II Charters by Charles II

In 1681 Charles II King of England (so handsomely portrayed in the upper left hand corner of this Charter) granted tracks of land to William Penn. This "birth certificate" for what later became the state of Pennsylvania will be on display at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg from March 7-16th.

This will mean that there will be two Charles II patents (or charters) on display in the state of Pennsylvania.

Royal Patents are important legal documents, often elaborately decorated and illuminated, in which the monarch grants permission to subjects or institutions for specific purposes requiring royal approval. Charles II wrote many patents during his reign, often in regard to new settlements in the colonies, but not all of them...

The RML’s document is a patent granted by Charles II to Sir William Davenant sometime between 1662-3. It gives Davenant a virtual theatrical monopoly in London. Davenant was thought by some to be the illegitimate son of Shakespeare. This rumor was concocted from the thin "evidence" that Shakespeare always stopped at Davenant's father's house in passing through the city of Oxford, out of his known or rumored admiration of the hostess, a very fine woman.

The important provisions of the RML Patent are as follows:
1. Davenant may maintain his already existing company, to be called ”The Duke’s Men”.
2. Davenant and Killigrew have the sole authority to present theatrical productions (a real monopoly: ”We ...declare all other...companies...to be silenced and suppressed.”)
3. Davenant is permitted to erect a new theater on the site he is using now or elsewhere in the city under the patronage of James, Duke of York.
4. Davenant is allowed to charge the going rate of admission at this new theater in order to meet ”the great expense of scenes, music and such decorations as have not been formerly used.”
5. woman’s roles may be legally performed by women
6. no play shall be acted containing passages ”offensive to piety and good manners”

This patent was purchased by the Rosenbach Company in August 1927 from the grandson of a 19th-century leaseholder of the Covent Garden Theater.

Happy New Years Robert Burns!

The Rosenbach Museum & Library has one of the largest selections of Robert Burns (1759-96) material in the world. The highlight of the collection, purchased by ASW Rosebach in 1929, is an edition of Burn’s poems which was owned by Mrs. Dunlop. (It is shelved on the western wall of the British collection in the East library)

Mrs. Dunlop was Mr. Burns’s friend and most frequent correspondent. They lived in neighboring counties in south western Scotland; he was a common farmer and Mrs. Dunlop was a member of the landed gentry and a descendent of Sir Wallace. A book of Burns’ poetry had lifted Mrs. Dunlop from the depths of depression and led her to request the acquaintance. Burns would frequently send Mrs. Dunlop some of his newer poems which she then copied into her own volume. Of the 19 poems copied into the book the 15th is titled New-Year Day to Mrs. Dunlop.

One of the Scottish Bard’s most famous works is “Auld Lang Syne” which translates from the Scots into something like ‘times gone by’ or ‘ the olden days’. In letter to Mrs. Dunlop (1788) Burns wrote:

“is not the Scots phrase, ‘Auld lang syne,’ exceedingly expressive.-There is an
old song & tune which has often thrilled thro’ my soul…”

The poem was a popular folk song long before Burns captured it in his writing. Typically we hear this tune on New Years Eve, graduations, or in celebrations of the marking of time.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days of auld lang syne? And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne,
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld ang syne.
We twa hae sported i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
And ther's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

January 24th is Burns Day, typically celebrated by reading Burns’s poetry over servings of haggis.

A Sendak Riddle?

In advance of the May 2008 opening of There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak—the Rosenbach’s very large exhibition of the work of Maurice Sendak—I thought it might be fun to get the ball rolling on this blog and provide a few sneak peeks of the exhibit while also opening up discussion of Sendak’s work. What better way to begin than with a riddle, a mystery? So here’s a question to ponder:

Which of Maurice Sendak’s well-known books resembles treatises on alchemy?

Not well-read on your late-Renaissance alchemical manifestos? You don’t need to be. Perhaps you can picture the overly-mythologized alchemist’s laboratory—bearded men mixing pastes and potions amid bubbling chemicals in alembics and glass beakers, trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone, or at the very least turn base matter into gold. The stuff of legend, referenced in Harry Potter, Dan Brown and his ilk, and in so many other modern myths. If anyone has read John Cech’s monograph Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak (Penn State University Press, 1995), you’ll know that Cech draws parallels between alchemical imagery on the one hand and on the deeply rooted intellectual and cultural traditions referenced—perhaps only unconsciously—in Sendak’s work. My aim is not to foment conspiracy theories around Sendak’s pictures or his intentions behind them, but to kick off a discussion of how to read and source his layered imagery within a variety of traditions. Any guesses?

The Joys of Smoking

Lets take a moment here to examine smoking in the Rosenbach collections! The inspiration for this course of study is greatly inspired by the recent publication of The Joys of Smoking by author James Fitzgerald (who is also my father).

The Rosenbach brothers were smokers, their generation was the "smoking generation" when cigarettes became king in America. The personal affects of the brothers are riddled with smoking paraphernalia: cigarette cases, pipe cleaners, cigar holders, ashtrays, all gold encrusted monogrammed and silver rimmed. Philip Rosenbach's personal grooming kit includes equipment for maintaining tobacco pipes and trimming cigars. Smoking was an extension of ones personality as much as a properly pressed suit or presentable business card. In this intimate photograph of Marlene Dietrich taken by Mercedes de Acosta it is hard to tell where the cigarette ends and the woman begins!

Among the cases, holders, trimmers and trays lays one outstanding object, the cigarette case of the Austrian-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Though the date of his birth1863 bears much less weight historically then the date of his death it is interesting to note that Philip Rosenbach was born the same year.
Franz Ferdinand's assassination on June 28, 1914 sparked the First World War. While riding in the motorcade through the streets of Sarajevo on Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot and killed by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian member of the Black Hand; earlier in the day Ferdinand's car had also been fired at by a hand grenade, causing him to complain angrily upon his arrival at the city hall.

"What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit, and I get bombs thrown at me. It is outrageous!" Archduke Franz Ferdinand interrupting the Mayor's welcome speech at Sarajevo's city hall, 28 June 1914.

The F.F.'s cigarette case details are:

A tan leather case with a silver crest on the front and an embossed gold signature on the reverse. The crest features a shield, parti per pale, with griffon sejant sinister and three eagles in bend dexter. The shield is surmounted by a coronet and surrounded by a chain. The signature on the reverse is very ornate and illegible; it may read, in part, ”Franz”. The interior of the case is divided into two pockets, one with a flap and one without. Both are lined with burgundy moire silk.

Fine Press Americana - Wau Bun–“The Early Day” in the Northwest

The two shelves to the left of the Holford Defoe collection hold a selection of Fine Press books . This collection (approx. 600 volumes in the Rosenbach collections) provides an overview of the best of the 19th-20th century printing. These presses were interested in the production of the “book beautiful.” In addition to the publications of well-known private presses, the collection contains a small collection of gift books, and publications of such book clubs and societies as the Club of Odd Volumes (Boston), the Grolier Club (New York), and the Philobiblon Club (Philadelphia).

The title which recently caught my eye, Wau Bun– “The Early Day” in the Northwest by Mrs. Kinzie was published in fine press edition for members of the Caxton Club in 1901 and then by the Lakeside Press in 1932.

The book recounts the experiences of a young, genteel wife (Mrs. Kenzie) adjusting to the military life and frontier conditions of life at Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin, in the early 1830s. She describes her perilous journeys back and forth to the early settlement of Chicago, her complex cultural encounters with a diverse frontier society, and her determination to instill her own standards of civilized behavior and Christian observance. There is abundant information on the customs, folklore, economic practices, life-cycle events, medical treatments, diet, warfare, environmental responses, social hierarchies, and gender roles of the different groups of people that Kinzie comes to know best. For more information on pioneering women look here: http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/wireader/WER0110.html


The Caxton Club (named after the printer William Caxton) of Chicago was founded in 1895 by fifteen Chicago bibliophiles who desired to support the publication of fine books in the spirit of the prevailing Arts and Crafts Movement. The club still meets to this day and has over 300 members (local and out-of-state). The Lakeside Press was established in 1908 by R.R Donnelly & Sons’ Co. It was a seven year apprenticeship school, training young men in both the theoretical and practical knowledge of the printing trade.

Being that both the Caxton Club and the Lakeside Press are located in Chicago and that Mrs. Kinzie’s book includes great detail on the early Chicago settlement it makes sense why both fine presses would choose to print this book.

From the crypt

Pinouris, Son of Hor perches on top of a column in the east Library. Pa-iu-en-hor, known in Greek as Pinouris, was “God’s Father” and the “Prophet of Amun in Karnak.” Pinouris holds lettuce leaves in his hands, these are symbolic of fertility to the Egyptians. The three columns of text on the back pillar contain offering formulae and prayers. There are twelve lines on the front that contain prayers and autobiographical statements.

This statue was made during the Ptolemaic dynasty when a Hellenistic royal family ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt for nearly 300 years. Ptolemy, a Macedonian and one of Alexander the Great's generals, was appointed satrap (a Persian title for ruler) of Egypt after Alexander's death. In 305 BC, he declared himself King Ptolemy I. The Egyptians accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest. The most notorious member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII.

This particular sculpture was unearthed in 1903 by French Archeologist George Legrain in a courtyard of the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Karnak was the hiding-place of more than 800 statues from a variety of periods and which are considered among the most beautiful objects found in Egypt.

1903 was also the year in which Bram Stoker's other supernatural novel, The Jewel of Seven Stars, was published. It is generally considered his best effort after Dracula. The work concerns an ambitious Egyptologist who attempts to reanimate the mummified remains of an ancient Egyptian queen. During the course of the novel the scientist, Trelawney, discovers that this mummy has been exerting a mysterious influence over his daughter Margaret.

The Rosenbach does not own a copy of The Jewel of Seven Stars.

Max Roach

We're holding a musical vigil in the library office today in tribute to Max Roach who died yesterday at the age of 83. By any measure, Mr. Roach was one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. As others have and will eulogize him more adequately than I can, I'll only add two things: I think he was the finest drum soloist ever. It's almost like the drum solo was invented in anticipation of his talents.
More importantly, he carried himself with an unmistakable dignity in an era and a business that embittered the proudest musicians.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends, including two of his longtime collaborators, Philadelphians Odean Pope and Tyrone Brown.

Here's one of my favorite photographs of Mr. Roach:


All images borrowed from Bernard Castiglioni's fantastic site Drummerworld. Thanks.