Assorted Plunder

These two 'Riso Mundial' magazine covers from 1947 come from the
Lisbon Hemeroteca Digital project in Portugal. I haven't had a good
look through the site which features periodical publications.
(via the sidebar at: A Arte Moderna)

Watercolor illustration of the Toltec Calendar [19th century] in the
Mexico Collection among the Yale University Library manuscript offerings
{reminder from things}.

New York's Empire Theater program cover from 1922 by George Barbier
somewhere among the Joseph Urban collection at Columbia University.

Two advertisements (1910 & 1932) from:
Exposición del Centro Virtual Cervantes Sobre el Arte Publicitario Español.

One of the most famous and eccentic world maps ever made,
'Die Gantze Welt in ein Kleberblat' by Heinrich Bünting first
appeared in 1581 in a geobiblical book called 'Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae'
('Travels according to the Scriptures'). More than 60 editions were published.
Jerusalem is depicted at the centre of the world, in accordance with a
biblical passage from Ezekiel. The uncoloured version is from the
Jerusalem-3000 site at the University of Southern Maine
and the other is at Oldworldauctions (the map by itself sold for $8,500)

This Serio-Comic War Map for 1877 with Russia as the octopus is at all the
usual cartographic haunts online (eg. Barron Maps, British and other libraries &c)

Maslen's map of the mythical inland sea of Australia.
In the early 19th century, with the majority of the non-coastal areas of
Australia still unexplored, the commonly held misconception was that central
Australia must have an inland sea and major river system. The belief was at its
highest following the publication in 1827 of 'The Friend of Australia' by a retired
East India Company employee, Thomas J Maslen. His map, or at least the inland sea,
adjoining river and the labelled locations of 'Australindia' and 'Anglicania' parts,
are pure fantasy. Maybe it would have helped his accuracy if he visited Australia.
The true picture of the outback geography emerged over the next couple of decades.
I had never known of this map's existence until just recently. The Mitchell Library of NSW has a small flash presentation showing the river and sea filling up UPDATE: That original flash site is dead. The b&w image it comes from is accessible from here.

'Les Dervichs dans leur Temple de Péra Achevant de Tourner' in
'Recueil de Cent Estampes Representant Differentes Nations du Levant' 1714.
The engraving was done by Jean-Baptiste Scotin and from memory the book
has illustrations of customary dress for middle eastern peoples: interesting,
but this image was, to me, the most remarkable. I had hoped to collect enough
images for a post on Sufism/Dervish dancing but I didn't find much else - searching
for images relating to specific subject matter is not always an easy task. I have
no recollection as to where the colour version came from (possibly via google images).
The black and white image is somewhere in NYPL.

A frontpiece from 'Der Raupen Wunderbare Verwandlung und Sonderbare'
1679 by the amazing Maria Sibylla Merian - randomly found somewhere in the
University of Frankfurt.

'Reading for the Privileged Few' 1999

'The Great Bindery' 1996

'Lingering Before Departure' 2003

I really like the (admitted) Piranesi-esque etchings by
James Skvarch but that's not the only style he produces.

[nb. All the images at the site are of a good size but now and then it's best to right click 'view image' (in firefox) to see the enlarged versions]

Lunar and Solar eclipse calendars or prediction charts by Cornelio Malvasia
1662 from his 'Ephemerides Novissimae Motuum Coelestium'
at the University of Bologna digital book collection.

'The Rumor'
Engraving by Fritz Lederer 1946 from his series:
'In the Eruv of Theresienstadt' - part of the 'Artistic Responses
to the Holocaust and Genocide' section at the extensive
Virtual Museum of The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

This is an impressive panoramic view of Moscow during a 19th century
royal coronation ceremony . The lithographer's name looks like 'Villea'
but it's not quite clear. Click on the picture for a slightly larger version.
The image comes from somewhere in Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. [view full half size - 8250kb - at photobucket {email me if you want the full size 850kb image}]

The creator of this outstanding magnolia painting has not been identified.
It belongs to the Ethelind Pope Brown Natural History Collection
at South Carolina University. The 32 works on display are some of
the oldest known depictions of South Carolina flora and fauna.

'Pangur Ban'
A traditional yet contemporary rendering
of a 9th century Irish poem © Denis Brown.

'Brendan: The First Voyage, Womb to World'
Calligraphic Glass Art © Denis Brown 2002.

I suppose the best way to describe Denis Brown is as an experimental calligrapher. Definitely go and visit his Quillskill site and have a good look around. There is enough there to whet the appetite and leave you wanting more. Outstanding work. I hope he uploads some film of a proposed performance art calligraphy duet with a cellist. It's not just me that is wrapped in his work (he sells most of his work to other Irish calligraphers, so he says) - he has just been awarded a grant by the Crafts Council of Ireland in relation to architectural calligraphy works.

The Quillskill site of Denis Brown comes via Beth Lee's calligraphy/bookart site - her rendering of a detail from the 7th century Lindisfarne Gospels appears below.

'Real', a fabric artbook © Linda Grashoff who combines paint,
photography and sewing to produce her artist books. The gallery
page is from Fiberarts Magazine via Fabric Art Journals.

'A Souvenir of San Francisco - Within the Golden Gate'
by Laura Young Pinney. Illustrated by Ella M Pierce 1893. The
book is available as a pdf download from this page at Archive.org.

Click on all the images for larger or much larger versions.

Faces Past

UPDATE (January 2009!): The archive is located here.

UPDATE (Dec 2015) Here is the Faces database.

Fossil Fakes

You would think that being Dean of the Faculty at Würzburg University in Germany, Chief Physician at a renowned hospital, Doctor to the powerful Prince-Bishop of the region and author of important medical papers in the early 18th century would ensure a notable and respected legacy. You would think.

But if you combine such a professional resume with a sideline interest in natural history and a more than healthy dose of arrogance and a talent for making enemies, then you would be sketching the background to a remarkable episode in the annals of geology and paleontology.

Johann BA Beringer was a keen natural scientist who collected petrified specimens for display and as lecture material from nearby Mount Eivlstadt; or at least, as was the usual practice of the day, he paid minions to do his field work.

Unbeknownst to Beringer, two of his professional peers adversaries, JI Roderick and JG von Eckhart, devised a plan to harm Beringer's credibility or at least bring him down a notch. They arranged for stonemasons to produce limestone carvings of organisms (with the aid of drawings from the standard natural science books of the day) and paid Beringer's specimen collectors to present them to Beringer as legitimate finds from scavenging on the mountain.

Current wisdom puts the number of these bogus fossils produced (over a period of less than a year) at around 2000. It has been estimated that a single carving may have taken up to 6 hours to make. This was a serious stunt. And Beringer fell for it so completely that even when it was overtly put to him when he was preparing a book on the subject that the fossils were fake and had been produced in recent times, he refused to accept this as a possible explanation.

You can see in the above illustrations from the very very rare 1726 first edition of 'Lithographiae Wirceburgensis' that the stones not only included impossible soft tissue elements in the 'fossil' outlines, but that some of them included impressions of comets and the sun and even hebrew and arabic text!

Beringer discussed possible natural phenomena in his book to explain the unusual specimens. To be fair, the general knowledge at the time about the mechanisms causing fossilization was at best fanciful. The 'plastica' theory had fossils growing spontaneously inside rocks and the 'spermatic' theory had the seed from modern marine animals entering rocks through cracks.

So although Beringer was totally duped, the overall climate of amazing scientific discovery and theorizing across many subject areas, must have lent the study of this unknown world of paleontology a particularly naive impetus. (Amazingly, Beringer considered that the fossils could not have been remnants from the biblical flood because an acorn impression signified it was the wrong time of year!)

Legend has it that soon after the book was published either Beringer himself or one of his collectors found a stone on which was carved Beringer's own name. It is said that this was the piece of evidence that finally convinced Beringer that he had been the subject of a vast hoax. He successfully sued the two instigators and regained some of his professional integrity but he never published another natural history paper. He died in 1740.

"Beringer has become a symbol of the gullible, and, too often in academic circles, an object of humorous mockery." I think it's hard, after reading a number of different versions of the events that occurred, not to have some level of sympathy for Beringer (well, after laughing of course).

The fake stones which came to be known as 'Lügensteine' -- 'The Lying Stones' -- are said to be quite valuable as novelty collectors' items: there are a few hundred still in existence today.

• The complete 1726 'Lithographiae Wirceburgensis', including 21 illustration plates, is online at the University of Bologna (click 'Tab.' in the sidebar dropdown menu for the fossil images in jpeg format -- if you have a DjVu plugin, the saved images are much bigger)
• This brief editorial, 'Fossils and Compassion' from Ariel A Roth at the Geoscience Research Institute seems about the best/unembellished rendition of the story.
• Program transcript from the Science Show (ABC Australia) of an interview with a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in the UK.
• University of Minnesota Geology Department 'Conspiracies, Fraud and Deception in Earth History' ('The Lying Stones of Dr. Beringer') - the chapter titles to the book in english are partway down the page.
• 'The Lying Stones of Dr. Beringer' at the Museum of Hoaxes.
• A copy of 'Lithographiae Wirceburgensis' for $13,000 {some stories have it that Beringer went nearly bankrupt buying up as many copies of the first edition as he could and then destroying them. A 2nd edition was released after his death anyway. I believe an english edition was published in 1963 and/or it might have simply been the authoritative biography of the fake fossils episode - I didn't dig deeply on this.)
• The UK Natural History Museum have a few images of the fake fossils but this particular image is the best I found.
• 'GeoFakes Frauds and Hoaxes' - Abstracts - from the Geological Society.
• The Guardian - all time favourite science scams of Tim Radford (2003).
• [There is a lot more around online about the Beringer story, much of it either exaggerated or embroidered]
• UPDATE: The University of Heidelberg has posted their copy of 'Lithographiae Wirceurgensis' online.
  
• UPDATE: The Bavarian State Library has posted their copy of 'Lithographia Wirceburgensis' online (15 July, 2012)

Physica Curiosa

[detail with touchup to background]

[click images for full size versions]

'Physica curiosa, sive mirabilia naturae et artis libris XII. comprehensa, quibus pleraque, quae de angelis, daemonibus, hominibus, spectris, energumensis, monstris, portentis, animalibus, meteoris, &c. rara, arcana, curiosaqe circumferuntur, ad veritatis trutinam expenduntur, variis ex historia ac philosophia petitis disquisitionibus excutiuntur, & innumeris exemplis illustrantur.' 1662. Gaspar Schott.

"Physica Curiosa is a large compendium of pictures and stories regarding monsters, physical abnormalities, and bizarre animals. Rather than a work of original scholarship, Schott's book, like many others of its kind, attempts to gather together as much as is commonly known on the topic. Therefore, many of the descriptions of animals and creatures repeat apochraphyl accounts as if they are fact, and perpetuate belief in unicorns, satyrs, and other mythical beings."

All 57 plates are online at the John Martin Rare Book Room at the University of Iowa.

Schott was a Jesuit priest, scientist, mathematician, and student of Athanasius Kircher.