Collections

The ephemeral collection of very rare 30 block prints fall into several categories: some are color prints with a minimum of text, others are black and white illustrated sheets, some of which include current news, while others have a more general content. The news sheets were issued in Shanghai , when news of the 1911 Revolution in Wuhan was telegraphed to print agencies in Shanghai. The latter immediately printed illustrated sheets for a Chinese public avid for the latest news; the illustrations themselves may therefore be based upon artists imagination. The sheets generally support the Revolution as a modernizing party, and hence some demonization of the enemy occurs in the prints, as was usual for propaganda prints of that and earlier periods. The collection is useful for investigations into the visual portrayal of the struggle of Han Chinese versus the Manchus during the 1911 overthrow of the Qing Empire. Issues of "modernity" and "nation" are easily visible in the prints. The collection also includes one Japanese block print dating from 1914. The collection was given in 1937 to Princeton Library by Donald Roberts, class of 1909, who was an Episcopalian minister who taught history at St. John's University in Shanghai from 1915 to 1950. Comparison with earlier Chinese anti-Christian, or Japanese anti-Chinese or anti-Russian prints made during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars may be instructive. The Princeton East Asian Library in no way supports the rhetoric or depictions that are presented on the prints.

A miscellany of items digitized at the Princeton University Library but belonging to no well-defined collection. The items include books, manuscripts, reports, maps, and albums from many eras.

Beginning with the industrial revolution in Great Britain, engineering objects and systems have shaped our modern world. The works included in this collection support the teaching and research conducted by students enrolled in the course Engineering in the Modern World. In addition to exploring the impact of engineering on shaping the modern world, the course also puts emphasis on the scientific, political, ethical, and aesthetic aspects in the evolution of engineering over the past two centuries. The collection highlights selected structural engineering works: the St. Louis Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge and a wide range of structures by Thomas Telford. Along with many other innovations, these provide a base for studying how engineering advances helped shape the modern society and culture.

The Falda publications include the titles Villa Pamphilia, Il nvovo teatro delle fabriche, et edificii..., Li giardini di Roma con le loro piante alzate e vedvte in prospettiva, Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze e lvoghi pvblici della città and Palazzi di Roma..., as well as a map. The 5 volumes consist of illustrations of various features of Rome -- gardens, fountains, sculpture and architecture. All are works of the Italian printmaker Giovanni Battista Falda (ca. 1640-1678).

Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō brings together works from various Princeton University Library collections that have, as their theme, the rest stops along Japan’s legendary Tōkaidō Road.

The British artist, James Gillray (1756-1815), was the leading force in what has become known as the golden age of British caricature, approximately 1770 to 1820. Gillray chronicled and ridiculed the politicians and ruling class of his day, in spectacularly hand-colored prints. This graphic arts collection includes nearly 335 prints, all given by Dickson Q. Brown, class of 1895.

The Grounds and Buildings Series of the Historical Photograph Collection contains photographs of the grounds and buildings owned by Princeton University. The photographs date from the late 1850s to the present, with the bulk of the photographs dating from the 1870s to the 1940s.

Bruce Willsie, class of 1986, donated this collection of 155 engravings from the Geschichtsblätter (History Sheets) published between 1570 and 1610 by the Cologne printmakers and publishers Franz Hogenberg and his son Abraham. The theme is the Eighty Years War (1568–1648), also known as the Dutch Revolt. During this period, the northern provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands broke free from Spanish rule to form the Dutch Republic while the Spanish Crown maintained its hold on the southern provinces of Flanders and Brabant. The Eighty Years War was far more than a merely regional event and its last three decades coincided with the Thirty Years War. It was also entwined with the Religious Wars in France and dynastic disputes in England that were partly fought out on Netherlandish battlegrounds. The third sub-series of the Geschichtsblätter, for example, depicts events of the French Religious Wars (1559–1573) while the fourth series shows events in France as well as in England.

Consists of posters issued as The Subway Sun and The Elevated Express by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company of New York City. The posters, designed by the public relations firm Ivy Lee and Associates, were displayed in subway cars and provided information on route changes, places of interests, public safety, system improvements, and promoted increases in subway fares.

The James S. Hall Collection of George Frideric Handel provides rich documentation of the history of performing the music of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), including manuscripts copied during Handel’s lifetime, performance materials originating in the decades following Handel’s death, documents of 19th-century commemorative festivals in England, and extensive memorabilia from the early years of the Handel Festival in Halle, Germany. Additionally, the collection includes notes, drafts, and correspondence with scholars and performers regarding performance practice issues, especially ornamentation. The collection is a valuable commentary on the continuing popularity of Handel's creative legacy and the remarkable ability of his music to be adapted to changing aesthetic tastes and performance conditions.

This group of Japanese and Chinese prints and drawings was donated by Gillett G. Griffin, curator emeritus of graphic arts, in honor of Dale Roylance. It represents a small portion of the Far Eastern works on paper held by the graphic arts division. Also included are several sketchbooks, which were collected together with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings.

In 1739, the British artist John Baptist Jackson conceived of a book reproducing seventeen of the great Venetian paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Leandro da Ponte Bassano, Jacopo Bassano, and Francesco da Ponte Bassano. Titled Titiani Vecelii, Pauli Galiarii, Jacobi Robusti et Jacobi de Ponte opera selectiora, Jackson’s book is now considered a monument in eighteenth-century printing. Jackson revived the complex Renaissance printing technique of dividing the design between several blocks, each printed in a different color, to give the image depth and dimension. His friend and fellow expatriate, Joseph Smith, printed and published the twenty-four chiaroscuro plates under his imprint Pasquali Press.

Austrian-born Jean-Charles Krafft (1764-1833) is remembered for his detailed documentation of “the most elegant” French neoclassical buildings. Krafft verified particulars through correspondence with architects and on-site drawings. Each building is shown to scale in elevation, plan and section. Annotations give architect and building name, location, date, and room functions.

The posters included in this collection were created by a wide variety of social activists, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, political parties, and other types of organizations across Latin America, in order to publicize their views, positions, agendas, policies, events, and services. Even though posters produced in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela are the most abundant among the more than two thousand currently available in the site, almost every country in the region is represented. In terms of topics, some of the best represented are human rights, elections, gender issues, indigenous issues, labor, ecology and environmental issues, development, public health, and education. The Latin American Posters Collection is a component of the larger collection of Latin American ephemera that Princeton University Library has developed since the 1970s.

The Lorenzo Homar Collection consists of drawings, prints, and posters, reflecting the wide range of work by this Puerto Rican graphic artist and calligrapher. Included are drawings from his army days; design drawings of Cartier jewelry; caricatures; and over 90 posters he created for various exhibitions, conferences, and performing arts events.

The Princeton University Nineteenth century sheet music collection is an amalgamation of smaller collections that were assembled as part of the Theater Collection (now disbanded) and / or private by collectors who later donated their collections to the library. Each of these smaller discreet collections remains intact as a separate volume in the Nineteenth century sheet music collection. The name of the collector is included whenever it is available.

As a result of generous support from the David A. Gardner '69 Magic Project, the Princeton University Library is recataloging and initially digitizing 200 of its approximately 9,500 volumes of Islamic manuscripts from Robert Garrett and other sources. These 200 will be the core of the Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts. These manuscripts constitute the premier collection of Islamic manuscripts in the Western Hemisphere and number among the finest in the world.

The Historical Postcard Collection documents the buildings and environs of the Princeton University campus in the form of picture postcards. Featuring both monochrome and color postcards , the bulk of the collection ranges in date from 1900 through the 1960s. Both unmarked and canceled postcards exist in the collection. Several postcard makers are represented in these materials.

In 1966, collector and Francophile John Douglas Gordon, class of 1905, donated a collection of 134 engravings by Robert Nanteuil (1623-1678) to Firestone Library's Graphic Arts collection in memory of his wife, Janet Munday Gordon. Nanteuil was Royal Engraver to Louis XIV and the outstanding portraitist of his age.

The Scheide Library, deposited in Princeton University Library, is one of the world's premier collections of earliest European printing. A number of these, including unique fragments, have been digitized.

The Sid Lapidus '59 Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution features more than 150 recently gifted important books, pamphlets and prints representing the major themes of Lapidus' collecting: the intellectual origins of the American Revolution; the Revolution itself; the early years of the republic; the resulting spread of democratic ideas in the Atlantic world; and the effort to abolish the slave trade in both Great Britain and the United States. On the occasion of the gift in 2009, the Library published an illustrated color-printed 200 page catalogue, the main portions of which are now available as PDF files at: http://www.princeton.edu/rbsc/exhibitions/lar/. ❡ Colleagues at the Gilder Lehrman Insitutue for American History have selected documents from the scanned Lapidus collection and created supportive materials for school curriculum. For details, see http://www.gilderlehrman.org/education/lapidus/lapidus.html

The Taller de Gráfica Popular (known as TGP) was founded 1937 by the talented Mexican artists Leopoldo Méndez, Luis Arenal, and Pablo O'Higgins. The TGP became the first self-supporting art workshop in Mexico to create and publish their own work. Their work had a variety of objectives; some overtly political, some comic, and some artistic. The Princeton University Library has collected TGP prints by Alberto Beltrán, José Chávez Morado, Francisco Mora, Rufino Tamayo, and Alfredo Zalce, among others.

The German American artist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) has been called the Father of American Caricature. His political cartoons for such periodicals as Harper's Weekly brought a halt to New York City's corrupt government under Boss Tweed, helped elect Abraham Lincoln, and led to social reform throughout the country. The Graphic Arts collection holds over 600 of Nast's original drawings and published wood engravings from the 1850s to the 1890s. Several prints depict Nast's image of the modern Santa Claus, for which he is most famous.

Consists of photographs of Indians of the Americas and views of the American West, including landscapes, cityscapes, and mining,railroad, and agricultural operations. Also included are views of towns in Mexico. The bulk of the photographs date from the 19th century.

The private manuscript libraries of Yemen, estimated at 50,000 codices, constitutes the largest and most important set of unexamined Arabic manuscripts in the world today. The Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative presents, for the first time, access to manuscripts from three private libraries in Sanaa, Yemen, and virtually conjoins them to additional Yemeni manuscripts held by the Princeton University Library and Staatsbibliothek, Berlin. The texts in this archive were composed, copied, studied, and preserved by Zaydi scholars from the tenth century to the present. Zaydism is a leading school of Islam in Northern Yemen known for forms of rationalist theology that were abandoned in other regions. The Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative is made possible by a Enriching Digital Collections Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The grant is administered by Princeton University Library and the Free University, Berlin in conjunction with the Imam Zayd ibn Ali Cultural Foundation (IZbACF) in Sanaa, Yemen. Information on this grant and related projects to preserve and disseminate the manuscripts of Yemen can be found at ymdi.uoregon.edu.