Library Company of Philadelphia
Richard Bridgens, Furniture with Candelabra and Interior Decoration (London, 1838).
Trained as a sculptor and furniture designer, Bridgens created designs that included styles admired in Britain at the time: Grecian, Gothic, and Elizabethan. These Elizabethan chairs embody stateliness and grandeur.
See this and more in our current exhibition: Stylish Books: Designing Philadelphia Furniture on display through April 26, 2019.
#TFW the headache wafers haven’t kicked in yet… #FelineFriday
Gessler’s Magic Headache Wafers. Circa 1880. P9828.1581.
The cherub and snail duo on our copy of George Allen’s The Life of Philidor (New York, 1865) is bringing some joy to our #PublishersBindingThursday. We love the appropriately tiny scale of this whimsical gold-stamped decoration.
Allen, George. The life of Philidor, musician and chess-player.
New York : F. Leypoldt. 1865.
This beautifully rendered architectural drawing of the Capitol Building in Harrisburg shows all of the decorative details of the main rotunda from colorful murals to the texture of marble. A figure standing in the lower right shows the building’s grand scale.
George Smith, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (London, 1826).
Smith, inspired by Thomas Hope, introduced classical styles to a broader audience, and his publication was widely circulated in the United States. This French secretaire with compartments for combs, brushes, and other items for dressing, sits on lion’s paw feet, popular during this time.
See this and more in our current exhibition: Stylish Books: Designing Philadelphia Furniture on display through April 26, 2019.
Negative/Positive
Many of the photographs in the Marriott C. Morris Collection come in the form of glass negatives. The negatives of people are especially arresting, their faces emerging like ghosts from the lightbox. While haunting, these negatives hide details about the sitter that only emerge when the positive image is created. Marriott C. Morris’ father Elliston P. Morris’ kind eyes are obscured in the negative version of his portrait but gaze out warmly from the positive image.
Negatives hide things but also reveal them. For example, in the negative view of Morris’ portrait the emulsion has been burnished around the face and small scratches made to emphasize areas of light and create shadow. This shows Marriott C. Morris’ hand not only in taking the photograph, but also the refinement of the negative, the physical act of dragging metal across glass.
Read more from Alison Van Denend, our former Assistant Project Manager for the Marriott C. Morris Photograph Collection.
Have you the Headache? We suggest you gaze upon this circa 1880 trade card that features a rascally kitty in its rather incongruous advertisement for Old Dr. Goodhue’s Bitters #FelineFriday
Goodhue’s Bitters.Circa 1880. P9828.1642.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece was the most popular book about women’s bodies, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth in Britain and America from its first appearance in 1684 up to at least the 1870s. More than 250 editions are known, but all are very rare, and the Library Company’s 55 editions amount to perhaps the largest collection in America.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece was not written by Aristotle the ancient Greek philosopher; it was assembled from a number of popular medical works by an unknown writer. It is a bizarre assortment of superstition, folklore, and sex facts and fancies, all mixed in with the sort of common-sense medical advice that had been passed down by midwives for centuries. The text changed very little over the years, but it was often rearranged, as historian Mary Fissell has noted, like a reshuffled deck of cards.
We love the ribbon-embossed cloth binding and simple gold-blocked title on our copy of this 1830 edition of Aristotle’s Masterpiece. #PublishersBindingThursday
Read more about Aristotle’s Masterpiece here.
This month we are joining the #IGlibraries challenge #buildingblocks first by highlighting the old Ridgway Building located on Broad and Christian Streets. The building housed our collections and reading room from 1878 to the 1960s when we moved to our current building. Though it no longer houses Library Company collections, the Ridgway Building still serves those who wish to learn as the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.
Library Company of Philadelphia. Ridgway Building. ca. 1940.
This comic valentine takes issue with cabinet makers, but we feel differently. Our current exhibition, Stylish Books : Designing Philadelphia Furniture, highlights the craftsmanship and style of Philadelphia furniture making in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Visit https://librarycompany.org/stylish/ to see the online exhibit!
To a Cabinet Maker.
[between 1840 and 1880?]
Comic Valentines, 11.8