Mish Mash

A whole batch of the iconic antiestablishment and humorous late 1960s OZ magazines from the UK by way of an Australian duo et al who ended up in Court on obscenity charges (the protagonists appeared during the case wearing schoolgirl uniforms). It's an ongoing project and they have large images available. via Bruce Eisner [via]

Topographic Text from Chronotext via Loreto Martin.

Images from the Digital Dada Library at the University of Iowa via wood s lot.

The only decent illustration I could find in the first book printed in Malta -
Della Descritione di Malta Isola del Mare Siciliano in 1647 (p.137) at the Vivarium.

The above 3 images come from the Jane Johnson archive at Indiana University. During the mid-18th century Johnson prepared books, ABC flashcards, poems, handcoloured collages and other ephemera to home-school her son. It's really worth a wander through this archive for the language and snippets of social attitude that surface beyond the mere cute. via The Scout Report.


While unsuccessfully searching for the origin of the image above (which I may have posted before) I came across the lithograph underneath at ebay of spiders and crabs from Lorenz Oken’s 1843 book, Naturgeschichte für alle Stände.

Getting an empty desktop (kind of) goes in cycles. Click for larger versions.

The Physician's Handbook

It was most likely a Doctor from the East Midlands in England who arranged for a scribe to prepare a lavish compilation of medical and astronomy writings in the mid-1450s. It's rare for its time in that the text is almost exclusively english (although I could only read a word or 3).

The Physician's Handbook is online at the Wellcome Library (thumbnail page).

Albin's Natural History

"As Providence is so remarkable in the Propagation and Preservation of Insects, so are they by no means to be esteemed useless Creatures....we are indebted to them for Relief in several Diseases; for all our Honey, Wax, Silk, Best Scarlet....[and] if they be examined by a Microscope, every Particle of them is a perfect Feather, and is placed in the Wing in most exact Order."

Eleazar Albin (1680 - 1742) moved to England from Germany in 1707 and continued his work as a professional painter and teacher. He developed a fondness for the natural world, particularly insects and he eventually cultivated a living illustrating private collections for wealthy patrons (including Sir Hans Sloan, a founder of the British Museum).

Such was his reputation that Albin was offered an opportunity to illustrate the natural world of the Carolinas in America which he turned down. Mark Catesby achieved lasting fame as a natural science artist in his place.

Albin is best known for 3 books: A Natural History of English Insects (1720), A Natural History of Birds (1731-38) and The Natural History of Spiders and other Curious Insects (1736). Examples from all these publications can be seen above.

The pervading attitude in the early 18th century was that the study of insects was pointless and unworthy for a person of science. But Albin chose his influences well. It's easy to see from looking at the work of Maria Sibylla Merian and Robert Hooke where Albin derived his inspiration.
{In the case of the famous Hooke microscope images it was more or less unattributed plagiarism by Albin, but he was not alone in this practice and in fact Hooke himself had copied snowflake images elsewhere without revealing the source}

A Natural History of Birds was the first ornithological book to have colour illustrations. Most of the hand-colouring was done by Albin's daughter Elizabeth. Though more artistic than scientific, it was a significant publication that was itself copied and improved upon subsequently.

• The whole of A natural history of spiders and other curious insects is online at Universitätsbibliothek Braunschweig - I actually downloaded the images months ago and finally got around to organizing them today. (The 3 spiders and scorpion image above is my own mashup)
• Rare Prints Gallery have ~75 screen size bird illustrations.
• Antique Nature Prints have a dozen images from the Merian-inspired A Natural History of English Insects.
• A short Albin biography at Arader Gallery.
• 10 insect images from UK's Science and Society Picture Library - watermarked.
• Another watermarked series of ~40 images at the Natural History Museum in UK. It took me ages to remove the excessive watermarking from the moth/spider image above. They have a strange attitude: they pointedly advise how you can download and keep a picture but they slap a huge, dark logo in the middle of it. Genius.
• 2 large prints at Panteek.
• 2 bird prints at George Glazer gallery and a final image from wikipedia commons library (there are no doubt more around)
  

Chemica Curiosa

Swiss Doctor, writer and collector Jean-Jacques Manget (1652-1742) published works on the Europe black plague, heart rhythm disturbances and anatomy.

He also brought out one of the most complete compilations of alchemical writings ever published. Manget's Bibliotheca Curiosa Chemica from 1702 collected 140 alchemical treatises in 2 massive volumes and also presented illustrations from these rare or lost original hermetic texts. Authors included Athanasius Kircher, Roger Bacon, Georg Agricola and Nicholas Flamel.

I don't know whether the anonymous engravings above are original for Manget's books or copies from the compiled texts. There are only fragmentary mentions online and as usual, nothing here should be taken as authoritative. In some instances this work is referred to as Liber Mutus, a famous image-only alchemistry text from the 17th century. Actually, Liber Mutus is included in Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa and all but the first image above do in fact come from there.

The full title --

Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, seu rerum ad alchemiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus: quo non tantum Artis Auriferæ, ac scriptorum in ea nobiliorum historia traditur; lapidis veritas argumentis & experimentis innumeris, immo & juris consultorum judiciis evincitur; termini obscuriores explicantur; cautiones contra impostores, & difficultates in tinctura universali conficienda occurrentes, declarantur: Verum etiam tractatus omnes virorum celebriorum, qui in magno sudarunt elixyre, quique ab ipso Hermete, ut dicitur, Trismegisto, ad nostra usque tempora de Chrysopoæ scripserunt, cum præcipuis suis commentariis, concinno ordine dispositi exhibentur. Ad quorum omnium illustrationem additæ sunt quamplurimæ figuræ æneæ.

• The majority of images here come from Biblioteca Forteguerriana via F.Datini - there are about 20 images in total.
• The first image above is from here.
• There is another set of the images in black and white or colour.
• The complete near-2000 page work is available in photocopy quality from Biblioteca de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid - click on 'láminas' to see the illustrations.
• Adam Maclean has a list of all of the treatises and authors in Bibliotheca Curiosa Chemica. [He also has all the plates from Liber Mutus in colour]
• The history of alchemy from the Dictionary for the History of Ideas at the University of Virginia.

Trivia: In the antimony entry at wikipedia we are told that Manget's text outlines how the 15th century alchemical manuscripts of the either mythical or famous Basil Valentine were found. Allegedly they were enclosed in an Abbey pillar for a century and were rediscovered when the pillar was struck by a thunder bolt. Or so the story goes..

The Art of the Arabic Book

Orion Constellation in Astronomy treatise
'Abd al-Rahmân al-Sûfî' 13th century

Moroccan Koran 14th cent

Moroccan calligraphy 19th century

Ibn al-Jazarî, 'Uddat al-hisn al-hasîn (not dated)

Hasan Massoudy 1994

14th century Egyptian binding

'Abd Allah Ibn al-Muqaffa' Syria or Egypt mid-14th century

The Art of the Arabic Book at BNF (partly in english).

Previously: Arabic Calligraphy; Persian Splendour.

The Medical Astrology Calendar of 1487

Zodiacal man; zodiac combined with parts of the human body

Jupiter and his children ~ Pisces and Sagittarius

Phlegmatic temperament ~ making music; musician with instrument

Chronology 1, 2 (I pasted these 2 together)

August and its labours ~ harvest

Saturn and his children ~ Aquarius and Capricorn

The nude human figure ~ anatomy

Blood-letting with the aid of cupping glasses

Taking a bath ~ lovers courting, flirting

The twelve zodiacal signs together

There are ~60 illustrations in this rather enigmatic astro-encylopedic seasonal incunabulum [Iatromathematische Hausbuch] at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. It comes from the Augsburg printery of Johann Schönsperger.

The italicized text under the images here is the english iconographic description provided with each woodcut.

The translation of the bibliographic description from this page:

"The 'Iatromathemati house book' is to be understood as astro+medical manual. It was written over or 1400 ago briefly by a layman physician from the upper-German area, which perhaps worked in Nuernberg. The text treats humans in the medieval cosmos from the point of view of layman-astrological world view and contacts the astro+medically interested house father. The work is arranged into seven main parts, in those the twelve months with komputistischem calendar and monthlyreferred health rules, which are treated twelve tierkreiszeichen and the planet children.

After these sky teachings and temper teachings follow, which a diaetetischer section follows. The different texts of ikonographischen cycles of the monthly pictures, tierkreiszeichen, planets and tempers as well as of single representations are accompanied. As sources above all volkssprachige writings became from 12. to 14. Century (Lucidarius, "rule of the health") and only within the komputistischen range latin technical literature consulted. Due to the different sources the "house book" forms a mixture made of encyclopedia, medical text book, diaetetischem treatise and different small literary works."

Buddhist Tantra of Deep Meditation

'The Six Perfections'

"Derived from the Sanskrit Pāramitā, the six perfections literally means crossing over to the other shore. In Buddhism it symbolizes transition of the sentient beings from suffering shore to the other shore of spiritual liberation.

The Six Perfections includes six Buddhist scriptures related to Tibeto-Chinese art dated 14th and 15th centuries collected at the National Palace Museum. With their rich calligraphy, illustrations and description, hopefully you will be able to capture even a little refreshing and joyful wisdom on the shore of liberation."

The images here are taken from a single text among the Six Perfections - The Vajra-Wisdom Tantra of Deep Meditation:

"Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.), Hsuan-te period (1426-1435 A.D.), dated 1428 A.D. a manuscript of the Peking (Beijing) area attributed to Shen Tu (1357-1434 A.D., calligraphy) and Shang Hsi (act. 1426-1435 A.D., paintings)".



These very beautiful (probably scroll) manuscript images come from 'Convergence of Radiance: Tibeto-Chinese Buddhist Scripture Illustrations from the Collection of the National Palace Museum' in Taiwan.




I've only seen the Six Perfections section from this website so far. The large images above have been uploaded at full size - you really need to click on them to see them properly I think.

There are 3 volumes in the Vajra-Wisdom scripture with maybe 20 or so images in each. Occasionally below a thumbnail image is a 'detail' icon, which is where all the large images here come from - mostly from volume II. From any standpoint, be it illustrative, religious or historical, these are exceptional Ming dynasty artifacts, in my ignorant and unworthy opinion of course.