Category: German

Frederick Justen and ‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo’: An intriguing Italian print in Cambridge UL’s 1870-71 collection

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, French, German, Italian, Special collectionsLeave a comment

Frederick Justen (1832-1906), working at Soho-based Dulau & Co. booksellers, produced different sets of caricatures from the Franco-Prussian and the Commune (1870-71), including some at Cambridge University Library, at the British Library and Heidelberg University Library. A close inspection of one of the prints in the sixth and final volume of Cambridge University Library’s 1870/71 caricatures (KF.3.9-14) shows the challenges raised by the identification of the subjects of the caricatures and suggests that Justen updated the collection as late as October 1878. Digitised in late 2020 and the subject of an online display, some of these prints are currently exhibited in the Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Library. One of the particularly interesting facets of this collection is the existence of similar sets, all produced by Justen. Despite sharing the same red binding, title page and 1872 article from the Atheneum advertising the sets, the various Justen collections are not identical. This diversity provides ample room for investigation, and one entry point is the case of an Italian print in Cambridge’s sixth volume entitled ‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo’, which appears to have been printed much later than any other print found in this compilation.

‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo‘, Cambridge UL, KF.3.14, p. 148

Continue reading “Frederick Justen and ‘Il Gallo di Alfredo il Piccolo’: An intriguing Italian print in Cambridge UL’s 1870-71 collection” →

Karl Friedrich Schinkel: more than Berlin’s architect

On By europeancollectionsIn German, Historical collections, Special collections1 Comment
Birch and cane dining chair, 1825, in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, my own photo

Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) was a pre-eminent contributor to the 19th century planning of the city of Berlin, and several of the imposing buildings that he designed can still be admired today in the centre of the city – for instance, the Konzerthaus, the Neue Wache and the Altes Museum. It is now 200 years since he started work on his plans for this museum, the first of several to make up the Museum Island complex. Like many, I knew of him as an architect so I was surprised when I saw a simple chair, perhaps designed by him, during a pre-pandemic visit to Berlin’s splendid Kunstgewerbemuseum. This inspired me to look beyond his architecture and so this blog post will explore non-architectural aspects of his work and feature items from the University Library’s collections. Continue reading “Karl Friedrich Schinkel: more than Berlin’s architect” →

Remembering Kisch, a pioneer of reportage

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We have just taken delivery of Egon Erwin Kisch: die Weltgeschichte des rasenden Reporters by Christian Buckard (C219.c.5125). A welcome addition to our collections of works on Kisch, this is a new biography of the writer who died 75 years ago in his native Prague, after a fascinating life packed full of travels and adventures. He was a prolific writer, chiefly of factual reportage, and had a reputation for lively and hard-hitting writing with politics at the forefront. Not especially well known now, he was after his death highly regarded in East Germany as he had been an exemplary communist but was perhaps overlooked in West Germany, although a journalistic writing prize set up by the founder of Stern magazine was named after him in the 1970s. Continue reading “Remembering Kisch, a pioneer of reportage” →

Mennonites and their many migrations

On By europeancollectionsIn Dutch, German, Historical collections1 Comment

One winner (best adapted screenplay) in the 2023 Oscars is Women talking, a film adaptation of the novel by the Canadian author Miriam Toews, a fictional response to real events that took place in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. When I first heard about this it prompted me to look into the history of the Mennonites. I was fascinated by the numerous moves groups of them had made during the last 500 years. This blog post will look at some of the main migrations during that time and also consider the Mennonites’ Low German dialect, Plautdietsch, which they have preserved across the world. The UL has a huge number of resources, both print and online, on the Mennonites, showing that their beliefs, culture and language are of great interest to researchers.

Menno Simons, picture by Rijksmuseum via Wikimedia Commons

The name Mennonite was used to refer to Dutch Anabaptists (there were others in Switzerland and Germany) and was derived from Menno Simons, a Catholic priest who turned away from Catholicism and became a leader of the Anabaptist movement in the Low Countries during the time of the Reformation (Anabaptist simply means “one who is baptised again”, referring to the belief that baptism of infants was wrong and that only adults who could knowingly profess their faith should be baptised). Mennonites in the Netherlands were regarded as heretics and were suppressed and persecuted not just by the prevailing Catholics but also by other Protestants. Continue reading “Mennonites and their many migrations” →

The Schnitzler collection of Jeffrey B. Berlin

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Portrait of Schnitzler in F191.b.1.3

In August 2022 we were privileged to receive seven boxes containing several hundred volumes of works by the famous Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler. The books come from the library of the late Professor Jeffrey B. Berlin and were generously offered as a gift to the University Library by his widow, Anne Berlin. We happily accepted the offer as this comprehensive collection of the printed works of Arthur Schnitzler complements our existing renowned collection of Schnitzler manuscripts.

Professor Berlin, who died in 2021, was a highly respected Germanist with a particular interest in the literature of fin de siècle Vienna. He is best known for the extensive edition of Stefan Zweig’s correspondence (749:37.d.95.126-129) published by S. Fischer 1995-2005. Prof. Berlin also published numerous papers on Arthur Schnitzler and was for many years a member of the editorial team of Modern Austrian Literature, the journal of International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association. He was responsible for the annual Schnitzler bibliography published in this journal which inspired him to assemble his collection of Schnitzler’s published works. Continue reading “The Schnitzler collection of Jeffrey B. Berlin” →

Marianne Werefkin: a pioneering modernist

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Self-portrait on the cover of S950.b.201.5000

I was interested to hear about the Making Modernism exhibition which opened at the Royal Academy in November and continues until 12 February. It is described as “the first major UK exhibition devoted to pioneering women working in Germany in the early 1900s” and highlights four women in particular. Three of these, Kӓthe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Gabriele Münter, were familiar names to me and indeed have been mentioned previously in our blog post on German Expressionism in Leicester. But I had not heard of Marianne Werefkin (1860-1938) and she seemed worthy of further exploration.

She was born into Russian nobility, and as a young woman her artistic talents were recognised and encouraged, with lessons from the renowned artist Ilya Repin. In the 1890s she moved to Munich with her partner Alexej von Jawlensky who was also an artist. At this time she was probably the more skilled painter of the pair but chose to allow her art to take a back seat for a time in order to support his development. She embraced a more expressionist style of painting in the early 1900s and was one of the founders of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München which was a forerunner of the important Der Blaue Reiter movement. Continue reading “Marianne Werefkin: a pioneering modernist” →

Petra Kelly: an influential Green

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Cover of Petra Kelly: eine Erinnerung (2007)

Environmental concerns are dominant issues of the 21st century as we grapple with what we can all do to lessen the negative impact of human activities on our planet. But it was not always so, and the topics of concern have also changed over time. Back in the early 1980s my German A-level conversation classes often featured subjects such as acid rain (now largely forgotten) or debates around nuclear power. This reflected a growing interest in environmentalism in Germany where the Green Party (Die Grünen) had been established in 1980, one of the first in Europe. A founder member was Petra Kelly, born on 29 November 1947. 75 years on, and also just over 30 years since her untimely death, this blog post explores her life and legacy. Continue reading “Petra Kelly: an influential Green” →

Prinzhorn’s influential book, 100 years on

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The idea for this blog post came to me in 2021 when I read a review of an engaging new book, Charlie English’s The gallery of miracles and madness (e-Legal Deposit) in which I first learnt of Hans Prinzhorn’s Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (S400:05.b.9.337). This groundbreaking book analysed the artwork of disturbed psychiatric patients, with just over half of it devoted to detailed descriptions of ten artists, given pseudonyms to protect the reputation of their families. The book was first published 100 years ago in 1922; the University Library copy is a reprint from 1923, demonstrating the book’s popularity. In his The Discovery of the art of the insane (9000.b.1564) John MacGregor describes Prinzhorn’s work as “an unequaled contribution to the study of the art of the mentally ill.”

Cover and title page of our 1923 edition (click on image to see enlarged): Prinzhorn demanded of his publisher that the cover be black with a runic font

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Interned artists (2): Hugo Dachinger and Hellmuth Weissenborn

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I wrote in an earlier blog post about John Heartfield and Kurt Schwitters who shared the experience of being interned during World War Two. This post will highlight two more artists interned by Britain because they were foreign nationals: the Austrian Hugo Dachinger and the German Hellmuth Weissenborn. After the war both men made Britain their home until their deaths much later in the 20th century. Continue reading “Interned artists (2): Hugo Dachinger and Hellmuth Weissenborn” →

A new acquisition: the Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war by Percy Cruikshank (1870)

On By europeancollectionsIn English, French, German, New Acquisitions, Special collectionsLeave a comment

We are delighted to be able to shed light on the recent purchase by Cambridge University Library Special Collections of a satirical Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war. Illustrated by Percy Cruikshank, it probably dates from the end of 1870. It relates to both the exhibition of the Cambridge collection of 1870-71 caricatures held at the University Library this spring, and the academic conference on the Memory of 1870-71 held at Wolfson College by Marion Glaumaud-Carbonnier and Nick White last month.

Unfolded panorama in the Rare books reading roomThe Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war, published in London by F. Platts & Mann Nephews, was “painted by PC from the sketches of Messrs. Smith, Brown, Jones & Robinson”. The full signature of Percy Cruikshank (1817-1880) appears repeatedly within the images themselves. Percy came from an illustrious family of caricaturists: he was the son of Isaac Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), the nephew of George Cruikshank (1792-1878), and the grandson of Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811). He contributed caricatures of the Franco-Prussian war to the British satirical humour magazine Judy or the London Serio-Comic Journal (named after Punch and Judy). The highly collaborative nature of the panorama is interesting given the reference to no less than four sketchers. Continue reading “A new acquisition: the Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war by Percy Cruikshank (1870)” →