Exhibtion of the Arts of the Book3

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Exhibition of the Arts of the Book

Author(s): William M. Ivins, Jr.Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 19, No. 5 (May, 1924), pp. 113-121Published by: The Metropolitan Museum of ArtStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3254912.

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BULLETIN OF THEMETROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTVOLUME XIX, NUMBER 5

COPYRIGHT, 1924CONTENTSPAGEFront Cover Illustration: SaintJerome: showing a RenaissanceScribe at Work. A Detail fromtheFirstPageofa MS. Illuminatedby AttavantedegliAttavanti.A Class Room Exhibition of ArtSchoolWork . I14Exhibition f theArtsof the Book . 14Tomb JadesoftheChou Period 121A New CopticVase ... . 123XVIII CenturyVanities . . . 124GreekTerracottas:RecentAccessions 127Accessions nd Notes .... 130Bequestof EdmundJ. Curley-Exhi-bition f Drawings-The taff-TheJ.PierpontMorganCollection-ASpecialReception-Sundaytory-Hours-Mem-bership-The Lecture Season-HearnFundPurchases-The oggArtMuseumList ofAccessions nd Loans . . 133DonorsofBooks,Prints,Etc. . . 135

A CLASS ROOM EXHIBITION OFART SCHOOL WORKThe workof students n schoolsof artof this city, includingdrawings, ewelry,tapestries,ace,bookbinding, ood-carving,pottery, rinting,tc.,will be on exhibitionat theMuseum nClass Room B fromMay

18through une . Thisworkwill be basedupon a studyof the Museum collections,and is to demonstrate hevalueoftheMu-seum as a practical nspirationn currentmanufacturend artistic ndustries.The schools contributingo the exhibi-tion are Teachers' College,the New YorkSchool of Fine and Applied Arts, PrattInstitute,Washington rvingHigh School,and theSchool ofApplied nd LiberalArts.On Saturday,May 17, a receptionwillbe given for the teachers of the schoolsand the pupils exhibiting,when a filmbased on Persianmanuscriptsn the Mu-seumanddesigned, cted,and produced ypupilsof Pratt Institutewillbe shown.

EXHIBITION OF THE ARTS OFTHE BOOKOn Monday, May 12, there will be

opened in the Galleryof Special Exhibi-tions,witha privateviewfor hemembersand theirfriends, n exhibition f bookswhicharenotable for heir llustrationnddecoration, he arrangementf theirtextsand their bindings. A number of theprintedbooks with llustrationsomefromthe Museum's Print Room, but the im-portance of the exhibition s due to theloans whichhave beenmadetoit. Someofthe Museum's friends, avingmostkindlypermittedt to make selections rom heirlibraries,have made it possible to bringtogetherwithin he walls of one room uchan arrayof artisticbooks as has not beenshown o thepublic n New York formanyyears, f ever. The deepestthanksof theMuseum are due tothefollowing entlemenwithout whose generousaid and interestthe exhibition ould not have been held:Elmer Adler, Frank Altschul, JosephBreck,GeorgeW. Davison, LesterDoug-las, BurtonEmmett,William B. O. Field,Lee Ashley Grace, Robert Hartshorne,GrenvilleKane, Junius Spencer Morgan,Carl H. Pforzheimer, ruce Rogers,Mor-timerL. Schiff, avid Silve, Carl J. Ul-mann,William A. White,and Lucius Wil-merding.In addition o the oans whichhavebeenmade by thesegentlemen, largenumberofvery mportant ontributions ave beenmade by thenewly ncorporated he Pier-pont Morgan Library, o whichMr. Mor-gan has recently resented hemagnificentlibraryformedby his father nd himself.The trustees fthat Library, ealizing hegeneral nterest n Mr. Morgan's great giftand desiring o show thepublica selectionof the artisticmasterpiecescontained intheir collection,have generously ent forthis exhibition mostremarkable eriesofilluminatedmanuscripts,inebindings,ndprintedbooks. To them lso theMuseumtenders ts heartiest hanks.The wishunderlyinghe exhibitionhasbeen to show how men at one timeor an-otherhave decorated nd embellished heirbooks, and the ingenuity, he craftsman-

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PUBLISHED MONTHLY PRICE TWENTY CENTSBULLETIN OFTHE METROPOLITANMUSEUMOF ARTVOLUME XIX NEW YORK, MAY, 1924 NUMBER 5

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BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTship, and the great artistrywhich theyhave broughtto theirtask of love. To-day, when books have becomealmost thecommonestthings in the world, for themostpartwritten, rinted, ound, nd,notinfrequently,llustrated, ithno morecareor respect than they receive from theircasual purchasers nd owners, t is worthwhile,on occasion,to stop and thinkthatthis was not always so, and to rememberthat therehavealwaysbeenmenwho actedseriouslyupon their belief that next to ahuman being the most preciousthingintheworldwas a book.During the Middle Ages, thoughmuchpaintingwas done on thewallsofchurches,more and finerpaintingwas done on thepages ofbooks,which downto the end ofthe fifteenthentury eem,at least in thenorthof Europe, to have been the placeson whichthepainters avishedtheirgreat-est skilland care. With the introductionof the printedbook came printed llustra-tion and decoration, nd againa greatpor-tion of the most charming ictures re tobe foundin the pages of books. Dtirer,Holbein, Tory, Goujon, were among thegreatest rtists ftheir imes ndcountries,andmuchoftheir inestwork s to befoundin the woodcut llustrationsf the first alfof the sixteenthcentury. In the seven-teenth century illustrationfell off,butRembrandt, allot,and Nanteuilare to befoundon occasioncontributingtchings rengravingsto books. In the eighteenththerewereEisen,Moreau,and Fragonard,and in the nineteenth,Prudhon, Blake,Rowlandson,Delacroix,Daumier,Rossetti,and Menzel,doingmuchof their estworkfor he illustration f books. These alone,without bringing n the countless othergeniuses nd talentedmen, re sufficientoshowwhat llustration asbeen when thasbeen takenseriously.The scribesand the printershave notlagged behind the illustrators,and al-though heirperformancesave nevermetwiththe same interest hat is inherentnthepicture, heyhave,nevertheless,hownthemselves o be not onlygreatcraftsmenbut true artists, exhibitingwithin theirlimited copethemost beautiful eeling orform ndstyle, ndbringingothecreation

of the forms f letters and theirorderingupon the page a sensitiveness hat in itsmeticulous and minute refinement anhardlybe equaled in all the wide domainof thedecorative rts.In the Middle Agesmen made bindingswhichweregreatmasterpieces f the ewel-er's and sculptor's and goldsmith's rts.In the Renaissancetheyturnedto leatheras the medium n which to employtheirfancy nd their raft, isplayinguchcom-mand overpureornament hatthe Grolierbindingshave alwaysheld theirproudpo-sition among the most wonderful bjectswhichthat periodof great craftsmanshiphas leftto us. In theeighteenthentury,ifonesearch, ne can notfindmore harm-ing or moretypicalexpressions f the re-fined luxury which marked the Frenchcourt than in the bindingsmade for thegreatamateursand for hemembers f theroyal family. No piece of furniture, otevena bureaudu roi or a cabinetdecoratedby Gouthiere, s more wonderful han agreat bindingby Le Monnier,Padeloup,or Derome. And inmodern imesthere sTrautz, an artist, who, like some of themodern ainters nd sculptors, an holdhisheadwith lmost nyofhis craft hathavegonebefore.Just s the bookhas beenthemedium fthe greatest iterary hought nd achieve-ment, o has itbeentherepositoryf muchof the most charming rt; but wherethemagicofwords an be passedonunadulter-ated in reprintnd chap-book, he workofthe binders,the printers nd the scribes,the illuminators nd the illustrators, annot be transmitted. It is uniqueand to beknown tmustbe seen as it was originallydone. Even theplastercast tellsmoreofthemarblethanthe"reproduction"oftheillustrationr thecovers f book.The exhibitionwillbe arranged n threesections: illuminatedmanuscripts,bind-ings,and printedbooks, in each ofwhichthe exhibitswill be arrangedroughly nchronologicalrder. Within herestrictedspace at commandno attempthas beenmade to presenta carefulor a detailedsurvey fthehistoric evelopmentfbook-making,and many important pisodes inthat history rerepresentedither cantily116



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1HERODOTI HFISTORICI INCIPIT,aurntiiVallen.conucrfloeGrxco nLatinuxmERODOTI Halicarnafci iflorizxplic,tio hac ft: tneT caqurgeta

funt:xrebushumanisoblitcrenturxxuo:neq ingentia6 admirandapera: el Grcis cta:uel a Barbaris loria raud&tur:cumlia:tmn cro:qua ode re i ntere elligerauert.erfariximiimemorit iffenfiondudoresextitiffePh.avmces'etu2mirAuodRubrum ocatur:nhocnotrum rofici,centes:& ancinco cntesegionem:quamuncquoqTncolunt:longinquis ontinuo 2uigationbusncubucrnt: 2ciendiftAegyptiarumAfNyriarummerci6 cdunsm liasplagas:pra,ipuegsrgosraiccerunt.rosr meacmpcftLatemnit

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A PAGE FROM HERODOTUSVENICE, J. & G. DE GREGORIIS, I494



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BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTor not at all. Especiallyas the exhibitionis held in an art museum and not in alibrary,no theories fwhat constitutesfinebook have been permitted o preventthe inclusionof a volumewhich s of im-portancefrom ny artisticpointof view.Thus, particular emphasis has been laidupon the fineart of illustration nd thegreatdecorative rt ofbinding, nd manybooksare ncluded olelyfor he sakeofoneortheother fthesethingsnomatterwhattheirqualitiesor failings rom therpointsof view. Comparatively ittle mportancehas been accorded to typographys such,and literary r historic alue has been al-mostcompletely gnored.Withtheexception f a charming renchBible Historide f the first uarterof thefourteenth entury, ent by William A.White,a lovely French Book of Hours ofthe fifteenthentury, lluminated n themannerof Jean Fouquet, several delight-ful ittledevotionalmanuscripts ritten yJarry, ent by MortimerL. Schiff,nd anumber of single pages lent by JuniusSpencer Morgan, the manuscripts n theexhibitionall come from The PierpontMorganLibrary.One of the earliest and most extraor-dinaryof these is the celebratedFrenchseventh-century ospels,written n semi-uncial lettersof burnishedgold on sheetsofpurplevellum,whichtradition ayswaspresentedby Pope Leo X to King HenryVIII of England at the timehe conferredupon him the title of Defender of theFaith. It has long been knownto stu-dents s theGoldenGospelsofHenryVIII.There is also a fineFrenchGospelsof thetenthcenturywrittenn a beautifulCaro-line hand and with very extraordinaryinitials. Ofthe eleventh entury here rean amazing Gospels nGreekofByzantineworkmanship; Missal foruse at MontSt.Michel,made in France about io6o; andthefamousGospelsof Matilda ofTuscany,which werewritten efore 09og.The fol-lowing century s represented y a Mar-tyrology, in the exquisite Beneventanscriptwhichreached its highestdevelop-mentat Monte Cassino; a Gospels in thestyle of Limoges, the paintings nwhichshow close affinity ith some of the most

remarkable enamels that Limoges pro-duced; and a large single sheet from amanuscriptmade at Winchester, ngland.To thethirteenthentury elongthebeau-tifulEnglishClare Psalterand a groupofleaves from a French Bible Moralisdemade about 1230,whichcontainsportraitsof Blanche of Castile and her son Louis,who was not only King of France but aSaint. The fourteenth entury s repre-sentedbyan importantnd ineditedmanu-script of Dante's Divine Comedy whichwas probablymadeat Ferrara.The exhibi-tion is particularly ich in fifteenth-ndsixteenth-centuryanuscriptsfthegreat-est beauty. Amongthe Frenchbooks ofthis period may be mentioned Frenchtranslationof Boethius,On the Consola-tions of Philosophy,which was probablyillustratedby Alexander Bening, and aMissal written or heuse of theCathedralChurch t Toursabout 15 0o ndillustratedby a painterwho was greatly nfluencedbyJeanFouquet. Therearethree emark-able Flemishbooks of this time: one, aPrayerBookwritten or heEmperorMaxi-milian and illuminated y thesame artistswho did the celebratedGrimaniBreviary,whichhas beenattributednparttoGerardDavid; another, also attributedto Da-vid, a Breviarywritten nd illustrated orQueen Eleanor of Portugal; and a third,paintedby an artistofthe schoolofHugovan der Goes, which is the Prayer Bookof the EmperorCharles V in its originalleatherbinding. Italianworkofthistimeis beautifullyxemplifiedy such volumesas the fifteenth-centuryontifical f Car-dinal Giuliano della Rovere (later PopeJulius II), illustrated and signed byFrancesco and Girolamo dai Libri atVerona; a sheetshowing he fourEvange-lists, which is supposed to have beenpaintedby Giulio Clovio, the most cele-brated Italianminiaturistfthetime;andthewholly emarkablemanuscriptfDidy-mus,De Spiritu anctu,writtennd illumi-nated at Florence forMatthias Corvinus,the great kingofHungary,whoseportrait,with thatof hiswife, s to be seen on thefirst age. The textof this Didymuswaswritten y Sigismundus e Sigismundis,hemost famous cribeofhisday.

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FRONT COVER OF A VOLUME BOUND FOR JEAN GROLIER



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BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTThe bindings hownexemplifymanyofthe most important ypes in vogue fromthe middle of the fifteenthentury o themiddle of the last. There are beautifuland famous overs from hehands of mostof the importantbindersduringthat pe-riod, nd a remarkableeries fbooks oundfor such celebratedpatronsof the art asGrolier,Maioli, Canevarius,Queen Eliza-beth,Henri II, Henri IV, De Thou, LouisXIV and Louis XV, Madame de Pompa-dour, and Marie Antoinette. A groupofparticular oveliness s that composed ofthe jewel-like nlaidmosaic bindingsmadeby suchsupreme raftsmens Le Monnier,

Padeloup, Derome,and Trautz.The printedbooks begin with severalblock-books, dated papal indulgenceof1454, heGutenberg ible,which sreputedtobe the earliestprinted ook of which nycopies have survived, nd the second edi-tion ofthe celebratedMainz Psalter,whichis itself hesecond dated book. They alsoincludethe first ook printed n Italy (theSubiaco Lactantius of 1465) and the thirdbookprintedn France theParisSallustof1471). Thereare beautiful xamplesfroma numberof the most importantRenais-sancepressesnGermany,taly, ndFrance,many of which have been made doublybeautiful nd preciousby passingthroughthe hands of the illuminators. Amongtheseespecial attention s due to the mar-velousLivy printedby WendelinofSpeierin 1470, he SaintAugustine rinted yJen-son in 1475, and the AristotleprintedbyAndreasde Asola in 1483, ach ofwhich sone ofthegreatmasterpieces f Italian Re-naissance llumination. In additionto theilluminatedprintedbooks, many of themost celebrated arly llustrated ooks areto be seen nthecases,suchas theAugsburgSpeculum Humanae Salvationis and theUlm Boccaccio of 1473, the Roman Tur-recremata, he Verona Valturius of 1471,the Mer des Histoiresof 1488, and theAbbevilleCity ofGod of 1486. The workof theVenetianand Florentine llustratorsis exemplified y selected groups, amongwhich re to be seen the Herodotus f1494,the HypnerotomachiaPoliphili of 1499,and theQuatriregio f I5o8. The volumesof theperiodprior o 15o1 are followed ya

series of books illustrated y Diirer,Hol-bein,and their ontemporariesnGermanyand Italy,by a groupofParisianBooks ofHours,and another fbooksillustrated ysuch Frenchmens Tory,Cousin,Goujon,De Lorme,and de Gourmont.Engraved illustration s exemplifiednthe exhibition eginswith the celebratedFlorentine Landino Dante of 1481, theLyonneseBreydenbach f 1488,the Vene-tian de Nola of 1514, and the Roman Ber-rutus of 1517. A particularly parklinggroup of the lovely French eighteenth-century ooks s shown, mongwhichmaybymentionedHoraceWalpole'scopyoftheWatteau "'t cent exemplaires," he Chan-sons of Laborde, Fragonard's Contes deLafontaine,nd theMonument fCostumeofFreudebergnd Moreau,as well as manycharmingbooks decorated and illustratedby such artists as Choffard,Marillier,Eisen, and Prudhon. The English "platebook" is represented, mong others,byexamples by Rowlandson,Alken, Leech,Cruikshank, nd especiallyby a groupofthebooks nwhichWilliam Blakedisplayedhisgenius, uch as the Songsof Innocenceand Experience, merica, hel, Urizen, ndJerusalem.Nineteenth-centuryoodcut llustrationis represented y a seriesof volumes,be-ginningwith Bewick's "Birds" of 1797and coming owntoLepere'sCoins de Ruesof 19oo, inwhichmaybe seenthe master-pieces of illustrationby such artists asBewick, Blake, Stothard, Daumier, Ga-varni,Meissonnier,nd the Pre-Raphaelitegroup. There are also somevolumeswithlithographic llustrationby such men asBonington,Daumier,Gavarni, and Dela-croix,and a few "process" books of thelater endofthecentury.Scattered n through he illustrated ndilluminated olumeswillbe found numberof examples of fine printingfrom someof the more importantpresses,from theRenaissance down to almost the presentday. Among heprintershusrepresentedare Gutenberg, ust and Schoeffer, olle,Neumeister, oberger,weynheimnd Pan-nartz,Wendelinof Speier, Jenson,Aldus,V6rard,Pigouchet,Colines,Roffet, asco-san, Jean de Tournes, Plantin, Elzevier,

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BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTBaskerville,barra,Didot, Bodoni,Bulmer,Whittingham,nd Morris.An illustratedhistorical uideto theex-hibitionhas been prepared n whichwillbe founddescriptions f the severalmoreimportantgroupsof books as well as ref-erencesto a numberof the outstandingsinglevolumes. This willbe on sale at theMuseum. W. M. I., JR.

JADE ORNAMENTS, CHINESE CHOU PERIODTOMB JADES OF THE CHOUPERIODIn Oriental art we Westernershaveworkedbackwards,that is, we began byadmiringJapanesecarvedivories, acquer,and prints,Chinese porcelainsand jades;graduallywe becameinterestedn the ear-lier forms, he types out of which thesecharmingpieces had grown,firstout ofarchaeological nterest, hen n admirationforthe highcultureofwhichtheyare thewitnesses. This is as muchthe case withChinese jades as with ceramics,bronzes,

and sculpture. Jade, being n itself pre-cious material and highly esteemed athome,was one ofthe last productsofChi-nese civilization o appear on thewesternmarkets, nd thenonlythosepiecesused in

wealthyChinesehouses:ornateflower asesand all the charming ibelotsdescribed sornamentsof the scholar'swriting able,that is to say, delicatelyworked smallobjects,gracefulnd expensive. Compara-tively atelyearlierpiecesappeared,some-timesdatingfrom lassictimes, ometimesand moreoftenmadeafter heearly tyles,forChineseconnoisseursneverybranch fart admirethe early form nd classic de-

sign. Whencemeteries eganto beopened,theseearly ades,generallyknown s tombjades, appearedmorefrequentlynd weremuch appreciatedfor the beautiful olorsacquiredthroughongburial.Verymanyof these ades date from heHan period,whenfriends nd relations sedto put objects of all sorts in the tombs;someare undoubtedly arlier, ut as prac-tically no scientific xcavation has beendone yet, and as we are veryrarelytoldwhere hepiecesbought omefrom, ehaveno standardsto judge by. Authors, ikeproudcollectors,re apt tomakeguesses nfavorof early dates and sometimes heyhaveno meansofsubstantiatingheir tate-ments.Therefore, he collectionof twenty-twosmall pieces recentlyacquired and now

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Documents

Exhibtion of the Arts of the Book3