Norwegian Maritime Sketchbook

The hardest part (welllll...'one of', then) about perpetrating this entity called BibliOdyssey is casting off the imagery flotsam so that I'm not foisting too many digipixalities over the netowaves. I gave up this time. I spent absolutely ages sifting this 19th century scrapbook album. It is 75 webpages long with 2 album pages on each with about 1 to 6 individual sketches, paintings, newscuttings, and/or photos per album page. So there are a fair number of images in there. Not all of them are nautical in nature.

As best as I can understand given the (absolutely) appalling translations -- Langenburg, I am looking at you -- a few generations of the Diriks family contributed to this album over what must be about 80 years (I saw dates ranging from 1830 to 1865, but not everything is dated and there are obviously more recent items). Most of the artistry was undertaken in Norway, but there are works done in England, France, Germany and America among other places. And while I'm very unsure if they contributed to this book in any way, there is mention of Picasso, Munch and Modigliani as being family friends of the Diriks.

The Diriksfamiliens utklippsbøker is online at the National Library of Norway. Click on individual works for enlargements. There is no english.