With Valentine’s Day just two weeks away and the unseasonably warm weather at the beginning of this week lifting our spirits, we’ve been getting ready for some romance at the Rosenbach. We’ve reinstalled the dining room as a romantic dinner for two, changed the highlights in the partner deck to a more romantic theme, and …
This is a guest post by Rosenbach Collections Intern Jessica Walthew George Cruikshank, The Italian Assassin. London, probably 1810. 1954.74a Even the most industrious researcher can be waylaid by a red herring. Today we’ll relate the tale of “The Italian Assassin” and the clues that led (and misled) the collections and library staff at the …
Quick quiz: who is the most-represented illustrator in the Rosenbach collections? If you guessed Maurice Sendak, you are right–our Sendak collections are not fully cataloged, but the number we like to toss around for him is 10,000 books, drawings, and pieces of ephemera. Here’s a slightly harder quiz: who is the second-most-represented illustrator? It is …
I would like to devote this week’s blog post to putting in a plug for the second in our series of Friend or Faux seminars, which takes place this Saturday at noon. The event is free with admission but reservations are requested. This session will focus on paintings, looking at how experts go about trying …
This unusual drawing, hangs on the wall in Marianne Moore’s living room just to the left of the fireplace. No, it is not a Sendak drawing. It is by another illustrator, Robert Andrew Parker.Parker illustrated eight of Moore’s poems for a limited edition book (only 195 copies were printed) published by the Museum of Modern …
My dear Rosenreaders, after shoveling out 20″ of snow this weekend I am looking forward to my holiday trip to sunny California (ok, it’s the Bay Area, so maybe foggy California). I’ll be back with you in 2010, unless one of my colleagues decides to chime in by posting in the meantime. A quick reminder …
Today marks the 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. The idea of a “tea party” to oppose taxes saw a rebirth this year as conservative activists staged tea parties on April 15 and beyond to protest current fiscal policies. But the original tea party happened on a cold December 16th in 1773. The Rosenbach …
Several of the collections staff are starting to work on an exhibition for next summer on “the west” in fiction and reality. Right now we’re combing through the collections to find the objects we want to use and this handbill made my day when my colleague Karen Schoenewaldt showed it to me last week. Laid …
After last week’s blog post in which I trailed off into a discussion of the Old 100th psalm tune, I got to wondering if there were any recordings of what the Bay Psalm Book’s music would really have sounded like. Lo and behold, the folks at Smithsonian Folkway records put out such a record, way …
Happy Thanksgiving (a day early) to all Rosenblog readers. Since this is a time of giving thanks, let me start by thanking all of you for reading. An extra special thank you goes out to those of you who support the Rosenbach as members, volunteers, or donors. 2009 has been a tough year for all …