ring to give him a leg up. The rest we know.

How 'bout Mighty Joe Young? You croon Beautiful Dreamer to the big guy and what does he do? He gets all goofy and smiley, lies down and plays with flowers. You sing Beautiful Dreamer to a mafia gorilla and you're dead meat - no offense to gorillas intended.

Thomas Landseer "became one of the most gifted and innovative engravers of his generation, being particularly adept in the use of textural etching. Much of his career was taken up with reproducing the works of his brother, Edwin...he subsequently made prints after all of his brother's most famous works...In all, he made more than 125 engravings after his brother's paintings. He also produced original etchings, including the book Monkey-ana, or Men in Miniature...At the Royal Academy he exhibited both engravings and original works of art, but it was not until 1868 that he was finally honoured by being elected ARA. In 1871 he edited and published Life and Letters of William Bewick, Artist, a book about his former colleague" (Oxford Grove Dictionary of Art).

A word to the wise, Landseer: Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty Homo Sapien. You ain't gonna make a human outta me!

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LANDSEER, Thomas. Monkey-ana, or Men in Miniature. Designed and Etched by Thomas Landseer. [London]: F.G. Moon, August 1827. Engraved title and twenty-four  engraved  plates on china paper mounted on wove rag (watermark A.H. Holdsworth & R.S. Phillips, Dartmouth.) Folio. Three-quarter leather over contemporary marbled boards.

A second edition appeared in 1828, London: Moon, Boys, and Graves.

British Museum Satires 15638.

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Images courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd., with our thanks.

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The Bauhaus Bird Paradise of Carl Ernst Hinkefuss

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1929, graphic designer Carl Ernst Hinkefuss (1881-1970) published, Mein Vogel Paradies (My Bird Paradise), a tie-bound modern block book for children featuring stunning color lithographs depicting abstracted forms of birds reduced to their fundamental forms, accompanied by verse about each individual bird, both text (printed in silver ink) and images printed on black paper. A two-page introduction by Hinkefuss encourages children to create their own pictures based upon his simple designs.

Carl Ernst Hinkefuss was a popular Bauhaus illustrator known for modernist graphic design work that integrated art with commercial values. He did a great deal of advertising design for Hamburg Amerika oceanliners. Hinkefuss was also the editor of the design periodical Qualität, 1920-1932.

He "trained as a painter, graphic artist, and architect at the Königliche Kunstschule and the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin at the turn of the century. While still a student, Hinkefuss became interested in the idea of artists collaborating with the business world, and after graduation he became a commercial graphic designer. From 1905 to early 1910, he worked in the advertising and publicity departments of several firms in Berlin and Dessau, and then later in 1910 set out as an independent publicist in Berlin" (Online Archive of California). 

He ultimately partnered with Wilhelm Deffke (1887-1950) in Wilhemwerk, their commercial design house.

Prospectus for Mein Vogel Paradies, 1929.

According to the prospectus for the book, it was produced using a fifteen color offset-lithography process. The prospectus also mentions a gift box but, apparently, it was never produced; no copies in a publisher's gift box have ever been seen.

Mein Vogel Paradies is an extremely rare book. OCLC/KVK note only four copies in institutional holdings worldwide. According to the ABPC Index, 1923-2011, no copies have ever come to auction. Fine copies, if you can find them, now sell in the low five figures.

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HINKEFUSS, Carl Ernst. Mein Vogel Paradies. Gesamtwerk von Karl Ernst Hinkefuss. [Berlin: Verlag International GMBH / Internationale Propaganda für Qualitatserzeugnisse], 1929. First edition, limited to 1500 copies signed by the artist. Quarto (11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in.). [14]  leaves on black paper printed in silver and fourteen other colors. Color lithographs. Color pictorial wrappers side-stitched with black string.

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Book images courtesy of Aleph-Bet Books, with our thanks.

Image of prospectus courtesy of Wilhelmwerke, with our appreciation.
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