AHIS 503 – Categories and Collections: PRINT
Spring 2006
GRI, Mondays 2-5p.m.
Office hours by appointment
Dr. Daniela Bleichmar
bleichma@college.usc.edu
Course description
The starting point for this course is a recognition that collections are often formed or organized by category.
The seminar will consider how print functions as a category of collecting, focusing on the early modern
period, 1450-1800. Over the last thirty or so years, cultural and social historians have emphasized the
enormous importance of print in the early modern world, proposing the much debated notion of a “print
revolution” of equal or greater importance to political, religious, and scientific revolutions. The study of print
has shed new light on old topics, such as the production and circulation of ideas, and sparked active lines of
research, most notably on the history of the book and reading. However, the history of print has
concentrated almost exclusively on the history of the printed word and tended to ignore the printed image
(even if there were many more viewers than readers in the early modern period). Similarly, while the history
of collecting has gained new momentum over the last few decades, very little attention has been paid to the
history of collecting prints when compared to the history of collecting other media. The course will focus on
the intersection of these two historiographical lacunae.
The course is divided into three parts. The first part will introduce students to print as medium, discussing on
the production of woodcuts, engravings, and etchings; the idea of print as a reproductive medium and
issues of originality, authenticity, and copy both in the early modern period and in twentieth-century
historiography; and the current state of scholarship on the history of collecting, the history of prints, and the
history of the book. The second part will consider the process of collecting prints, principally in the early
modern period and to a lesser degree in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by examining the print
market, guidelines for collectors, and individual collections as case studies. The third part will further explore
connections between the history of print collections and the history of the book by considering the illustrated
book as a print collection in itself, focusing on the encyclopedia (a single book as a collection of all
knowledge); the library (as collection of books); the connections between text, image, and epistemology;
and the body in print.
Course Mechanics
Each week, we will devote the first half of the seminar to discussing the readings and the second half to
discussing primary materials from the Getty’s Special Collections that pertain to the week’s topics. This
means that in preparation for each meeting, students will be responsible for two tasks:
(1) Conducting the assigned readings for classroom discussion; and
(2) Making an appointment in Special Collections the week prior to each meeting, in order to examine
the items that we will be discussing in seminar. A list of items to be studied in Special Collections
will be distributed prior to each meeting; all items will be set aside for the class in a special cart
labeled with my last name and the class title.
In addition, we will visit the print collections at the Huntington Library and LACMA.
Course Requirements
The success of the seminar format depends on your attendance, dutiful completion of the reading
assignments (which are challenging in both length and content), and active participation during our
meetings.
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AHIS 503 – Categories and Collections: Print
Oral assignments (50% of final grade): Each student will act as discussion leader twice over the course of
the semester, preparing a short (ca. 10-min.) introduction to the week’s readings and setting up questions
for discussion. Each student will also give one short presentation on an item from special collections that
relates to the week’s readings. This item may be selected from the week’s primary materials (a list will be
distributed each week) or be the student’s own choice.
Written assignments (50% of final grade): The major requirement for the seminar is a final research paper
(about 30-pages in length) on a topic of relevance to the course. Students will submit an abstract of their
final paper and an annotated bibliography on Monday 04/17. Abstracts will be discussed at the final meeting
of the seminar (Monday 04/24), when students will be asked to give a short presentation on their research
paper.
Readings
Books will be placed on reserve at the USC AFA library and the GRI library. (NOTE: since USC does not
own all of the books we will be using, please make sure to check Homer before searching for a title at AFA.
All titles should be at the GRI.)
A course reader with all articles will be available for purchase from Magic Machine.
Seminar schedule
WEEK 1 (01/09): Introduction to the seminar
Course overview, discussion of seminar mechanics.
---------------------------------------- PART 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO PRINTS ----------------------------------------WEEK 2 (01/16): No class (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)
WEEK 3 (01/23): The renaissance print
1. Landau, David and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996)
ADDITIONAL READING / REFERENCE:
Ivins, William, How Prints Look: Photographs with Commentary, rev. and expanded ed. by Marjorie B. Cohn
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1987)
Griffiths, Antony, Prints and Printmaking. An Introduction to the History and Techniques (London: British
Museum, 1980)
WEEK 4( 01/30): A reproductive medium? Print as original and copy
1. Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004)
2. Karpinski, Caroline, “The Print in Thrall to its Original: A Historiographic Perspective,” in Kathleen
Preciado (ed.), Retaining the original: multiple originals, copies, and reproductions (Washington:
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National Gallery of Art, 1989), pp. 101-109
3. Muller, Jeffrey M., “Measures of Authenticity: The Detection of Copies in the Early Literature on
Connoisseurship,” in Kathleen Preciado (ed.), Retaining the original: multiple originals, copies, and
reproductions (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1989), pp. 141-149
4. Link, Anne-Marie, “Carl Ludwig Junker and the Collecting of Reproductive Prints,” Print Quarterly XII
no. 4 (December 1995): 361-74
LOOK THROUGH:
5. Zorach, Rebecca and Elizabeth Rodini (eds.), Paper Museums: The Reproductive Print in Europe,
1500-1800 (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, The University Of Chicago, 2005)
WEEK 5 (02/06): The history of prints, the history of collecting, and the history of books: a historiographical
blitzkrieg
1. Fun with journals! In order to get a sense of the state of the field, hit the stacks and browse through the
last fifteen years of at least two journals in the history of collecting prints and books (more if you have
the time and stamina). The point of the exercise is to get a quick historiographical overview (not to go
crazy). Choose one article that encapsulates either (a) some of the most important concerns of that
journal during those years or (b) an aspect of the publication that strikes you as particularly worthy of
discussion, and come ready to talk to the seminar about it for a couple of minutes.
Look at a minimum of one of these primary journals:
a) Print Quarterly
b) Journal of the History of Collections
c) Book Collector
And look at either another of those three journals, or one of the secondary journals available at the GRI
(from a list I’ll distribute in class).
2. Ivins, William, Prints and Visual Communication (New York, Da Capo Press, 1969)
3. Benjamin, Walter, “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”
ADDITIONAL READING:
4. McKitterick, David, Print, Manuscript, and the Search for Order, 1450-1830 (Cambridge, UK, and NY:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), ch. 3: “Pictures in Motley,” pp. 53-96, notes pp. 252-265
5. Griffiths, Antony, “The Archaeology of the Print,” in Christopher Baker; Caroline Elam; and Genevieve
Warwick (eds.), Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500-1750 (Aldershot, England and
Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), pp. 9-27
---------------------------------------- PART 2: COLLECTING PRINTS ----------------------------------------WEEK 6 (02/13): The market
1. Clayton, Timothy, The English print 1688-1802 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), selections
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AHIS 503 – Categories and Collections: Print
2. Lippincott, Louise, Selling Art in Georgian London. The Rise of Arthur Pond (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983), pp. 1-10, 55-74, 98-165
3. Martin, Sylvie, “Robert-Menge Pariset.The Difficulties of a Lyon Printseller in the Eighteenth Century,”
Print Quarterly XII no. 3 (September 1995): 231-52
4. Jones, Malcolm, “How to decorate a Room with Prints, 1674,” Print Quarterly (2003), vol. XX, no. 3, pp.
247-9
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WEEK 7 (02/20): No class (President’s Day)
*** EXTRA MEETING*** VISIT TO THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY: EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
1. Pointon, Marcia, Hanging the head: portraiture and social formation in eighteenth-century England
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), ch. 2: “Illustrious Heads,” pp. 53-78
2. Peltz, Lucy, “The Pleasure of the Book: Extra-illustration, an 18th-century Fashion,” Things (Summer
1998), v. 8, pp. 7-32
WEEK 8 (02/27): Early modern print collectors (1)
1. Parshall, Peter, “Art and the Theater of Knowledge: The Origins of Print Collecting in Northern Europe,”
in Print Collecting in Sixteenth and Eighteenth Century Europe, Harvard University Art Museums
Bulletin, vol. II no. 3 (Spring 1994): 7-36
2. Griffiths, Antony, “Print Collecting in Rome, Paris, and London in the Early Eighteenth Century,” in Print
Collecting in Sixteenth and Eighteenth Century Europe, Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, vol. II
no. 3 (Spring 1994): 37-58
3. McDonald, Mark P., The print collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539): a Renaissance collector
in Seville (London: British Museum Press, 2004), selections
4. McDonald, Mark P., “The Print Collection of Philip II at the Escorial,” Print Quarterly (1998), vol. XV, no.
1, pp. 15-35
Primary sources available electronically through “Eighteenth Century Collections Online” (ECCO). From a
USC-networked computer, go to http://was.usc.edu/eresources/isd/ and do a keyword search for ECCO.
5. Piles, Roger de, The art of painting, and the lives of the painters (London, 1706) [English translation of
Abrégé de la vie des peintres, 1699], ch. 27, “On the Usefulness and Use of Prints,” and ch. 28, “Of the
Knowledge of Pictures,” pp. 69-92
6. Richardson, Jonathan, Two discourses (London, 1719), vol. II, pp. 193-200 (on prints)
7. Dubos, abbé (Jean-Baptiste), Critical reflections on poetry, painting and music, (London, 1748), vol. I,
pp. 392-3
WEEK 9 (03/06): Early modern print collectors (2)
1. Bury, Michael, “The Taste for Prints in Italy to c. 1600,” Print Quarterly (March 1985) vol II, no. 1, pp.
12-26
2. Brookes, Anne, “Richard Symonds and Thomas Isham as Collectors of Prints in Seventeenth-Century
Italy,” in Edward Chaney (ed.), The evolution of English collecting: the reception of Italian art in the
Tudor and Stuart periods (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 337-395
3. Bury, Michael, “Giulio Mancini and the organization of a print collection in early seventeenth-century
Italy,” in Christopher Baker; Caroline Elam; and Genevieve Warwick (eds.), Collecting Prints and
Drawings in Europe, c. 1500-1750 (Aldershot, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2003),
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pp. 79-84
4. Dethloff, Diana, “Sir Peter Lely’s Collection of Prints and Drawings,” in Baker, et al., Collecting Prints
and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500-1750 (Aldershot, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing,
2003), pp. 123-139
5. Christopher Baker, “The Aldrich Prints: A Late Seventeenth-Century Collection, its Sources and
Arrangement,” in Edward Chaney (ed.), The evolution of English collecting: the reception of Italian art in
the Tudor and Stuart periods (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 396-426
6. Robinson, William W, “‘This Passion for Prints’: Collecting and Connoisseurship in Northern Europe
during the Seventeenth Century,” in Clifford S. Ackley, Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt (Boston:
Museum of Fine Arts, 1981), pp. xxvii-xlviii
7. Véronique Meyer, “The Inventory of Gilles Rousselet (1610-1686),” Print Quarterly (1985), vol. 2, no. 4,
pp. 299-308
8. Cohn, Marjorie B., A Noble Collection: The Spencer Albums of Old Master Prints, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Harvard University Art Museums, 1992, pp. 11-55, 288-292
LOOK THROUGH catalogue, artist checklist pp. 293-365
WEEK 10 (03/13): No class (Spring Break)
WEEK 11 (03/20): Collecting prints in the 19th and 20th centuries
1. Griffiths, Antony, Landmarks in print collecting: connoisseurs and donors at the British Museum since
1753 (London: British Museum Press and Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1996), selections
2. Choose your own adventure: Look through at least one of the following guides for the print collector,
taking note of the categories they use, the attributes they emphasize, the recommendations they make
to potential collectors. (All on reserve at the Getty.)
a) Willshire, William Hughes, An introduction to the study & collection of ancient prints, 2nd
ed. (London: Ellis & White, 1877)
b) Whitman, Alfred, The Print-Collector’s Handbook [1901] (Detroit: Tower Books, 1971)
c) Bayard, Émile, L’art de reconnaître les gravures anciennes (Paris: E. Gründ, 1925)
d) Smith, André, Concerning the education of a print collector; with a technical supplement
illustrating the different methods of print making by Harry Sternberg and Will Barnet (New
York, Harlow, Keppel & co., [1941?])
e) Zigrosser, Carl and Christa M. Gaehde. A guide to the collecting and care of original
prints, sponsored by the Print Council of America (New York: Crown Publishers, 1965)
f) Brown, J.H.U. A guide to collecting fine prints (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989)
g) Turner, Silvie, Print collecting: selecting, evaluating and caring for fine prints (New York,
NY: Lyons & Burford, 1996)
3. LOOK THROUGH: Lawrence’s dealer print prices international (Phoeniz, AZ: Gordon’s Art Reference,
Inc., 1998-2002), on reserve at the Getty and also available as an electronic resource
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---------------------------------------- PART 3: PRINTS AND BOOKS ----------------------------------------WEEK 12 (03/27): Books as collections: the rise of reference works and the encylopedia
1. Heesen, Anke te, The World in a Box: The Story of an Eighteenth-century Picture Encyclopedia
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002)
2. Chartier, Roger, “Libraries without Walls,” Representations (Spring, 1993), no. 42, Special Issue: Future
Libraries, pp. 38-52
3. Yeo, Richard R., “A Solution ot the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia (1728) as
‘The Best Book in the Universe’,” Journal of the History of Ideas (Jan., 2003), vol. 64, no. 1, Special
Issue: Early Modern Information Overload, pp. 61-72
WEEK 13 (04/03): Collecting books: libraries
1. Naudé, Gabriel, Instructions concerning erecting of a library [John Evelyn’s translation of Advis pour
dresser une bibliothèque] (London, 1661) [Available through “Early English Books Online” (EEBO),
through a USC-networked computer.]
2. McKitterick, David, “Introduction” and “Books and Other Collections,” in David McKitterick (ed.), The
making of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), pp. 1-27 and 50-109
3. Chartier, Roger, The order of books: readers, authors and libraries in Europe between the fourteenth
and eighteenth centuries, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994),
ch. 3.
4. LOOK THROUGH: Latham, Robert (series editor), Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene
College, Cambridge, 7 vols. (Cambridge, England: D.S. Brewer, 1978-1994
** Especially vol. 3 parts I and II, “Prints and drawings”
WEEK 14 (04/10): Text, image, and epistemology
1. Daston, Lorraine and Peter Galison, “The image of objectivity,” Representations, 40 (1992): 81-128
2. Macgregor, William B., “The authority of prints: an early modern perspective,” Art history (1999), v. 22,
no. 3, pp. 389-420
3. Parshall, Peter, “Imago contrafacta: images and facts in the northern Renaissance,” Art History (1993)
16: 554-79
4. Kusukawa, Sachiko, “Leonhart Fuchs on the importance of pictures,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 58:
403-427
WEEK 15 (04/17): The body in print: the erotic and the medical
1. Stewart, Philip, Engraven desire: Eros, image & text in the French eighteenth century (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1992)
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2. Jordanova, Ludmilla, “Gender, generation and science: William Hunter’s obstetrical atlas,” in Nature
displayed. Gender, science and medicine 1760-1820 (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pp.
183-202
LOOK THROUGH:
3. Russell, H. Diane, with Bernadine Barnes, Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque prints
(Washington: National Gallery of Art; New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York:
1990)
4. Cazort, Mimi; Monique Kornell; and K.B. Roberts; The ingenious machine of nature: four centuries of art
and anatomy (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1996)
WEEK 16 (04/24): Seminar overview and student presentations
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STUDENT SIGN-UP
SHEET
Week
Discussion leader
Discussion leader
Special collections
3 (01/23)
4 (01/30)
5 (02/06)
6 (02/13)
8 (02/27)
9 (03/06)
11 (03/20)
12 (03/27)
13 (04/03)
14 (04/10)
15 (04/17)
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