On the Nature of Women

'In the Sky Garden'
Lizzie W. Champney. Illustrated by J. Wells Champney. 1877.

'The Ladies Flower-Garden'
Mrs. Loudon. Undated.

"A Tart of Straw-Berries"

"Pick and wash your Straw Berries clean, and put them in the pan, one by another, as thick as you can, then take Sugar, Cinamon, and a little Ginger finely beaten, and well mingled together, cast them upon the Straw Berries, and cover them with the lid finely cut into Lozenges, and so let them bake a quarter of an houre, then take it out, strewing it with a little Cinamon, and Sugar, and so serve it."

'A Book of Fruits & Flowers. Shewing the Nature and
Use of them, either for Meat or Medicine'
London: M. S. for Tho. Jenner, 1656.

'Der Raupen Wunderbare Verwandelung und Sonderbare Blumen-Nahrung'
('The Miraculous Transformation and Unusual Flower-Food of Caterpillars)
Maria Sybilla Merian 1679-1683.

'Inmates of My House and Garden'
Eliza Brightwen 1895. Illustrated by Theo.

'Illustrations of the Natural Orders of Plants'
Elizabeth Twining. 1849. (bio; more: I, II, III)

'Illustrations of British Mycology, Containing Figures and Descriptions
of the Funguses of Interest and Novelty Indigenous to Britain'
Mrs. Thomas John Hussey. 1847.

'Bush Friends in Tasmania'
Louisa Anne Meredith (née Twamley) 1891. [bio; more: I, II, III]

'The Minstrelsy of the Woods; or, Sketches and Songs Connected with
the Natural History of Some of the Most Interesting British and Foreign Birds'
Miss S. Waring. 1832.

'An introduction to the Natural History and Classification of Insects,
in a Series of Familiar Letters. With Illustrated Engravings'
Priscilla Wakefield. 1816.

All the images here come from the University of Wisconsin 'Women & Nature' exhibition ( or direct to thumbnail gallery - large page load)

UPDATE (Oct. 2012) Much of the original site is now dead. I've written to Wisconsin U Libraries asking if some remedial server work can bring it all back. Fingers crossed. It was an excellent exhibition site.

In The Clearing

From Samuel Collins 1685 at a Danish Veterinary repository, the link for which
escapes me at the moment - it's around in the science archives somewhere or other.

'The Bat Album' (that was hard to guess)
Jase's Books: 'Handbound Gothic Parchment Journals,
Grimoires, Diaries and Albums'

'The Arcadian Calendar for 1910' by Vernon Hill. {click above image for full size}
Nouveau gothic. Unusual and excellent. [more of his work at FAMSF] (bio.)

'Four of Hearts' from a 1702 set of engineering playing cards at NYPL.

'Alice in Wonderland'
carved and painted mahogany, handmade paper,
Ethiopian binding/Coptic end bands/centipede binding

'Metamorphosis'
carved and painted mahogany, rusted tin, handmade flax
paper, silver chain, leather, mica window with cicada and
cicada shell, Ethiopian binding/Coptic end bands.

'Greek Half and Half Book'
Painted mahogany, handmade paper, mica window with Baltic and
Madagascar fossil ammonites, Greek binding/Coptic endbands.

Daniel Essig: wood books, sculptural books, chain books and sculptural ephemera.

'Cod. Pal. germ. 78 Ulrich Erthel Beschreibung des Armbrustschießens in Stuttgart' 1560 - a sort of a shooting club ledger or record [I'm kind of guessing] - all the rest of the illustrations from memory were of coats of arms so it is I suppose, an armorial book. Nice gothic calligraphy.

Unfortunately I have no idea where this comes from.

'Mascarade à la Grecque'

Begnigno Bossi 1771 engraving from a drawing by Edmonde-Alexandre Petitot. It comes from a pdf file (1.3Mb) Bibliorare catalogue which includes a few other eclectic images, including a couple of the Pantagruel illustrations from Desprez in the posts below (the amazingly weird caricature material that BoingBoing would have been better off linking). I believe this image belongs to a set which includes the 2nd last image here.

No idea where this originates but I do remember it was a 12Mb
download so I baulked at returning for other samples.

'Le Temps de Rire et le Temps de Pleurer'
Drawing by Marten-Jacobsz van Veen dit Heemskerck;
engraving by Dirk Volkertsz Coornhert. 1550

[detail]

'Le Triomphe de la Patience'

Drawing by Marten-Jacobsz van Veen dit Heemskerck;
engraving by Dirk Volkertsz Coornhert. 1564

Click on the Rembrandt image to get to the search page for La Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon print database and search on "heemskerck" for 120 images in very large format. (there's an easier way to get to this timed-session site but the link is being elusive)

'Flightless Moth'

'Corpse of Don Quixote'

Etchings © Brian McKenzie (not a big site but he's posted some beautiful prints)

There would have been more but the first game of the World Cup is starting. And by the way, the annotated archives are the best way to negotiate this site.

The Embryology of Turtles

Ovarian eggs

Ovarian eggs and eggshells

The Ovary Duct and the Absorption of the Albumen

Vitelline and allantoidian Circulation

Formation of organs

'Diagrams of the egg and embryos of Chelydra serpentina,
Ozotheca odorata and Chrysemys picta'

Swiss-American Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) trained as a doctor and scientist but devoted his life to zoology (particularly icthyology), paleontology, geology and he did groundbreaking work in glaciology. He was taught by and had close associations with Georges Cuvier and Alexander von Humboldt and became a (famous) leading scientist in America through his field work and his professorship at Harvard University among many other accomplishments. He was also the last eminent scientist of his day to resist Darwin's evolutionary theories - "I trust to outlive this mania".

• The images above come from the first two volumes of Agassiz' 'Contributions to the Natural History of the United States' published in 1857, online at 19thcenturyscience (the plates are at the bottom of the page). I'll post some more from the other volumes later.
• Louis Agassiz at the American Museum of Natural History; famousamericans and absoluteastronomy.
• Previously: Turtle Diary.
  

The image below (500kb jpeg) is a particularly interesting geozoological relationship diagram and comes from the 1863 book 'The Principles of Zoology' by Assiz and AA Gould. It has a large number of woodcut illustrations but from the sample of pages I viewed, they were quite small.

"Classification seems to me to rest upon too narrow a foundation when it is chiefly based on structure. Animals are linked together as closely by their mode of development, by their relative standing in their respective classes, by the order in which they have made their appearance upon earth, by their geographical distribution, and generally by their connection with the world in which they live, as by their anatomy.

All these relations should, therefore, be fully expressed in a natural classification; and though structure furnishes the most direct indication of some of these relations, always appreciable under every circumstance, other considerations should not be neglected which may complete our insight into the general plan of creation."

Rosarium Philosophorum

Attributed to Arnoldo di Villanova (1235-1315), the spiritual alchemy text 'Rosarium Philosophorium' was first printed in Frankfurt in 1550 with 20 woodcut illustrations (plus 1 title image). It was the 2nd volume of a work known as 'De Alchimia Opuscula Complura Veterum Philosophorum'.

These famous illustrations depict one of the important themes in alchemy, that of the conjunction of opposites in the quest for the philosopher's stone. It does so by incorporating elements from the traditional religious symbolism of 'Heiros Gamos' or 'the holy wedding'.

Adam McLean divides the stages of the alchemical process represented into:

1 An entry into the vessel of transformation,
2 A conjunction of the two primal archetypal forces,
3 Their merging into an hermaphrodite in a death or nigredo stage,
4 The extraction or ascent of one facet of the soul into the Spiritual realm,
5 The descent of a spiritual dew or essence from above,
6 The return of the extracted soul forces,
7 The final formation of the Stone pictured as the resurrection of the hermaphrodite.

• The images above come from the jungdownunder website.
• Adam McLean's commentary at The Alchemy Website.
• 'The Hierosgamos Theme in the Images of the Rosarium Philosophorum' by Karen-Claire Voss.
• Arnoldo di Villanova (translated page).
• Some additional commentary [ebay].
• Previous alchemy.

Pantagruel II

"Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs.

And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains."

See: Pantagruel I

Franciscan friar, doctor, traveller, model for the Thelemic magickal writings of Aleister Crowley, humanist, Benedictine monk, alchemist, teacher, leader of the French renaissance, heretic, greek scholar and groundbreaking satirical writer, François Rabelais (?1483/1493-1553) issued his magnum opus 'The life of Gargantua and Pantagruel' as a five book series over 20 years up to 1564.

The books chart the humorous adventures of giants Gargantua and his son, Pantagruel in a scatalogical and often bawdy manner. Rabelais wrote in the epic tradition of Homer, and beyond the burlesque, there is an underlying serious examination of society, politics, education and philosophy whilst introducing 500 new words to the french lanugage. It is regarded as one of the great masterpieces of literature.

The images here and in the previous post come from a 1565 publication called 'Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel, ou sont contenues plusieurs figures de l’invention de maistre François Rabelais : & derniere oeuvre d’iceluy, pour la recreation des bons esprits'.
Online translation: 'The drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel, or are contained several figures of the invention of maistre François Rabelais: & derniere work of iceluy, for the recreation of the good spirits.'

It is strongly believed that, although the original publication advertises the series of 120 woodcut grotesqueries as having been drawn by Rabelais himself, it was far likelier that this was a marketing ploy, seeking to capitalize on Rabelais' fame following his death. There is a pitiful amount of information online but the consensus is, partly based on the style of illustration seen in a previous post, Verisimilitude, that these eccentric, surreal and fantastical figures were produced by François Desprez. I even went so far as to go to the local library (first time for everything!) in a futile attempt to seek a bit more information. These absurdist woodcuts are for me the best find of the month year.

That there is any information at all online touching upon Desprez is due in no small part to (no great surprise) Salvador Dali having produed a series of 25 lithographic renderings of Desprez's work which have featured in exhibitions in recent times.

• In total I've posted 52 images between the 2 posts at full size so there are 68 more of these exceptional woodcuts from 'Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel' to be found at Les Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes [LINK UPDATED Aug. 2009].
• This Finnish site has the best biography of Rabelais to my mind.
• Unsurprisingly the Catholic Encylopedia is not a great fan of Rabelais.
• These translated sites review the Dali exhibitions. Also: Dali/Pantagruel at google images.
• The 5 books of 'Gargantua and Pantagruel' (including illustrations by Gustave Doré) are online at Project Gutenburg.
• Renaissance-France.org (in french).
• 'Rabelais: The First Thelemite'.
• 'The Alchemist Monk Francois Rabelais' from 'Green Gold: the Tree of Life, Marijuana in Magic and Religion'.
• The bibliographic notes (in french) from Les Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes are probably the best place to start searching for more information about François Desprez and I think it would need a state/national library. There are many more snippets of information online but unless my searching/scanning ability has deteriorated, there is nothing of particular substance worth linking. This genius deserves more recognition.
• 'Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel' is actually available...for $474.95 at Alibris. Or 26 Swiss Francs at Droz, where there is a short summary (thanks Aitch).
• UPDATE: See this fabulous July 2011 Riowang post on Desprez.