Voyage to Exotica

(Shark, remora, puffer fish etc)

(detail) The Sea-Eagle

A Malabar Shewing Tricks with Serpents

Goegys of Benjan Saints

The Taking of Ye City of Cotchin in Mallabar

Indian Figgs + The herb of the Bamboe Canes

(Sagou, Pepper, Durion, Bliming trees)

A Marchant of Java

A Melaya Captain

A Makasser with his Wife as they are Habited at Batavia
AND The Habit of a Malayan and his Wife at Batavia

Fish Market of Batavia

The Church of the Cross of Batavia

A Souldier of Amboina

The Hospitall for Children of Batavia

The City of Pellacata with its Castle

Tymorian Souldiers

Johannes Nieuhof (or Nieuhoff) (1618-1672) lived in Brazil for nine years in the 1640s and was subsequently employed as an agent by the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

Surprisingly, there is scant information online about Nieuhof. He obviously travelled to India and Indonesia and the Far East (as seen from the illustrations above) and was later part of an official delegation to China which formed the backbone for another book. He was killed by locals in Madagascar during a return voyage to the East Indies.

The material above comes from Volume II of a series translated from the original Dutch and published by Churchill in London in 1703. From memory - (I looked into this ages ago in reference to the BibliOdyssey book but as usual my own copy has been purloined by family, friends and neighbours for the majority of time since it was released and is currently on leave) - the Churchill firm were veritable travel book entrepreneurs, exploiting the popularity of this new form of publication. Consequently, they seem to have produced a number compilation works in multiple editions that included variable sources for both the narratives and, in particular, the illustrations. In other words, their publications were a motley assortment of unreliability, but memorable for the large numbers of weird and wonderful images they included.

I have posted about Volume I (mostly about Brazil) previously. The short title of the work is: 'Voyages and Travels into Brasil and the East Indies' and is available from Cornell University's South East Asia Visions Collection. Once you click to get inside the book, there's a drop down menu that lists the copious number of plates, illustrations and maps.

Picturing Portuguese People

Recruits of the Province of Estremadura

A Franciscan Friar & a lay brother, as seen before the abolition of their Order

Clergymen

A milk woman & a fishmonger

A soldier of the Provisorial Battalions, + a National Guard

Bull Fighters

Dezembargadores, or Members of the Hight Court of Justice

Inhabitants of the frontiers of Alentejo

Members of the Municipal Corps in grand galla dress + deep mourning

Nuns of the Order of St Bernard and St Francis

Peasants of Madeira

Peasants of Upper Beira

Western inhabitants of Madeira

Pedlars

Usual female attire in Portugal

'Picturesque Review of the Costume of the Portuguese' is an album of twenty one gouache sketches from about 1836, owned and hosted by the National Library of Portugal.

The only background appears to be a circumstantial relationship with another album from the same time period, but the identity of the artist is not known.

I suspect that the album was produced by a Portuguese artist as a memento for sale or as a gift for a British tourist. The sketches are sympathetic and most I would describe as quaint portraits. Even the true caricatures are gently humorous without any hint of malevolence. The language in the title and in some of the captions is just a little skewed or unusual, more likely associated with a non-native speaker, to my mind. I may of course be completely wrong. It's a sweet little series in any event.

All of the images above have been fairly extensively - but not severely - cleaned up, including removal of the library stamps. There was quite a bit of age related background staining.

Remainders

Spray Paint

Cello Players

Bud Waldo

All etchings above (posted here with permission) © Bruce Waldman,
a lecturer at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) papercut motif produced in the 1980s by Maurilio Rojas from San Salvador Huixcolotla in Mexico. The image comes from the British Museum and the chisel/paper technique is referred to as Papel Picado.

"A skeleton; half-length; set in an oval frame with hourglasses and skulls and bones"

"The Damned; three bust-length male figures surrounded by
flames; set in an oval frame with bats, devils and seven-headed beasts"

From a series of six engravings of memento mori* by the German artist Alexander Mair, 1605. (these are definitely the best of the series) [British Museum]

Frontispiece featuring muses (?) from
'Astronomisches Handbuch' by Johann Rost*, 1718 from HAB.

This is a cover from 'Carebna Babushucka' 'Carevna Lyagushka' (Queen-Frog, Fairy Tales) by Bilibiu (illustrated by HA Ghangnai) Ivan Bilibin, 1901 (the above image came from one of the catalogues at PBA Galleries) [see comments at the end of this post]





Frontispiece from 'Cynographia Curiosa Seu Canis Descriptio' by Christian Franz Paullini - 1685 (HAB), a zoological treatise as the reliable Philological Museum advises (a great resource for finding online neo-latin texts).

Solomon's Temple from a 1660 version of the King James Bible
(published by John Field) (from PBA Galleries)

Gaspar Schott (previously) was an assistant to Athanasius Kircher. All of his works are fairly eccentric and most are derivatives or additives to Kircher's own large and eccentric body of work. The above two images were the more interesting examples from his 1667 book, 'Ioco-Seriorum Naturae Et Artis, Sive Magiae Naturalis Centuriae Tres', from HAB. The work is said to describe more then three hundred physical, chemical, alchemical and magical experiments and tricks.





'Khamsah of Nizami' - a 19th century copy of a 12th century Persian poem. We are told:

"Persian poetry, written in calligraphy on handmade paper. One of Persia's most famous poets, the twelfth century Nizam-uddin Abu Mahommed Ilyas bin Yusuf lived most of his life in Ganja, in what now is Azerbaijan. Nizami is best remembered for his Khamsah, or Quintet, which also is known as Panj Ganj or Five Treasures. Nizami wrote the five long narrative poems in couplets, using different meters for each. Three of the poems are romances and celebrated as the most important Persian language examples of the genre. This fragment of the Khamsah of Nizami was done in calligraphy in the mid-nineteenth century."

These pages come from the 'Illuminating the Manuscript Leaves' exhibition site at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.














A hunting (and less so, agriculture) book by the Swiss pair, Tobias Stimmer and Christoph Maurer, called: 'Künstliche Wolgerissene Figuren und Abbildunge Etlicher Jagdbahren Thieren' from 1605 (at HAB). There are about forty woodcuts; interesting to me for all the incidental details in the scenes.

"St Michael; the archangel standing on top of a devil,
piercing him with a lance; the demon holds onto a shield"

Samson rending the lion

Prints from between 1475 and 1500 by the Dutch
artist known as Monogrammist FVB [British Museum].

A gannet, "a bird that was of enduring interest to Scots because its association with the Bass Rock gave it its Latin name, given here as Anser Bassensis, and in its modern form, Sula Bassana"

This illustration of a gannet comes from the 1684 publication: 'Scotia Illustrata' by Robert Sibbald. I did a very cursory search around (some weeks ago) and was disappointed only to find a couple of other poor quality animal drawings from this intriguing work. We are told:

"Sir Robert Sibbald (1641-1722) was appointed Geographer Royal to King Charles II. His description of Scotland begins with the peoples, geography and climate of the different regions, followed by an account of diet, diseases and the medicinal uses of Scotland's natural products. He then lists all known flora, fauna and minerals. His plan, outlined in his 1683 'Account of the Scottish Atlas, or the Description of Scotland', was to produce a two-volume work: 'Scotia Antiqua' and 'Scotia Moderna'. In the event, this Atlas was never completed. Only the natural history, 'Scotia Illustrata', was ever published. It is nevertheless a key work in establishing the absolute value of objective, empirical information in all fields."

I found the plate somewhere in the Special Collections, Edinburgh University Library.





My notes say: "Seder Hagadah shel Pesah, Venetsiah - 1609 - Jewish Theological Seminary". Again, I found the various background details in the woodcuts that make up this titlepage intriguing.

Zhong Kui and a demon with a vase of plum blossom

Zhong Kui assaulting a demon with an axe

Zhong Kui drawing his sword, attended by a
demon carrying magic jewels on a tray on his head

These 17th century coloured woodblock prints come from the British Museum. The biography of the mythologoical Chinese figure, Zhong kui:

"God of Literature, vanquisher of demons. Zhong Kui excelled in the metropolitan examinations and was due to receive honours from the emperor. The emperor found Zhong Kui's ugly face repulsive and refused to give him the honours. Zhong Kui threw himself into the sea, but was saved by the ao-monster, which carried him to the surface on its back. Zhong Kui has come to be associated with the Kui-constellation, often regarded as his heavenly palace. His fame came after the Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty, during an illness, saw Zhong Kui in a dream, where he dispatched two demons tormenting the emperor and Yang Guifei. Upon awaking, the emperor was restored to health."

'Zwey Nachdänckliche Traum-Gesichte' 1684 by Georg Speer, a travel book I believe. It comes from somewhere in the recesses of HAB.

French gothic ornament

Glyph Jockey has uploaded some further scans from
'History of Architecture and Ornament', 1909. LINK. (previously)

These illustrations are presumably © the estate of Homer H Boelter.

In 1969 Boelter published an album of lithographs of Hopi Indians - 'Portfolio of Hopi Kachinas' - limited to one thousand copies. The first illustration above comes from PBA galleries. The paired image and the balance of the sixteen plates in the series - and background - can be found at Native American Links.




Bouquinosphère 3 was some sort of conference. I just liked the sentiment expressed in the picture which was found here a couple of months ago. I don't know if it's derivative and I spent way too much time unsuccessfully trying to work out its origin when I first found it. No, I couldn't find a larger version. Click on the image for larger original version (Australia Post advertisement) [Thanks Sveta!].


Other things...

For those that read via rss and don't visit the site, I've added a feed from my own del.icio.us bookmarks to the sidebar. It naturally gravitates towards the book, illustration, exhibition, library, gallery, manuscript kind of material, plus other bits and pieces. It also tends to be the place I accumulate links that may or may not end up on BibliOdyssey.
Some blogs:

• Cartophilia - a lover of maps.
• Notes for Bibliophiles - "The official blog of the Special Collections department of the Providence Public Library".
• bookn3rd - "Book History and diversions therefrom."
• Grain Edit - "Inspiration from vintage kids + rare graphic design books"
• Publick Occurrences - "blog of historical and political punditry by the inimitable Common-place columnist and former History News Network blogger Jeffrey L. Pasley."
• Library Preservation - Kevin Driedger on rare book conservation/preservation.
• Le territoire des sens - art . architecture . design . nature . science