Books: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

In 1865, Boston-based printer Louis Prang (1824-1909), introduced the Christmas Stocking Library, a boxed set of chapbooks full of holiday merriment for the kiddies. This was published nine years before he introduced the first commercial Christmas card to the American public in 1874. Prang, a German immigrant, learned the art of dyeing, printing, and engraving from his father who was a textile printer of calico fabrics. In 1848 Prang was forced to flee Germany because of his political opposition to the Prussian government. Two years later he arrived in Boston and supported himself by making wood engravings for various publications and eventually partnered with Julius Mayer to form Prang and Mayer, Lithographic Printers. They specialized in the printing of business cards, advertisements, and other job printing, and also gained some success with the printing of a series of colored album cards featuring scenic landscapes, animals and flowers which were sold for $3/dozen inside a patented envelope. Just like this boxed set of Christmas chapbooks, the illustrated album cards were printed in four colors, each drawn on stone and folded into accordion structures. The label appearing on the box of the Christmas Stocking Library was printed five solid colors.  

The title page and interior illustrations in each chapbook are early examples of Prang's chromolithography.

As a side story to this lovely little Christmas Stocking Library; it was sold last February at the PBA Galleries auction for $5500. This very rare boxed set belonged to book collector, Pamela Harer, who I last reported on July 3, 2014 when she attended the opening of her Early 20th Century Soviet Children's Books exhibition held at the University of Washington's Allen Library in Seattle. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Pamela was very ill and died the day before I wrote the post. She lived just long enough to receive a private family tour of her remarkable exhibit on July 1st, and quietly died at home on the following day. This exhibit was a dream Pamela had envisioned for many years. It was also her remaining wish that this rare collection of Soviet children's books was to permanently reside at the UW Library. Although much of her research was sadly eclipsed by her illness, Pamela Harer's collection of early 20th century Soviet children's literature remains intact and we can all benefit from her generous gift. At this time her collection has not been entirely digitized, however an earlier endowment of her rare 18th - 20th century children's literature can be seen here. Happily, the gift of books is everlasting. Happy holidays all!

Bring on the Dancing Bears!

Hello again from Letterologyland! I happily return after many long months of hibernation. My sincere apology for not surfacing much earlier after abandoning my post rather suddenly last August. I'd like to say I was working on a fine print edition of Letterology musings, but this was not entirely the case. For the past year, I've been struggling with severe episodes of vertigo related to an ear disorder. At worst, the unpredictable episodes have been frequent and debilitating, with no relief but to sleep it off for a day or more. Lately, they are just as frequent, but less severe, and I'm slowly learning how to anticipate them. When I feel dizzy, I mostly just lie low and agonize until my balance returns. When I'm good, I feel like dancing! 
     I am very grateful to all the loyal Letterology readers who sent me their kind notes and queries while I was away, and I'm happy to have the support of good friends and family. It has been quite a humbling experience on many levels, and I savor all the good days, yet regret the continual loss of time. It is now all about finding balance, and that dang, yin-yang symmetry of life. As I struggle to keep balance in my equilibrium, I also struggle to find balance in my work, sleep and play time. I wonder if I will ever get caught up entirely, but as someone wiser than I once said, "there is never enough time unless you're serving it." Life goes on with or without us, and it is all I can do to keep the balance and dance.
     Enough about me however...I am eager to share so many exciting new and old things I have discovered recently, so please watch this space. The first feature I'd like to share now is of a lovely 19th C hand lettered ABC album I stumbled upon at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair in October. It was displayed at the booth of White Fox Rare Books of Vermont, and owner Peter Blackman was kind enough to show it to me just at closing time. This unusual book is presumed to be created by a Maryette Shepard Bennet of Des Moines, Iowa around 1884, and contains her handiwork of dried seaweed letters, a popular pastime in her day. Her large, roughly six inch tall pressed seaweed letters nicely mimic the bifurcated wood type of posters and signage of this era, however her attention span dwindled some before completing it. Near the end, she chose to watercolor U, V and X, and then rendered Y & Z only in pencil. Over the years, I have seen many fine examples of dried seaweed images—often referred to as "nature printing"—but I have never seen such a charming book of mostly seaweed letters. For more information and sale price, contact Peter Blackman here. 

The Biggest Catch of Fish Lettering

Although several nice versions of this Prichard & Knoll trade card with novelty fish lettering were produced in the later 19th century, you might say they are now endangered. These two came from the same dealer and recently sold at auction for handsome sums. They are equally nice, however the first card has much finer detail held in the rainbow trout artwork and fish lettering. It was printed by Stahl & Jaeger Artistic Lithographers in NYC. The second card has the name reversed and several alternate letters, along with some clever wave-like handlettered text with flourishes below the fish which add to its appeal. They each have an eel ampersand. 
     Directly below is another unrelated trade card from 1871 with similar novelty lettering of fish. This particular card from Fisher Ice Boxes and Refrigerators of Chicago, found here, is sporting an amphibious eel for the letter S. Although this Fisher card is nowhere near as elaborate as the two above, the artist did provide some level of detail to the three-colored fish. I guess the imaginative art of fish lettering requires a fine line and some reel angling, just like fishing.

The art of fish lettering actually goes back much further than I had ever imagined. To track its amphibious influences required some further fishing of my own. Much to my surprise, I discovered this decorated initial S from a 7th or 8th century manuscript. The scribe likely had fun creating this with the aid of a compass. 
     For a completely different take, there is this contemporary Golden Fish alphabet created with goldfish tails by Lauren Nash. 

Dutch designer Monique Goossens uses actual fish called "sprats" to create her amphibious alphabet. And a bolder version you might want to wrap in newspaper from Handmade Font. Refrigerate after serving.

  

The 19th Century Book Plates of D.M. Dewey

Title page for one of D.M. Dewey's specimen books.

Source

Source 

Dellon Marcus Dewey (1819-1889) was a bookseller, publisher and art patron in Rochester, NY before he became one of the 19th century's most enterprising businessmen, printing and selling colorfully stenciled book plates of botanical illustrations "for the practical use of nurserymen, in selling their stock." He employed teams of immigrant artists and colorists in the mid-1850s to paint and stencil several thousand botanical plates of various ornamentals, trees, shrubs, fruits and vegetables. By 1859, Dewey's price list contained some 275 different plates. Once completed, the colorful book plates were assembled into handsome octavo catalogs and portfolios customized for the traveling salesmen known as "plant peddlers" of the floral and nursery trade. Dewey was not the first to devise this practice of providing botanical illustrations to sell seeds and plants, but he was the first to expand the process by relying on the time-honored stencil production process which came to be known as "theorem paintings." Prior to the development of chromolithography, this multi-layered stencil process was the most striking and effective method of producing colored multiples at the time. Although quite rare now, Deweys' polychromic watercolor artworks can still be found in complete book sets, and continue to be valued for their exquisite beauty. This 1875 plate book of 91 images shown below was sold on eBay a year ago for about $400.

To produce each stenciled image, artists would use transparent watercolors to build up areas of tone and color. Stems, tendrils and small details such as the small, red paint strokes seen on the peach above, were painted freehand for added effect on many images. The stencils were most likely made of paper, but brass could easily have been used and would have endured much longer. Paint and inks were carefully applied through these stencils using a brush or dauber of sorts—creating vivid color tones and values as layers were added. A similar process to this, called porchoir, was later popularized in Europe in the early 20th century, however that process relied upon a printed "key plate" to which stenciled color was applied. Greater detail of the "theorem" stencil and brush process can be seen in the grape images below. 

Source 

In the wake of Dewey's successful enterprise, the nursery trade flourished in Rochester, NY, bringing with it many imitators of botanical plate books. Skilled craftsman and printers soon followed and by 1871, the first chromolithographic company opened in Rochester, which forever changed the landscape of the nursery business in the US.

Small newspaper ad and advertising envelope for D.M. Dewey's "colored fruit and flower plates."

Source

 

This 1872 D.M. Dewey plate book shown above appears to be stenciled plates. Later editions, such as this handsome edition below were entirely printed with chromolithographed plates. This stenciled book happens to be in reasonably nice shape and still available here for a rather large sum. I just have my eye on that sweet grape arbor below.

By 1881, Dewey's company offered over 2400 varieties of book plates of plant specimens. In the wake of his successful enterprise, the nursery trade flourished in Rochester, NY, bringing with it many imitators of his botanical plate books. Skilled craftsman and printers soon followed and by 1871, the first chromolithographic company opened in Rochester, which forever changed the landscape of the nursery business in the US. Confident that chromolithography was the solution to "a greater variety and better plates," Dewey consolidated his nursery supply business with the Rochester Lithographing and Printing Company in 1888. One year later he died, "but the demand for plate books did not" according to Tim Hensley of the Urban Homestead, and "no less than a dozen Rochester printing companies would follow in his wake." Hensley points out that each printer had a style uniquely their own as they each employed their own team of individual artists. Some particularly stood out such as the work of the Stecher Lithographing Company (1887-1936) who went on to produce posters, labels and trade cards for seed companies. The Stecher plates of the Salway peach and Le Conte Pear below from Hensley's site, Rood Remarks, are so exquisite, I find it difficult to believe they are chromoliths. I'm fairly certain they are a combination of chromo and stencil artwork of the tendrils and leaves. The last image of the Greensboro peach printed by the Vrendenburg & Company of Rochester is most certainly a chromolith plate. They are all mighty fine fruit plates.