Two weeks ago I wrote about Judy Guston’s and my pilgrimage to sites related to Nakahama Manjiro, the mid-19th-century Japanese sailor, translator, and all-around renaissance man whose manuscript we recently loaned to the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum in Kochi, Japan. This week I thought I’d tell you a little more about the exhibition and the …
This week’s blog post comes from collections intern Anne Lutun. As one of her research projects we asked her to look into our ceramic figurines of Milton & Shakespeare; little did we realize how complicated that could turn out to be. – – – – Since next year will mark the 450th anniversary of the …
Museums travel their objects all over the world, and the Rosenbach is no exception. But it’s especially interesting to travel around the world with an object that’s all about world travel. The object in question is our manuscript relating to Nakahama Manjiro’s travels from Japan to the U.S. and back from 1841-51, which we recently …
Last Friday the Rosenbach’s collections department took a field trip up 20th Street to visit our new colleagues in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library. We’re no strangers, having worked together though PACSCL (the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries) for years and having researched at the Free Library and borrowed …
After last week’s post on cannibalism we promised a lighter topic for this week, which comes to us courtesy of our departing collections intern Anne Baker – – – – – – – When thinking of May and what to write about, I thought of how the month is known for flowers. In searching through …
I would like to start off by inviting all Rosen-readers to come enjoy Voices of 1863: Witnesses to the Civil War, which opened just this Wednesday. We’ve packed Gallery 1 full of wonderful Civil War documents that really illuminate the wartime experience, plus there’s a chance to hear some of Dave Burrell’s compositions inspired by …
Final drawing for Atomics for the Millions. Pen and ink, gouache. (C) 1946-7 by Maurice Sendak. Maurice Sendak got his first “gig” in the world of book illustration when he was 18, as some astonishing materials recently purchased by the Rosenbach attest. It was the spring of 1946, and his physics teacher at Lafayette High …
Free Library Foundation and Rosenbach directors and board chairs with the mayor and Dr. R Clearly the big news this week at the Rosenbach is our plan to merge with the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation. Here’s a quick round-up of some of the news coverage that the announcement has been receiving, in case you’d …
This week I thought I’d offer up a few behind-the-scenes photos as we get Gallery 1 ready for Voices of 1863. Here’s what the gallery looks like from the door. We decided to take a cue from the domestic nature of our gallery spaces and picked colors inspired by Victorian interiors. The exhibit will also …
Here at the Rosenbach we are thrilled when people make a personal connection with our collections. Sometimes the connection is sparked by an aesthetic encounter, sometimes a connection with a historic document, but one of our recent visitors was surprised to find a family connection here at the Rosenbach. The story comes to us from …