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Temperamental!: Prints in the Collection of Bryn Mawr College

After Albrecht Dürer (German 1471-1528), St. Christopher Facing Left (1521). Engraving, monogram in plate, copy in reverse, X.402.

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1. After Paul Delaroche (French, 1797-1856), Napoleon Bonaparte (1870-75), after 1838 painting. Engraving; Gift of Abby A. K. Turner Van Pelt Grimscom, Class of 1952, Katherine Drexel Van Pelt Beaver, and Charles B. P. Van Pelt, VP.786. Dressed in military costume and with a sword at his hip, Napoleon poses confidently in the comfort of his study. Napoleon was known for his choleric nature, yet like Suyderhoef’s peasant above right, he also rests his right hand inside the opening of his jacket. This detail may appear odd, but it can be explained by the subject's social class. In depictions of peasants, this phlegmatic gesture was used to signify laziness. However, in depictions of the ruling class, the same gesture adopts the positive associations of temperance, leisure, and calm. Used in a depiction of Napoleon, the gesture may also be an ironic allusion to the subject's relatively low birth.
2. Alex Katz (American, b. 1927), Jessica (1994)published by the Print Club of New York, Inc. 3-color woodcut on Hosho paper, edition 79/200, signed in pencil, Gift of Jacqueline Koldin Levine (Class of 1946) and Howard H. Levine, 2012.27.508.
5. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528), St. Christopher Facing Left (1521). Engraving; monogram in plate; Gift of Eleanor May Morris, Class of 1941, MA 1970, in honor of Carol Biba, Head of Public Relations, Bryn Mawr College, 1950-1972; 2007.9.3.
6. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528), The Men's Bath House (late 16th century?) restrike of 1496-1497 original block. Woodcut on laid paper; monogram in plate; Gift of Howard L. Gray, Professor of History, 1915-1940; 1946.26
7. Albert Alexander Paul Rouffio (French, 1855-1911), Hérodias (c. 1878), after 1875 painting. Etching; signed in plate; Gift of Abby A. K. Turner Van Pelt Grimscom, Class of 1952, Katherine Drexel Van Pelt Beaver, and Charles B. P. Van Pelt; VP.346 While Symbolist artists of this period tend to focus on Salomé’s role in the death of John the Baptist, it was her mother Hérodias who ordered his beheading after he criticized her marriage to Herod. These artists, including Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, and Aubrey Beardsley, prefer to romanticize the dangerous but feminine allure of Salomé’s dance, rather than her mother’s more masculine, murderous rage as characteristic of the femme fatale. Rouffio, however, like Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) in his novella Hérodias (1877), shifts attention from the youthful daughter to Hérodias herself. His Hérodias reclines seductively, clutching her marital pillow and stroking the hair of the beheaded victim—an unnervingly calm, yet vengeful choleric. He discovers room for Hérodias to retain her femininity and depicts her as the femme fatale of this story.
8. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1511). Woodcut, published as plate 3/16 in Apocalypsis cum figuris (Latin edition, 1511, of The Apocalypse, 1497/1498), initialed in plate, Gift of Marcus Stanley, 2012.15.1

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Checklist of the Exhibition 64 structured_gallery 2020-08-17T20:31:29+00:00
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Checklist of Rare Books in the Exhibition
- Robert Burton (English, 1577–1640) The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostickes & seuerall cures of it. In three partitions, with their severall sections, members & sub-sections. Philosophically, medicinally, historicallly, opened & cut vp. Printed in English Oxford: Printed for Henry Cripps, 1638, fifth edition
- Johann Caspar Lavater (German, 1741–1801) Physiognomy, or, The corresponding analogy between the conformation of the features, and the ruling passions of the mind. Printed in English London: Printed for H.D. Symonds, not before 1790
- Johann Caspar Lavater (German, 1741–1801) The Pocket Lavater, or, The Science of Physiognomy: To which is added, An inquiry into the analogy existing between brute and human physiognomy, from the Italian of Porta. Printed in English Hartford: Andrus & Judd, 1832
- Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690) Expressions des Passions de L’Ame. Printed in French Paris, 1727
- Cesare Ripa (Italian, 1560–1645) Iconologia di Cesare Ripa Perugino, caure. De’Sti. Mauritio e Lazzaro: Nella quale si descriuono diuerse imagini di virtù, vitij, affetti, passioni humane, arti, discipline, humori, elementi, corpi celesti, prouincie d’Italia, fiumi, tutte le parti del mundo, ed altere infinite materie: ... Printed in Italian Siena: Appresso gli geredi di Matteo Florimi, 1613 Purchased with Seymour Adelman fund
- Cesare Ripa (Italian, 1560–1645) Iconologia di Cesare Ripa: Divisa in tre libri, ne I quali si quali si esprimono varie imagini di virtù, vitij, affetti, passioni humane, arti, discipline, humori, elementi, corpi celesti, prouincie d’Italia, fiumi, & altire materie infinite vtili ad ogni stato di persone. Printed in Italian Venice: C. Tomasini, 1645
- Hartmann Schedel (German, 1440– 1514) Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle). Printed in Latin Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493. Deposit of Phyllis Goodhart Gordon (BMC 1935)
- Otto van Veen (Dutch, 1556–1629) Amorum emblemata, figuris aeneis in cisa. Antuerpiae: Venalia apud auctorem, 1607
Temperamental Technologies
Is there a phlegmatic quality to printmaking, especially reproductive printmaking—its careful thinking in reverse, its slow process of carving an image into a copper plate or a wood block? Is there something choleric about the destruction required to produce an image—the immersion of an etching plate in acid, the gouging of a woodblock—even as these processes also demand self-control?
Held and passed from hand to hand, the early modern print was not simply experienced as an image, but as a fully material object. Thus, the image’s subject matter would not be the only element informing the interpretation of a print’s temperament. The hard stippling of a wood engraving might add a choleric severity to Fritz Eichenberg’s impression of otherwise phlegmatic men; while the dry, charcoal-like gradation of tone could lend a choleric heat to William Gropper’s lithograph of a hysteric.
The reproducible nature of prints meant that multiple impressions of a single image exist, but the quality of each impression varies. At Bryn Mawr, we have three prints of Dürer's engraving, St. Christopher; but not all these images are the same. One figure faces left, while two face right; thus, they could not have been made from the same plate. The original print was likely traced and then reproduced in reverse for the purposes of mass-production of the saint’s image. The print with the figure facing left has better tonal quality and more distinct lines than the other two engravings; research reveals that it faces the same direction as Dürer's original engraving.