The Affair of the Diamond Necklace-

Since coming to France as a teenager to marry Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette had been mistrusted and resented by both the aristocracy and the common people. But it was the "Affair of the Diamond Necklace" which raised French hatred of their Queen to a fever pitch. Napoleon once said-

"The Queen's death must be dated from the Diamond Necklace Trial".

The trial, and the subsequent Memoirs of its chief feminine player, the Comtesse de la Motte, are credited by many historians with being the gust of foul wind which finally fanned the long-smouldering fire of popular discontent into the uncontrollable conflagration of the French Revolution.

The tale is long, complex and sordid; it has several different versions (depending on whose memoirs you read), and has been told many times, most recently in a beautifully costumed Hollywood version starring Hilary Swank. The movie, which includes a stirring performance by Miss Swank as the Countess, takes some (but not all) of the Countess's claims at face value, which is another way of saying that it takes extreme liberties with what most historians regard as the actual truth.

Although she claimed to be descended from royalty, it is now generally agreed that Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, Comtesse de la Motte, came of what might be termed "humble origins" and basically talked, schemed and slept herself almost all the way to the Royal Chambers at Versailles.

Jeanne carried on an affair with the Cardinal Louis Rene Edouard, Prince de Rohan, a man more attuned to matters earthly than spiritual. Jeanne also borrowed money from the Cardinal, and was soon deep in his debt. For his part the Cardinal was out of favor with Marie Antoinette, and was anxious to get into the Queen's good graces, if not her bed. Jeanne, who was undertaking her own campaign to gain access to the Queen and have her "family estates" "returned" to her, persuaded the Cardinal that she had the Queen's ear and could arrange reconciliation.

The gullible and perhaps somewhat oversexed Cardinal agreed and the Countess arranged a correspondence between him and the Queen. His letters to Marie Antoinette were real enough, but never delivered; the Queen's return letters were forgeries produced by Jeanne herself, or possibly her husband, or perhaps her "secretary" and lover, the gallant former-cavalier Retaux de Vilette.



The famous and scandalous Count Cagliostro, alchemist, healer and all-round man-of mystery, had been befriended by the Cardinal, and the Cardinal relied on Cagliostro's direction and ability to see into the future to direct his dealings with the "Queen". Cagliostro, who was nobody's fool, went into trances and told the Cardinal that he saw the Cardinal being favored by the Queen and rising to a very high post in the government.

The diabolical farce seemed to reach its climax with a midnight rendezvous in the Grove of Venus at the Palais-Royal Gardens, between the Cardinal and "Marie Antoinette" -actually an actress (or prostitute, or perhaps both, who could keep track at this point?) named Mademoiselle Leguay d'Olivia, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the Queen... and then the extravagant and fabulously costly diamond necklace entered the scene.

Ah, the necklace...

The Diamond Necklace had been made several years earlier "on speculation" by a firm of Parisian jewelers who had assumed they could sell it to Madame du Barry. When that did not work out they tried to interest Marie Antoinette in the necklace, and although she had been tempted, she considered it too extravagant and had refused to purchase it. Now the jewelers, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because of the interest payments on the money they had borrowed to buy the stones, approached the Countess, who openly boasted about how close she was to the Queen, and asked her to persuade Antoinette to buy the overwrought bauble which was worth as much as a full-rigged warship.

Jeanne shrewdly took the matter to the Cardinal, who was very much inclined to negotiate a purchase he thought would endear him further to Marie. Once more the Cardinal consulted the Count Cagliostro, and once more Cagliostro went into a trance and foresaw the Cardinal enriched and rewarded by the Queen with a post at the highest rank of the government.

More outrageous lies, deception and forged letters ensued, and in the end the Queen agreed to purchase the necklace, or so the lovesick Cardinal and desperate jewellers were led to believe. The jewelers delivered the necklace to the Cardinal, and the Cardinal delivered it to a trusted servant of the Queen (or so it appeared) and then the necklace simply vanished!

Gee, bet you didn't see that coming, eh?

Next: Scandal, Trial, & Revolution!

Our New Summer Catalog-

The Book Elves hate mowing the lawn, and will try just about anything to make the job easier. As gas prices rose last summer they decided to experiment with what they termed “natural mowers” which turned out to mean livestock. Sheep were very good at clipping grass to a uniform height but were also very timid and kept taking cover on the front porch whenever the neighbors let their dogs out. Goats were less timid, but after they chased the dogs back to the neighbors’ yard, the goats proceeded to eat more than 300 tulips and daffodils that they found there. This year the Book Elves have returned to machinery for mowing, but before they duct-taped three old Sears Craftsman riding mowers together and took out an entire row of azaleas, they finished our new Summer catalog-

"Recent Acquisitions for Summer, 2007" features 131 old and new books on antiques, arts, and related topics, including ceramics, furniture, glass, silver, folk art, and much more! You can browse the catalog online.

Highlights include-

* The 1835 edition of one of the most outspoken cabinetmaking books of the 19th century

* The elegant 1883 catalog of the Joseph Mayer Museum of Medieval manuscripts, ivory carvings and other arts.

* A very scarce, privately-printed 1928 catalog of the Woodward Collection of early Maiolica.

* A nice 1907 trade catalog of ice harvesting tools and equipment.

* A very clean copy of Thompson's 1860 "Universal Decorator", filled with colored plates and articles about Victorian arts.

* A very interesting 1883 study of practical electric lighting.

* An unusual Czech catalog of Art Deco furniture.

* A good set of Waagen's 5-volume 1854 study of art collections in England.

-and much more!

See the catalog here.

Down by the River...

I don't collect old photos per se, but whenever I run onto an interesting one I tend to buy it. So I guess I do collect them. Anyway, I found this image interesting. It's a silver print, ca 1890-1900, showing a family somewhere in the American southwest, "getting back to Nature", Victorian-style-



I loved this photo the second I saw it, with its formally dressed, starched-collar family perched (seemingly) comfortably atop a boulder in a rugged river canyon. Anyone who has ever hiked in the canyons of Utah or Arizona will appreciate the difficulties involved in traveling along a rock-strewn river bank in patent-leather shoes, not to mention dressing in dark, volumous clothes, as these good people were, with the harsh sun beating down on you.



We've come a long way in terms of dressing comfortably for such activities in the past seventy-five years or so. Of course, these days we do have to change before dining at the lodge...



The photo shows some interesting details- a high white collar, cross and long gold chain worn by the mother, stiff collar and bowtie on the father, and short gold choker with what appears to be a cross, along with an enormous hair ribbon, worn by the daughter-



The father's shiny black dress shoes and the dainty bow-topped shoes the daughter is wearing were simply not made for climbing across wet rocks-



The father's umbrella and multiple gold rings, and the daughter's gold bracelet are nice touches in this wonderful picture. Obviously Victorian-era hikers were made of sturdier stuff than we are today... but maybe not. A few years ago Amy and I were visiting Bryce Canyon and we went on an afternoon hike along one of the longer trails. We'd been hiking in the back country of southern Utah the week before, and so we automatically put on our big hiking boots, and carried our backpacks with snacks and plenty of water. You're unlikely to get into too much trouble in Bryce, but hey, why take chances? Toward the end of the hike, on the way up, out of the canyon, we passed a group of French women tourists on their way down. They were all immaculately dressed and coifed, and many were wearing fashionable black pumps. Chatting happily with each other and evidently having a grand time, they could just as easily have been walking down 5th Avenue in New York. As we trudged by them in our boots and backpacks, we felt terribly over-dressed. Maybe it's all just a state of mind...

Memorial Day

On Sunday Hatfield held its' annual Memorial Day parade and ceremony. The parade marches down Main Street. It's quite a small parade, but it's quite a small town-







The Smith Academy marching band won the National Marching Band Championship in Pennsylvania last week, quite an achievement considering Smith Academy has about 400 students and was competing against much larger schools-









There were several speeches and VFW presentations in Smith Park afterwards. Hatfield has several service members in Iraq, and the young Marine in the background is about to be deployed there. The chaplain of the Hatfield V.F.W., who read the names of members who died this year, is in the dark blue suit on the far right; he's also my barber.

A fly-over of A-10's from nearby Westover AFB was scheduled, but did not happen during the ceremony. After the ceremony we walked home, which is only a few hundred yards down the street from the park. About half an hour later we were sitting on the deck eating lunch, and a pair of A-10s slowly flew over at about 2,000 feet, then came back around a few minutes later, as if they were looking for something... then, about a minute later they came screaming directly over our deck at about 400 mph, only 100 feet off the ground, which was quite a way to end the day!

Really Unique Collectibles...

This op-ed piece from today's New York Times relates to one of the 20th century's more macabre collecting sagas. If I recall correctly, New York autograph & maunscript auctioneer Charles Hamilton once sold the relic, and wrote about it in one of his books, published in the 1970s. I had not heard much about it since then, but apparently it's back...

Collect-Me-Nots
By JUDITH PASCOE
New York Times: May 17, 2007

THE owner of Napoleon’s penis died last Thursday in Englewood, N.J. John K. Lattimer, who’d been a Columbia University professor and a collector of military (and some macabre) relics, also possessed Lincoln’s blood-stained collar and Hermann Göring’s cyanide ampoule. But the penis, which supposedly had been severed by a priest who administered last rites to Napoleon and overstepped clerical boundaries, stood out (sorry) from the professor’s collection of medieval armor, Civil War rifles and Hitler drawings.

The chances that Napoleon’s penis would be excised so that it could become a souvenir were improved by his having lived and died at a moment when the physical remains of celebrities held a strong attraction. Shakespeare didn’t become Shakespeare until the dawn of the romantic period, when his biography was written, his plays annotated and his belongings sought out and preserved. Trees that stood outside the bard’s former homes were felled to provide Shakespearean lumber for tea chests and tobacco stoppers.

After Napoleon’s capture at Waterloo, his possessions toured England. His carriage, filled with enticing contents like a gold tongue scraper, a flesh brush, “Cashimeer small-clothes” and a chocolate pot, drew crowds and inspired the poet Byron to covet a replica. When Napoleon died, the trees that lined his grave site at St. Helena were slivered into souvenirs.

The belief that objects are imbued with a lasting essence of their owners, taken to its logical extreme, led to the mind-set that caused Mary Shelley to keep her husband’s heart, dried to a powder, in her desk drawer. Of course, relic collecting long predates the romantic period; medieval pilgrims sought out fragments of the True Cross. In the aftermath of the Reformation, religious relics that had been ejected from monasteries joined secular collections that freely intermingled belemnites with saints’ finger bones. When Keats died, his hair took on the numinous appeal of a religious artifact.

Napoleon’s penis was not the only Napoleonic body part that became grist for the relic mill. Two pieces of Napoleon’s intestine, acquired by the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1841, provoked a long-simmering debate beginning in 1883. That year, Sir James Paget called the specimens’ authenticity into question, contrasting their seemingly cancerous protrusions to the sound tissue Napoleon’s doctor had earlier described. In 1960, the dispute continued in The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, long after the intestine pieces had been destroyed during a World War II air raid.

Dr. Lattimer, a urologist, could claim a professional interest in Napoleon’s genitalia. Not so its previous owner, the Philadelphia bookseller and collector A. S. W. Rosenbach, who took a “Rabelaisian delight” in the relic, according to his biographer, Edwin Wolf. When Rosenbach put the penis on display at the Museum of French Art in New York, visitors peered into a vitrine to see something that looked like a maltreated shoelace, or a shriveled eel.

Whether the object prized by Dr. Lattimer was actually once attached to Napoleon may never be resolved. Some historians doubt that the priest could have managed the organ heist when so many people were passing in and out of the emperor’s death chamber. Others suggest he may have removed only a partial sample. If enough people believe in a possibly spurious penis, does it become real?

The pathos of Napoleon’s penis — bandied about over the decades, barely recognizable as a human body part — conjures up the seamier side of the collecting impulse. If, as Freud suggested, the collector is a sexually maladjusted misanthrope, then the emperor’s phallus is a collector’s object nonpareil, the epitome of male potency and dominance. The ranks of Napoleon enthusiasts, it should be noted, include many alpha males: Bill Gates, Newt Gingrich, Stanley Kubrick, Winston Churchill, Augusto Pinochet. Nevertheless, the Freudian paradigm has never accounted for women collectors, nor does it explain the appeal of collections for artists like Lisa Milroy, whose paintings of cabinet handles or shoes, arrayed in series, animate these common objects.

It’s time to let Napoleon’s penis rest in peace. Museums are quietly de-accessioning the human remains of indigenous peoples so that body parts can be given proper burial rites. Napoleon’s penis, too, should be allowed to go home and rejoin the rest of his captivating body.

Judith Pascoe, a professor of English at the University of Iowa, is the author of “The Hummingbird Cabinet: A Rare and Curious History of Romantic Collectors.”

Silly Sunday

The Latest Batch of T-Shirt Sayings-

Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.

What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?

I'm visualizing duct tape over your mouth.

The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.

I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.

Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.

I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.



How about never? Is never good for you?

You sound reasonable...Time to up my medication.

I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

I don't work here. I'm a consultant.

My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!

It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.

At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.

You validate my inherent mistrust of strangers.

Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.

New Catalog-

The Book Elves have always loved gardening, although they tend to have too little patience to be really successful at it. Plants grow slowly in the spring, that’s all there is to it, but the Elves are never lacking in ingenious ways to speed things up. The 50,000-candlepower flood lamps to give the seedlings 24-hour light for a “jump start” got shut down by the Audubon folks when the local owls began going nutty from sleep deprivation.

Their next project for “getting those plants up and running at their full potential” (as they put it) involved a set of surplus Army “all-weather” loudspeakers, and endless tape loop, and a set of self-motivation tapes they bought on Ebay. It didn't end up doing much for the plants, but the local robins have been building the most amazing nests since they started playing those tapes...

But before they decided to use an old surplus hot-water heater to "bathe" the soil with hot-water and we ended up with boiled cabbages and carrots, they finished our latest catalog-

RECENT ACQUISITIONS for MAY, 2007 is now available as a printed catalog, or on our website. It features 115 books and catalogs on art and antiques, including furniture, silver, textiles, painting, metals, ceramics, and glass. Highlights include-

-A lovely copy of an important 1931 exhibition of American folk art.
-A very uncommon 1916 Pennsylvania Museum furniture exhibition catalog.
-Israel Sack's copy of an important American ceramics book.
-A scarce 1887 book on wig-making.
-The catalog to a very important 1879 Wedgwood exhibition.
-An elegant and unusual 1821 book about a set of silver buttons with engravings of 'La Chasse', inspired by Napoleon's coat.
-The 1851 memoirs of a famous American folk painter.
-A striking 1867 collection of colored designs for marquetry.
-The catalog to the first exhibition of the Pewter Collector's Club of America.
-A rare an early Tiffany & Company Centennial Exposition promotional booklet.
-The 1836 biography of the Father of the American Industrial Revolution.
-A scarce 1853 book on Pietre Dure with 2 beautiful colored plates.

and much, much more!

Request your printed copy, or browse the catalog on our website.

Silly Sunday...

Actual advertisements-

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Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.

Stock up and save. Limit: one per customer.

Semi-annual After-Christmas sale.

3-year old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred.

Dinner special - Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.

Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home.

We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.

For sale: Three canaries of undermined sex.

Great dames for sale.

Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it.

Vacation special: have your home exterminated.

Get rid of aunts. Zap does the job in 24 hours.

Toaster: A gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast.

For rent: 6-room hated apartment.

Used cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first.

Christmas tag sale. Handmade gifts for the hard to find person.

Wanted: Hair cutter. Excellent growth potential.

Wanted: Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

And now, the Superstore -- unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience.

We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.00.

- - -

A New Parian Book-

We've just gotten copies of a newly-published book on Parian, and it's a beauty!

"Parian. Copeland’s Statuary Porcelain" is by Robert Copeland. Hardcover. 8.5”x11”, 352 pages, profusely illustrated in color and b/w, dj. New. $89.50

"Parian – a high-quality, unglazed porcelain – was developed in the early 1840s by Copeland & Garrett, which was the first company to exhibit it in 1845. Its purpose was to provide small sculptures for the public at a time when full size marble statues were gracing the homes of wealthy people. Examples exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition stimulated the demand initiated by the Art Union of London in 1845 and promoted further in the next forty years by other Art Unions.

‘Parian – Copeland’s Statuary Porcelain’ tells this fascinating story in detail. The debate in the columns of the Staffordshire Advertiser as to which firm was the first to introduce Parian is also examined here in detail. The book goes on to describe the manufacturing processes of mold-making and the casting of the figures. Also included is a comprehensive catalogue of Copeland’s productions of statuettes, groups and portrait busts."

Happy May!

It's May Day, and a beautiful Tuesday here at Foggygates. Time to throw off all the old winter clothes and dig out our Spring Hats-



Time also to dig out our Sporting Togs-



Happy May, everyone!

Father Himalaya-

I'm afraid I'm a bit behind in blogging this week- we were in New York for four days last week through the weekend, and then I had to rush to get the new catalog to the printer. But now that's all done, and as I was sitting here, browsing through images on my computer, I came across the picture you see to the left, which is part of a very interesting tale...

We once had a book which had the ownership inscription of a "Father Himalaya". Being curious, I did some digging and discovered a really amazing man-

Manuel Antonio Gomes 'Himalaya' [1868-1933] was known as "Father Himalaya", and is considered to be the father of solar energy in Portugal, and a visionary pioneer in the field of renewable energy. After taking Holy Orders in the Society of Jesus he studied natural sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics and astronomy, and traveled to France where he studied with the noted chemist Marcelin Berthelot. In 1899 he was granted a patent by the French government for a device to produce heat by focusing the sun's rays.

In 1900 he constructed a test device in the Pyrenees and attained a temperature of 1100 degrees centigrade. In 1902 an experiment in Lisbon attained 2000 degrees, and he made a final, startling demonstration of the power of such a device at the St. Louis Exposition in Missouri 1904. There he constructed his "Pireliofero" (that's it in the picture), a 3-story high parabolic mirror mounted on a monstrous iron framework which focused sunlight on an oven mounted at the top of the structure. The oven reached a temperature of 3500 degrees, melting a test chunk of basalt, and Father Himalaya won a Grand Prize for his efforts.

He promoted other forms of renewable energy as well, including tidal energy and hydroelectric power, wind power, and geothermal power. Alas, there was plenty of cheap coal and oil available, and his work was generally ignored and forgotten. Father Himalaya retired to become chaplain at Viana Castle, a charity home, where he died at the age of 65. His work has excited interest in Europe in recent years, and his ideas have only lately attained a measure of the respect which eluded them in his lifetime.

That's what I love about bookselling- you find out all sorts of things you didn't even know you were looking for.

Our New Books on Glass Catalog-

Glass and the Book Elves have always been uneasy companions, whether we are talking about flying croquet balls going through plate glass windows or the fact that if you are going to buy a rare and expensive Lalique clock on Ebay you had better make sure the trademark is spelled with a "q" and not a "k"...

But before their latest "let's see how high we can stack the Baccarat stemware" contest crashed down to its inevitable, messy conclusion, they finished our "Books on Glass & Glassmaking" catalog. This catalog features 151 books and other items about antique glass, glassmakers, glass technology, and the history of glass.

Highlights include-

-A 1919 history of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers.

-An 1835 guide to Crown Glass cutting and glazing, written by the "Glass Cutter, Glazier and Stained Glass-Maker to the King of Scotland".

-A bound compendium of 19th century glass patents.

-An 1898 and a 1940 history of the Worshipful Company of Glass-Sellers.

-An uncommon catalog of a leading Arts & Crafts designers' work, including stained glass windows.

-The extremely scarce true first, private, edition of the first book on American glassmaking.

-A nice 1880 glass lamp catalog.

-Two early 19th century editions of Neri's "Art of Glass", including a rare edition published by Sir Thomas Phillipps' Middle Hill Press in 1826 in an edition of 100 copies.

-A ca.1810 broadside of terms for London Plate Glass Manufacturers.

-and many standard glass reference books.

The catalog is available in printed format, or you can see it here.

Monday, Monday...

A beautiful spring morning at Foggygates! It's going to be near 80 today, a day to sit on the porch with a good book and sip lemonade instead of hunkered down over the computer in my office. For those commuting to work today to their own offices, it could be worse- you could have to deal with boarding the commuter train using the railway's new "Super-Dooper Express Service"...

Monday, Monday...

Another cold and rainy start to the week here at Foggygates- I think I'm beginning to notice a trend.

In fact, it's so rainy here in New England that all the Patriot's Day celebrations and activities have been called off- all the parades in Concord and Arlington and the other towns, the re-enactment of the embattled farmers standing up against the British troops at Lexington Green -everything. About the only Patriot's Day acitvity going on is the Boston Marathon, and I understand that they are offering free snorkel equipment to the runners.

But even as the rain continues and I keep checking the basement for flooding, I'm reminded that there are worse ways to start the week...

I could, for example, be a human traffic light-

Silly Sunday...

An industrial engineer was given a ticket by his boss for a performance of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony."

The next morning, the engineer sent the following note to the orchestra's conductor:

MEMORANDUM:

1. For a considerable period, the oboe players had nothing to do. Their number should be reduced, and their work spread over the whole orchestra, thus avoiding peaks of inactivity.

2. All 12 violins were playing identical notes. This seems unnecessary duplication, and the staff of this section should be drastically cut. If large volume of sound is required, this could be obtained through use of an amplifier.

3. Much effort was involved in playing the 16th notes. This seems an excessive refinement, and it is recommended that all notes should be rounded up to the nearest 8th note. If this were done, it would be possible to use paraprofessionals instead of experienced musicians.

4. No useful purpose is served by repeating with horns the passage that has already by handled by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, the concert could be reduced from two hours to 20 minutes.

5. This symphony has two movements. If Schubert didn't achieve his musical goals by the end of the first movement, then he should have stopped there. The second movement is unnecessary and should be cut. In light of the above, one can only conclude that had Schubert given attention to these matters, his symphony would probably have been finished by now.

The Value of Art...

An interesting quote from an 1862 periodical review of the loan collection of art treasures that had just gone on view at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A)-

"Art, far more than use, is the stimulus of expenditure. A sense of art makes Mrs. Brown envy and finally outshine Mrs. Jones’s d’Aubusson carpet, though her own Brussels was but little the worse for wear. Art urges Mrs. Jones to emulate Lady Robinson’s Minton dinner-service, while her previous set (over which Jones grumbled so much at Copeland’s only the year before last, and of which but one sauce-boat and three plates are yet broken) subside to lower shelves in her pantry as second best. Art relegates to the second-hand dealer in Tottenham-court-road those armchairs which Sir John Robinson so long persisted in proving to be perfectly comfortable, by dropping off in one of them every time Lady R. delivered her tirade on their shortcomings."

Trilobites and Fossils and Megatheriums- OH MY!!

In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was accepted practice to furnish museums with casts of all types, from classical statues to trilobites, and I thought I'd share some illustrations from an interesting catalog, published in 1866, which served the latter trade.

Henry A. Ward's "Catalogue of Casts of Fossils, from the Principal Museums of Europe and America, with short descriptions and illustrations" , offered a complete and comprehensive listing of fossils, from minute Ammonites to a complete Plesiosaur or a Megatherium, many taken from originals at the British Museum.

In the 1860s and 1870s dinosaurs were not yet a major subject for study- few had been discovered. Paleontologists were very excited though, by earlier plant and animal life, as shown here, and especially by another set of animals amply illustrated here- early mammals. The fight to discover and name early mammals was at least as heated as the dinosaur wars which would erupt a few decades later, because it was through these fossils that scientists were slowly attempting to prove Darwin's controversial theory of Evolution.

Ward catalogs everything in a scientific manner and also includes fossil tracks, and even replicas of the models shown at the Crystal Palace. At the rear of the catalog he offers skins and skeletons of contemporary American animals and also, grotesquely, "Aborigines -Indians of various Western Tribes: Skulls, from $15 to $25 each. (These are taken fresh, not disinterred from old graves)".

Henry Ward was one of the most interesting and omnipresent characters in Victorian natural history. After making a fortune supplying museums with natural history and paleontological exhibits he turned his attention to meteorites with the same zealous thoroughness. The chronicle of Henry A. Ward's career and various interests is well covered in Roswell Ward's 1948 biography.

I thought I'd finish here with the fold-out plate of a cast of one of the most famous fossils of the day, the Megatherium. My apologies- it's too wide to present here in a decent size unless I turn it on its' side-

Monday, Monday...

A sunny Monday morning at Foggygates, but unseasonably cold. They say it may snow Thursday...

Still, better to be driving to work on a Monday morning when the sun is out than when it is raining or cloudy. My wife's aunt from New York likes to tell a story about Monday mornings back in the '50s. She used to spend her Summer weekends at a popular resort area several hundred miles from the city, and there were a large number of Manhattanites on the last, late-night train back to the city on Sunday night. The train got into Grand Central station at about 3 a.m., and instead of waking everyone up, the engineer would simply pull the passenger cars off onto a siding and let everyone sleep. Along about 6 or 7 a.m. people would start to get up, brush their teeth and wander off to work.

The train, of course, is long gone, but I'll bet that a few booklovers manage to enjoy their Monday morning commutes-

What's in a Floor?

We have a beautiful book in our March catalog- H.F. Rodlich's "Praktische Anweisung zur Verfertigung der Venezianischen Estriche" is an 1810 guide to the art of making Venetian crushed-stone floors. It illustrates the tools and the step-by-step processes involved-

Venetian crushed stone floors are a rather difficult subject -very little material about them is available in the literature. Certainly the neo-classic elements are unmistakable, and the influence of recently excavated Roman ruins must have played a part in their popularity in Italy and, as this book illustrates, Germany.

The plates show the stone being prepared and colored, the floor surface being planned, laid-out and prepared, and the stone being applied and smoothed. The workmen are all stylishly dressed for such a dirty job, and appear very happy at their tasks. Young boys help with the work in a number of plates. Obviously a labor and time-intensive task, the laying of a stone floor is chronicled here in hand-colored plates that can only be described as jewel-like.

A scarce book, with only a single OCLC listing. Hardcover. 8.5"x10.5", 28 pages of text plus 24 hand-colored engraved plates on 12 leaves. We have a more extensive description in our March catalog.

Books on Furniture-

[update: when I posted this yesterday, Blogger, as it sometimes does, auto-converted the link I gave to our website to a Blogger-site link. I've corrected that now]

Just posted on our website-

We do love lists, and after some hard battles with wonky computers we've finished our latest Bibliography pages, which comprise our new Bibliography of Books about Furniture and Cabinetmakers!

These pages include entries for every book on furniture and cabinetmaking we have sold over the last decade. If you see a book listed which you would like to locate, please let us know.

We also have a printed catalog of books on furniture for sale- if you would like a free copy, please email us.

If you would like to see a list of books on furniture for sale from our stock right now, click here