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An unopenable artist's book spiral-bound on all four sides, as a satire on labyrinthine government bureaucracy.
Hoekstra, Fred. Dossier K. Amsterdam : Ganglion, 1975.
From our fall exhibition At the Limits of the Book: Bindings from the Houghton Library Collections.
Ajeeb the Wonderful, a chess-playing automaton made in 1865. Famous opponents incl. Houdini and Roosevelt though, of course, Ajeeb had a little help from the human hidden inside him making the moves. More from the Harvard Theatre Collection here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/cabinet-card-photographs-from-the-harvard-theatre-collection
We heard you were interested in moles, so here is a chart used in moleosophy, or divination by the location of moles on the body.
Saunders, Richard, 1613-1675. Physiognomie, and chiromancie, metoposcopie, the symmetrical proportions and signal moles of the body, fully and accurately handled; with their natural-predictive-significations. London, Printed by R. White, for Nathaniel Brooke, 1653.
Houghton Library, Harvard University
From our fall exhibition At the Limits of the Book: Bindings from the Houghton Library Collections.
Profectus religiosorum: manuscript, 1466. Bound in old wooden boards and red velvet to which has been affixed an ivory plaque with the standing figures of the Virgin, Jesus and St. John, surrounded by a filigree frame studded with garnets and four intaglios.
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Our fall exhibition, At the Limits of the Book Bindings from the Houghton Library Collections reveals the vast diversity of bookbinding structures, materials, and designs in Houghton Library's collections. From treasure bindings crafted of precious metals to homemade covers stitched together from worn scraps of clothing, these objects tell us about much more than the pages they protect. More than 60 items are on display, comparing and contrasting the ways bindings simultaneously operate as mechanisms, preserve material culture, and enact the artistic vision of their creators.
Drawing from life at the Royal Academy (Somerset House). Colored aquatint by J. Bluck, after [Augustus] Pugin and [Thomas] Rowlandson, published by Rudolph Ackermann, London, 1808.
MS Hyde 76 (3. 6. 463)
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Riding School, Westminster-Bridge : broadside, 1772.
Houghton Library Harvard University
Keene, Richard Wynne, 1809-1887. Designs for the theater, ca. 1850.
Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University
This was what was happening at 10minutes before closing at the front desk of the Fine Arts Library yesterday. Our Access Services staff, student, and our security officer all got into Utagawa Hiroshige art puzzle. Our Access Services staff know the best way to use a book cart too!
Updates. This is how it looks now. They finished the sky! We have the best team!!
We are inspired by an exhibition titled “Tiny Treasures: The Magic of Miniatures” at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. So, we’re posting one of the tiny books in our collections!
"Hymno a La Trinidad" is one of the smallest treasures preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional de Espana. It is a miniature codex of 52 pages folded in the form of an accordion. It is protected by a unique binding specially designed for this type of manuscript of Ethiopian origin, known as the sänsul.
The sänsul is one of the less common types of Ethiopian books, in a context where codices of various sizes and "magic" scrolls are used as amulets. It was usually made with one or more folded parchment strips, with or without covers, bound together with ties.
This tiny manuscript measures 950 x 40 mm. The text is copied in the classical Ethiopic language Ge'ez with black ink and carmine. It describes and praises the virtues of the Trinity, the Savior, the Virgin Mary, the Archangels, and the most venerated saints of the Ethiopian Synakserium. The text of the sänsul is arranged on both sides. The recto comprises fifty-one columns of sixteen lines each. The verso is made up of forty columns of text that end before the figurative representation. (From Facsimile Finder)
This example in the Fine Arts Library’s collection is a facsimile edition. You are encouraged to touch this tiny manuscript and use your hands to open it as an accordion book or flip through each page to experience the mighty power of a small thing.
Himno a la Trinidad [Madrid] : Orbis Mediaevalis, [2020] 1 sheet : color illustrations ; 10 x 175 cm, folded to 10 x 4 cm + 1 volume (78 pages : color illustrations ; 19 cm) + 1 sheet (19 x 15 cm) Facsimile of manuscript VITR/26/3 of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Text of the manuscript in Ethiopic ; accompanying material in Spanish. HOLLIS number: 99155660106003941
Visit our summer exhibition Sentences: Prison Writing Through the Ages, free and open to the public.
Marquis de Sade (1740–1814). Justine, ou, Les Malheurs de la Vertu [Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue]. Paris, 1791. The French libertine Sade spent most of his adult life confined or imprisoned for committing unspeakable acts of sexual perversion and cruelty. While imprisoned in the Bastille, he drafted an early version of this erotic novel in under two weeks. Although it was first published anonymously, Sade was soon identified as its author, leading to a subsequent arrest in 1801 at his publisher’s office and later to his confinement at an asylum.
Houghton Library, Harvard University
A series of 17th century needlepoint patterns.
Taylor, John, 1580-1653. The needles excellency : a new booke wherin are diuers admirable workes wrought with the needle ; newly inuented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious, 1631.
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Our main summer exhibition opens today! Sentences: Prison Writing Through the Ages is free and open to the public 10am-5pm, Monday-Friday.
Bibliography with Bite
You can really see how deeply the metal type was pressed into the paper sheet (the "bite") in this page from a 17th century work of Hebrew bibliography by the Christian Hebraist, Giulio Bartolocci. The paper is very soft, so reading this book might have been an extra tactile experience.
The procession of the months: the verses by Beatrice Crane; the designs by Walter Crane, [1889].
Houghton Library, Harvard University,
DeMexico, N.R. Marijuana Girl, 1969. From the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library pulp fiction collection.
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Are the images in the digital online collections of the Houghton Library in the public domain ?
We can't specifically guarantee that a particular thing is in the public domain, but it is our policy that we don't claim any rights to public domain materials that we digitize, and we waive them in any jurisdiction that legally gives us rights in that material. We want people to make the maximum use of our collections without additional barriers (though we are always grateful for a citation that indicates us as the source). https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/programs/open-initiatives/hl-pd/
Houghton has recently digitized several collections relating to Anna May Wong (born Wong Liu-tsong), widely considered to be the first Chinese American movie star.
In Episode 14 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot chats with Aaron Macks about Harvard University, Houghton MS Typ 213, a gorgeous book of hours written and illustrated in Italy towards the end of the 15th century. We talk about the scribe and artist, the illuminations, the calendar, and discuss the practicalities of working with manuscripts as data.
Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.
Below the cut are more photos and links to the shows and books we mention during our conversation. Unless otherwise noted, the photos were taken by Aaron.
In 1942, Harvard University Press printed 250 copies of Decorated Book Papers: Being an Account of the Designs and Fashions by the bookbinder, author, and creator and collector of decorative papers, Rosamond Bowditch Loring. Published by the Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 234 sale copies of the first edition sold out within months, despite the “then considerable price of ten dollars” and the economic stressors of the war. In addition to eight plates reproducing examples of 18th century decorative papers, the first edition includes twenty-five samples tipped in, many of which are from the author’s own extensive collection.
While Loring collected a variety of a decorative papers, the examples shown here are from the chapter on paste papers, Loring’s area of creative specialization. The sample papers included in this chapter are all Loring’s own work, or that of her student, Veronica Ruzicka, who bound the first edition (it is worthy to note that Ruzicka is the daughter of illustrator, wood engraver, and type designer Rudolph Ruzicka, whose work we have highlighted several times). Ruzicka also contributed an essay when a second edition of the book was finally published by Harvard University Press in 1952, along with Dard Hunter and Walter Muir Whitehall.
Rosamond Loring (May 2, 1889 – September 17, 1950) studied book binding under Mary Crease Sears at the Sears School of Bookbinding in Boston. Sears, about a decade older than Loring, had had to battle to learn the trade; women were barred from the Bookbinders Union but most commercial binderies were happy to hire women for particular tasks, such as sewing sheets, but maintained a strict separation of roles, preventing employees from learning the whole binding process from start to finish. Eventually, Ms. Sears secured an apprenticeship in France to complete her studies and opened her binding school in Boston shortly after, training several generations of women binders. While studying under Sears, Loring became frustrated with the lack of options for quality endpapers and became determined to make her own, which she sold to other binders at Ms. Sears’s studio. Her first major commercial commission was for the Houghton Mifflin publication of The Antigone of Sophocles, translated by John J. Chapman (Boston, 1930).
Our copy of Decorated Book Papers is a gift of Dick Schoen.
-Olivia Hickner, Special Collections Graduate Intern
Rosamond Loring's collection of decorated papers is available for research at Houghton Library, and a special endowment funds the acquisition of new materials each year.
