Smithsonian Libraries

19th-Century Mother-of-Pearl Photograph Album

We like to think we have many jewels in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' collections in the figurative sense, but here is a lovely volume bound in precious mother-of-pearl with silver filigree ornamentation and gauffered (decorative blind-stamped) gilt edges, dating from the second half of the nineteenth century.

This exquisite book, currently on display through September 7, 2009 at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City as part of the exhibition Shahzia Sikander Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection, was most likely an album for a collection of photographic portraits. The album is empty now, but the names of the Italian revolutionary Garibaldi and the French author Chateaubriand are still faintly visible in pencil on the interior leaves, which are decorated to look like picture frames.

The story behind the creation and history of this particular album is only partly known. Most likely the volume is of European origin (for instance, the lithographed pages of the album feature the French copyright notice, Déposé). The remarkable workmanship of the jeweled cover, however, may have originated in the Middle East or Asia, where there is a long tradition of fashioning decorative items using mother-of-pearl. An old ink inscription on the front free endpaper of the volume is signed Angela Matilde Aròstegui y Castillo, either a former owner or perhaps someone who presented this album as a gift.

This volume was accessioned into the Cooper-Hewitt library's collections in 1959, where it aptly illustrates the power of the art of design, combining the utilitarian album format with precious materials to create an unforgettable historical artifact. (Z269.3.F55M68 1850z CHMRB)—Diane Shaw

Edgar Allen Poe, Master of the...Mollusk?

In 1839 Haswell Barrington And Haswell of Philadelphia published The conchologist's first book: a system of testaceous malacology, arranged expressly for the use of schools, in which the animals, according to Cuvier, are given with the shells, a great number of new species added, and the whole brought up, as accurately as possible, to the present condition of the science. by E. A. Poe.  Was Edgar Allen Poe really an amateur naturalist and mollusk enthusiast, or merely an impoverished novelist willing to do anything (even plagiarism!) for a buck? 

In fact, Poe was hired to write the preface and introduction, and to translate from the French Georges Cuvier's descriptions of the animals, but it was Thomas Wyatt who originally wrote the textbook on conchology. In later years, Poe was accused of plagiarism (by his biographer and literary executor R. W. Griswold) but it seems that attributing the authorship to Poe was likely done to increase interest in the title and to avoid copyright issues with Wyatt's original publisher, Harper & Brothers.

To confuse the issue of authorship further, Wyatt's book was largely based on that of Scottish naturalist Thomas Brown, who published his The Conchologist's Textbook... in Glasgow in 1833. 

2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allen Poe.  The conchologist's first book... is the only volume "by" Poe that went to a second edition in his lifetime. The Biodiversity Heritage Library has select editions of all the titles above available in full-text if you'd like to compare for yourself!

For more information on Poe's work on conchology (the study of mollusks) Cornell University has an online exhibition Nevermore: the Edgar Allen Poe colleciton of Susan Jaffe Tane which includes images from Poe's own copy of the first edition; and The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore has bibliographic notes on the work and much more.—Keri Thompson

Botanica Magnifica

As a follow up to our post from last week…you can watch the CBS News Sunday Morning segment on Botanica Magnifica  in an eight minute clip on YouTube. Enjoy!—Liz O'Brien

Treasures from the AA/PG Library - Album of cartes-de-visite

The Smithsonian American Art Museum/ National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG) grew out of the Smithsonian’s National Museum, later known as the “National Gallery of Art”. In 1937 the Andrew Mellon gift of art was given to the nation to form the beginning of the collection of what is now know as the National Gallery of Art. As a result, the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art became the National Collection of Fine Arts (NCFA). When plans were underway for the new National Portrait Gallery in 1964, the NCFA library collections were combined with those for the new Gallery. The Library collection was then developed to reflect the missions of the two museums with strong holdings in American art, as well as American history and biography. In 1980, the NCFA was renamed the “National Museum of American Art”; then in 2000 it became the “Smithsonian American Art Museum”.

The AA/PG Library's collection has many special treasures in its collection which we will feature over time.  The first is a book of cartes-de-visite featuring many prominent American artists. The carte-de-visite was a type of photographic calling card that became popular with the development of photography during the mid-19th century.  Collecting cards featuring famous people became popular - similar to collecting baseball cards today.  Collectors could then mount the cards in pages in an album like the one reproduced here. The anonymous person who collected the cards in the AA/PG Library's album must have been interested in American art because the majority of identifiable people are American artists. Future posts will examine some of those represented.

The artists represented on this first page of the album are (clockwise, starting at the top left): Thomas Sully, Samuel Morse, Sully again, and Rembrandt Peale. —Doug Litts

Dia Internacional de la Mujer / International Women's Day

El 8 de marzo es el Dia Internacional de la Mujer: Es un honor felicitarlas por sus logros, visión, energía, y amor por la vida y la familia. March 8^th is International Women’s Day: The Libraries honors all of you for your accomplishments, stamina, and love of life and family.

To celebrate International Women's Day / Dia Internacional de la Mujer, here are two interesting items selected by Librarian Vielka Chang-Yau, from our Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library:

Guía para la confección del Catálogo colectivo de publicaciones periódicas existentes en Panama / / elaborada por Nitzia Barrantes y Yolanda Araúz

The Latino Patient: A Cultural Guide for Health Care Providers

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library, also known as the Earl Silas Tupper Library in Tropical Biology, is located in Panama City, Republic of Panama. The Branch has sublocations on the Island of Barro Colorado, on the Gatun Lake of the Panama Canal, and on Colón Island, at the research station in the province of Bocas del Toro. The Library supports research, publications, exhibits and public programming of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, as well as those of other museums and bureaus of the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1923, the Institute for Research in Tropical America, a group that included private foundations, universities and the Smithsonian Institution, established a research laboratory on Barro Colorado Island, and became one of the first biological reserves in the New World. It was managed by the National Research Council, and its purpose was to investigate the flora and fauna of tropical America. In 1949, the facility was renamed the Canal Zone Biological Area and, by Act of Congress on July 2 of that year, was placed under the control of a board composed of the heads of several executive departments and prominent scientists. In 1946, the reorganization plan approved by Congress transferred operations to the Smithsonian Institution. The Canal Zone Biological Area was incorporated into the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in 1966 to provide continuity to the research program conducted at Barro Colorado Island and to establish a center where students from all over the world could conduct tropical research under conditions similar to those of an academic institution. —Vielka Chang-Yau

Peter S. Pallas and His Curious Cats

The scientific names assigned to animals often have intriguing origins, which can be revealed by books in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' collections. The Pallas's Cat of central Asia, for instance, is named after German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811), the first person to publish a detailed description of the animal. Although he was not fully aware that the curious creatures he had seen during his travels were a new species, Pallas's account and his accompanying illustration were definitive enough to establish the foundation for the scientific record. Pallas spent much of his life in Russia, where he conducted expeditions in search of new and unusual animals and plants. In his account, Travels through the southern provinces of the Russian Empire in the years 1793 and 1794 (originally published in German in 1799-1801), he speculated that the mysterious felines known today as the Pallas's Cat (Felis manul) were the half-wild offspring of a local nobleman's pet:

Libraries hosts a Make-A-Book activity for "Take Your Kids to Work Day"

The Libraries hosted over 20 children and their families at today's Make-A-Book activity in the National Museum of Natural History. Children were able to make books, make their own stickers, and decorate their books with decorative papers, markers, stickers and rubber stamps. The event proved to be very popular with children and their parents!

Richard Naples and Phuong Pham from Preservation Services demonstrate how to make a book

 

New SIL Title with Assouline Publishing

This spring, six unique volumes from the Smithsonian Libraries’ collections will be featured in Botanicals, with text by SIL’s Curator of Natural History Rare Books, Leslie Oversteet.

Exquisite plates from the volumes below illustrate this stunning work, which is focused on flowers, fruits and butterflies. Click the links to preview the illustrations in our Galaxy of Images!

• Maria Sibylla Merian’s Raupen wunderbare . . ., 1730.
• Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium,[1705]
• E.A. Séguy’s Insectes, 1927.
• E.A. Séguy’s Papillons, 1925.
• Jean Jules Linden’s Iconographie des Orchidées, 1885-1906
• Robert John Thornton’s Temple of Flora , 1807.

Click here to purchase your own copy!

Image featured: Plate II from Maria Sibylla Merian's Raupen wunderbare, 1730.