Women’s Health. Giovanni Antonio Terenzoni (1663-1746)
De Morbis Uteri.

Lucca: Typis Peregrini Frediani, 1715.

First edition, quarto, bound in full contemporary gilt-tooled parchment, the last few signatures browned due to the paper stock, light worming to last three leaves, 8 1/2 x 6 in.

Terenzoni’s work in fourteen chapters explores diseases affecting women and includes observations gleaned from his work performing forensic autopsies.

De Renzi, IV p. 475.

Huber, Marie (1695-1753)
The World Unmask’d: or, the Philosopher the Greatest Cheat.

London: Printed for A. Millar, 1736.

First edition in English, octavo, A4, B-Z8, Aa-Ff8, some spotting to contents, bound in contemporary full English calf, sprinkled and tooled in blind, rubbed, both boards detached, 8 x 5 in.

Marie Huber was born in Geneva to a Protestant family and lived in Lyon. In this first English edition of her work, Monde Fou Préferé au Monde Sage, Huber writes from the perspective of Pietism, a Lutheran movement of the Reformed branch that privileges a disciplined Christian lifestyle defined by individual piety. Rousseau read her work, refers to her in the chapter “Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard,” in Book Four of Émile, and was inspired by her.

ESTC T59678.

Valier, Agostino (1531-1606)
Della Istruzione delle Donne Maritate.

Padua: Apresso Gioseppe Comino, 1744.

Octavo, woodcut printer’s device to title, a very large copy with completely untrimmed edges, in the original provisional limp paper covers, 7 1/2 x 5 1/4 in.

This small book of advice to married women by the Bishop of Verona is very rare. Originally printed in 1577, neither that edition nor this reprint appear in the auction record.

Federici 2187.

Women, Great Britain, 18th Century, Two Titles.

Including: George Ballard's (1706-1755) Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the learned languages arts and sciences, Oxford: Printed by W. Jackson for the Author, 1752, first edition, quarto, contemporary calf boards, amateurishly rebacked, 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 in.;

[together with] William Alexander's (d. 1783) The History of Women from the Earliest Antiquity to the Present Time, London: for W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1779, first edition, two quarto volumes, contemporary speckled calf, some damage to leather on the boards and spine, rebacked, original spines and labels relaid, 11 x 8 3/4 in. (3)

Raffald, Elizabeth (1733-1781)
The Experienced English House-keeper.

Manchester: Printed by Harrop for the Author, and sold by Fletch & Anderson; and by Eliz. Raffald, Confectioner, near the Exchange, The Book to be signed by the Author’s own Hand-writing, 1769.

First edition, signed by Raffald on the first page of chapter one; with two folding engraved plates (detached, one with corner torn away, not affecting the image), showing how to set the table for the first and second course of a formal meal; bound in full sheepskin ruled in gilt (worn, front board detached), contents stained and spotted, seven leaves formerly torn out and carefully stitched back together with thread, last leaf of calendar torn with loss of text to diagonal inner margin; a good candidate for restoration, some minor worming to inner margin, 8 1/8 x 5 in.

Raffald was able to change her station from housekeeper to published author and operator of an number of inter-connected businesses, including an employment placement agency for domestic workers, a cooking school, and a catering business. She also sold jellies, pastries, pickles, ketchup, cuts of meat, and fresh fish, in addition to imported olives, plums, citrus, dried fruit, nuts, and spices.

This work contains the first recipe for a Bride Cake (as Raffald styles it) best known in the present era as the now ubiquitous wedding cake. She may also be the innovative baker who came up with the first Eccles cake (a hand pie filled with currants). As a safeguard against printing piracy, Raffald signed every single copy of all her published books, as is the case here. Even so, recipe theft plagued her even beyond the grave; one of the chief offenders was Isabella Beeton (1836-1865).

Rare, ESTC lists nine copies in U.S. libraries; ESTC T82678.

Seward, Anna (1742-1809)
Monody on Major Andrè.

Lichfield: Printed and sold by J. Jackson for the Author, sold also by Robinson, Cadell & Evans et al., 1781.

Large quarto, signed by Seward on page 28, bound in 19th century half red morocco, sympathetically rebacked, 10 1/4 x 8 in.

Seward was distraught when Major John André was executed under charges of espionage by the Americans during the Revolutionary War. André had courted Honora Sneyd (d. 1780), Seward’s very close and beloved friend, more like a sister. He was caught up in Benedict Arnold’s traitorous exploits at West Point. Seward blames George Washington in particular, “Remorseless Washington! the day shall come of deep repentance for this barb’rous doom!” Washington sent evidence to Seward after the poem came out, affirming that he did not directly participate in the case as accused.

Sabin 79478; ESTC T41382.

Sacchini, Antonio (1730-1786)
Renaud Tragedie Lyrique.

Paris: Chez le Duc, 1783.

Ex libris Madame la Baronne de Montesquiou, with her name tooled boldly in large gilt letters on the front board; bound in full contemporary diced russia, with gilt floral tools in each corner, musically themed tooling to spine panels, aeg, very nicely preserved (some minor worming), engraved throughout, 12 3/4 x 10 in.

Sacchini dedicated his first opera for the French stage to Marie Antoinette. The baroness who owned this copy was Jeanne Marie Hocquart de Montfermeil (1743-1792), who married Anne-Pierre, Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1739-1798) in 1760 at the age of seventeen. Her portrait by Elisabeth Vigée le Brun survives. Presumably a patron of the arts, in addition to being a book collector, a symphony by composer Jean-François Tapray was dedicated to Madame la Baronne in 1781.

Califronia, Rosa, pseud. (fl. circa 1794)
Breve Difesa dei Diritti delle Donne Scritta da Rosa California Contessa Romana.

Assisi: [Si vende nella Stamperia Taglioretti al Cordusio in Milano], 1794.

First edition, octavo, A-G8, bound in contemporary decorated limp paper wrappers, 6 1/8 x 4 1/8 in.

This proto-feminist work represents a milestone in the Early Modern Italian conversation on gender. Califronia refutes the scornful polemic treatises on “female nature” written in her day. She argues that human rights should apply to women as well, since they possess mental capacities equal to men. She also maintains that education should be provided equally to both women and men, since women in their intellectual abilities are as reasonable and capable as men.

This work reflects a certain conservative spirit but reiterates the refusal to reduce the characteristics of women to their physical and biological conformation (a tendency shared by some French Ideologists), and the injustice of morally judging women based on their condition.

Rare.

Stanhope, Eugenia (d. 1783)
The Deportment of a Married Life.

London: Printed for Mr. Hodges & Sold by C. Mason, 1798.

Second edition, a reissue of the 1790 with a new title page and first signature, published anonymously, bound in contemporary marbled calf, original red spine label, front joint cracked, ex libris Walter Strickland, with his armorial bookplate, 8 1/4 x 5 in.

Although one may expect Stanhope to have antiquated views on marriage and a woman’s role, in her own life she bore two children out of wedlock and married only four years after the second was born. Her husband kept her a secret from his family, and only upon his death did Eugenia’s father-in-law, 4th Early of Chesterfield learn of her existence, and that of his two grandsons. He duly provided for the grandchildren in his will but left Eugenia flat. She decided to provide for herself by selling her deceased husband’s unpublished letters of advice to his sons. Their content was considered immoral at the time but made Eugenia financially independent. One wonders whether that first foray into publishing inspired her to take up her own pen.

ESTC T123797; rare at auction.

The Lady’s Magazine.

London: Printed for G. Robinson, January-December, 1809 and supplement. [and] London: Printed for G. & S. Robinson, January-December 1813 and supplement.

Two octavo volumes, each illustrated throughout, general engraved titles for each year, twenty-four hand-colored costume plates, each of the issues with engraved frontispieces, and folding engraved patterns for embroidered borders, nice copies with some occasional foxing, bound in contemporary half leather bindings with marbled paper boards, the 1813 volume with a board supplied from another book, 8 1/4 x 5 in.

A resurgence in the study of women’s lives has brought better focus on The Lady’s Magazine, published in England between 1770 and 1818. Bringing together, national and international news, original fiction, music, practical household tips, embroidery patterns, clothing plates, and more, these popular periodicals were prized by their audience. In this period, and for the gender, the reader-contributor model produced thousands of pseudonymous pieces by writers who had few outlets for their work. For more, enjoy exploring at this link: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/ladys-magazine/

Sand, George (1804-1876)
Pauline, Signed & Inscribed Copy.

Paris: Magen et Comon, 1841.

Octavo, from a set of Sand’s complete works, signed on half-title, “à mon ami / Harrisse / G Sand / Nohant 8 juillet / 68” to Henri Harrisse, with his signature on verso of endleaf; bound in contemporary half green morocco with marbled paper boards, 8 1/2 x 5 1/4 in.

Harrisse was an author in her own right and wrote on the history of the Americas.

D’Héricourt, Jenny (1809-1875)
A Woman’s Philosophy of Woman; or Woman Affranchised. An Answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardi, Legouvé, Comte, and Other Modern Innovators.

New York: Carleton, 1864.

First edition in English, octavo, xiv, [17]-317 pages, 6 pages of publisher’s ads bound after the text; bound in brown publisher’s cloth with an allover honeycomb pattern, stamped in blind, gilt-lettered spine (sunned), some light foxing to contents, 7 1/4 x 5 in.

D’Héricourt was a physician-midwife and feminist activist. She took misogyny head on, writing directly to writers who published their denigrating assessments of women. In the second section of this work, d’Héricourt is concerned with the following topics: the modern communist’s take on women, objections to the emancipation of women, nature and functions of woman, love: its function in humanity, and marriage, ending with a summary of proposed reforms, and an appeal to women. “How will [woman] become the equal of man in civil dignity? When she shall hold a place on the jury and by the side of all civil functionaries; shall be a member of boards of trade and mercantile associations; and shall be a witness in all cases in which the testimony of man is required. […] Why ought every field of occupation to be accessible to woman? Because woman is a free being, whose vocation no one has a right to contest or to restrict.”

Cooper, Susan Fenimore (1813-1894)
Autograph Letter Signed, 24 January 1885.

Single laid bifolium inscribed over two and a half pages to William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) regarding some reading material that Bryant sent, including a description of something Cooper calls “the Red Jacket ceremonies,” likely a transcript of Red Jacket’s (c. 1758-1830) oration to the Senate delivered in 1805 and reprinted in The World’s Famous Orations, edited by Bryant; neatly written, signed in full, some adhesions from an old mount on blank verso, 6 x 4 in.

Cooper states that her father, James Fenimore Cooper, “always had in his library works connected with the Red Man, and these always had a great attraction for me.” She notes, “As I grew older […] a feeling much stronger succeeded, grief and shame at our national disgrace, and lack of justice, and wisdom in dealing with the wild race whose place we have taken.”

Cooper was an accomplished artist, published naturalist, writer, and illustrator. In the present letter, she writes the following. “I have several times attempted to publish historical sketches of the People of the Long-House, having taken great pains to make these sketches accurate by consulting the best authorities, but no publisher would print them. They were rejected without being read. ‘No one cares to read a book about Indians’ was the answer I received on a dozen different occasions.”

Thoreau praises Cooper’s 1850 work, Rural Hours, in his journal. Modern scholars have suggested that some very memorable passages from Walden were likely inspired, suggested, or perhaps borrowed directly from Cooper’s earlier work. (cf. Johnson, Rochelle, and Daniel Patterson, eds. Susan Fenimore Cooper: New Essays on Rural Hours and Other Works. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001.)

Aguilar, Grace (1816-1847)
The Jewish Faith: Its Spiritual Consolation, Moral Guidance, and Immortal Hope.

Philadelphia: Published at 1227 Walnut Street, 5624 – 1864.

First American edition, octavo, 446 pages; containing Leeser’s preface, in which he describes his rejection of the immortality of the soul, for which Aguilar argues in this book; bound in later half leather, artlessly repaired with a piece of cloth tape, ex library Jews’ College London, with a few rubber stamps, a good candidate for restoration, 7 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.

Aguilar descended from a Sephardic family originally living in Portugal, that fled the Inquisition in the 18th century. She was an accomplished published novelist in her own lifetime, also writing nonfiction and works regarding Judaism that were published after her short life ended at the age of thirty-one. She and Charlotte Montefiore collaborated on The Cheap Jewish Library, Dedicated to the Working Classes, beginning in 1841. The project provided “a context in which female authors corresponded and encouraged one another in publication, […] thus contributing to the beginnings of a Jewish women’s movement in England.” (cf. “Montefiore, Charlotte Simcha”; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press)

Singerman 1812; rare at auction.

Weaving, Dying, and Recipes: Two 19th Century American Imprints.

Including: J. & R. Bronson’s The Domestic Manufacturer’s Assistant, and Family Directory in the Arts of Weaving and Dyeing, Utica, NY: Printed by William Williams, 1817, first edition, octavo, 204 pages, bound in full contemporary speckled sheepskin with gilt ruling and red lettering piece on spine, rubbed, but structurally sound and well-preserved, with bookseller’s price tag, “Price One Dollar Fifty Cents,” on pre-printed label within a border pasted inside the front board, errata leaf pasted inside back board most of which is torn away, contemporary annotations to the text; text contains instructions for dozens of different weaving patterns with typographical representations of loom dressing, and dye recipes for many colors on different fabrics, including descriptions of raw materials used in the manufacture of dyes like nutgalls, madder, brazilwood, fustic, weld, turmeric, woad, indigo, annatto, cochineal, tin, aqua-fortis, blue vitriol, alder, butternut, birch, hemlock, maple, walnut, and oak bark, sumac, and peach leaves; Shaw & Shoemaker 40323; Rink 3307.

[Together with] Mrs. Putnam’s Receipt Book, Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields, 1849, first edition, octavo, 131 pages; by Elizabeth H.L. Putnam, bound in full publisher’s brown ribbed cloth, worn, with many signs of sloppy cooking to contents; four pages of publisher’s ads dated January 1, 1849 bound at the beginning; text includes more than 200 recipes covering everything from soup to breads, seafood, and desserts, including ice cream; copious spills on the pages with molasses gingerbread and Indian pudding recipes. (2)

Stone, Lucy (1818-1893)
Carte-de-visite.

Boston: Warren’s, [1870s].

CDV on a standard mount, not creased or trimmed, some discoloration to photo background, 4 1/4 x 2 1/2 in.

Stone was one of the early female graduates of Oberlin College, finishing her bachelor’s degree there in 1847. She had a long career as an advocate of the suffragist movement, the abolition of slavery, and lived a life that exemplified female liberation. When she married a man, she kept her own name, and they split household expenses evenly. Stone was also involved in dress reform, the sometimes-controversial process by which women of this period cast off whalebone corsets and dresses that dragged on the ground, opting instead for bloomers under shorter skirts paired with tops and jackets.

Anthony, Susan B. (1820-1906)
Photographic Portrait with Clipped Signature.

Silver print by Ellis signed in the print [likely William Shewell Ellis (1876-1931)], taken circa 1900; signature clipped from a cancelled check, with seven small holes punched through the first three letters of Susan, tacked to the photo; matted, 5 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.

Press Photos, Historic Women, Five Examples.

Including black-and-white press images of the following subjects in various sizes: Clara Barton (1821-1912); Florence Nightingale (1820-1910); Mother Jones (1837-1930) two images; and Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962). (5)

Montez, Lola (1821-1861)
The Arts of Beauty; or, Secrets of a Lady’s Toilet. With Hints to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascinating.

New York: Dick & Fitzgerald Publishers [W.H. Tinson, Stereotyper; E.O. Jenkins, Printer], [1858].

First American edition, 12mo, half-title present, 132 pages, twelve pages of ads; bound in full contemporary publisher’s red cloth, with blind stamped boards. gilt spine and front board titles, some surface grime to binding, in a very good to excellent state of preservation; some foxing to contents, pencil signature to half-title, 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.

Montez’s factual biography reads like fiction. She was born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in County Limerick, and spent her early years between India and the U.K. She was dancing professionally at the age of sixteen. Montez had affairs with Franz Liszt, Alexander Dumas, and others. As a performer, she most likely engaged in sex work as well; in polite society she was described as a courtesan. Her power in this position reaches its apex in Munich, where she wielded great influence over King Ludwig I of Bavaria as his mistress. Between 1846 and 1848, her role in the court caused rather profound political upheaval, ultimately resulting in Ludwig’s abdication from the throne. Marriages, affairs, and controversy came and went in subsequent years as Montez traveled to Australia and the United States, performing and dancing professionally. Montez is buried in Brooklyn, where she succumbed to syphilis in January of 1861. Aspects of her story have been portrayed in many period and modern films and novels, and she may be the inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Irene Adler. At the time of her death, Lola Montez was thirty-nine years old.

Hawes Terhune, Mary Virginia [aka Marion Harland] (1830-1922)
Diary, 1846-1853, Later Carbon of Typed Transcription.

Presumably unpublished diary comprising 349 numbered pages with text typed on one side only, written by Hawes between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three, recounting her experiences, including family and personal events and feelings, in addition to mentions of her writing, with references to “my embryo work,” [page 320] and time spent writing; 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets held in a binder, with an additional twelve-page typed transcription of a letter to her mother originally written in 1863; two small snapshots of an elderly woman; [and] nine photographs of an unidentified historic home, as found.

Hawes Terhune was a very successful novelist and writer of cook books who began writing and publishing at the age of fourteen. She wrote twenty-five novels, and the same number of non-fiction works on household management and cooking. Notable contributions include her novels Alone, and The Hidden Path, and the wildly successful Common Sense in the Household.

The present diary was written before her marriage. She describes her process in vivid detail. “I write much now– to give my mind food, every kind of labor is distasteful– it would rather brood in silence over its own fancies and griefs, but I force it into other channels.” “I must work, while the day lasts. I do not retire at night, until I am so weary that I sleep as soon as I touch the pillow, and I lay down my pen only to seek my couch.” Even as an accomplished published novelist, Hawes’s work makes her different and opens her to social criticism. “As a compliment [a friend] repeated an observation made in relation to me by an admirer and friend. ‘She is intellectual, writes finely, but her intellect will neither get her a husband, provide comforts for him, or make him happy.’ ‘I wish I could tell you his name, ‘said she; ‘you are very intimate with him.’ […] Bitter thoughts swelled in my soul this afternoon as I trod the street alone.” (See pages 261 ff.) A great writer is always great to read, and Hawes is no exception in this candidly and sharply written journal. The typist has not taken credit for their work, but Hawes’s biography does contain the tantalizing note that she taught herself how to type after breaking her wrist at the age of seventy.

Alcott, Louisa May (1832-1888)
Little Women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.

Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1869.

[Together with] Little Women, Part Second, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1869; two 16mo volumes, volume one early issue, illustrated with four wood engravings after May Alcott; with note advertising the second part present on page 341, without “Part First” on spine, Little Women part one only listed in the ten pages of advertisements after the text, available priced at $1.50; volume two first edition, without note about part one on page iv, eight pages of publisher’s ads; both volumes bound in publisher’s green cloth, oval title within Greek key border stamped in gilt on both front boards and spines; ex libris Hattie Flagg Tidd (1858-1910) of Stoneham, Massachusetts, with her signature in each volume, noting that the books were received as a birthday present, Hattie’s birthday was June 1; in 1869, she was eleven years old; bindings a bit worn, shifting somewhat, some worming to the rear pastedown of the second part; other signs of use, 6 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.

“One of the pleasantest books we have read for a long time is, Little Women, the story of four young girls, –Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. This is a thoroughly natural and charming book, fresh and full of life, and we heartily recommend it to all young people, big or little. We gave it to a little girl of twelve to read, for whose opinion we have great respect, and she pronounced it just the nicest book. ‘I could read it right through three times, and it would be nicer and funnier every time.’ And, to our certain knowledge, she read it twice in one week, and would have read it again had not the book been carried off.”– Putnam’s Magazine

Alcott, Louisa May (1832-1888)
Little Women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.

Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.

[Together with] Little Women, Part Second, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870; two 16mo volumes; volume one illustrated with four wood engravings after May Alcott; with note advertising the second part present on page 341, without “Part First” on spine, Little Women both parts listed in the ten pages of advertisements after the text, available priced at $3.00; volume two illustrated by Hammatt Billings with note concerning the publication of part one present on page iv, “Stereotyped by Regan and Leadbeater, 55 Water Street, Boston” printed on verso of title page, eight pages of publisher’s ads; with “Part Second” on the spine; both volumes bound in publisher’s terra cotta cloth, very tattered, with losses, sewing breaking apart, a well-loved set, originally presented to Agnes M. Willson as a New Year’s gift from her father in 1871, with gift inscriptions in both volumes; possibly Agnes Margaret Willson, born in New York circa 1860, who married George E. Stoddard in Walpole, Massachusetts in April of 1899; 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.

Used and tattered copies of Alcott’s work with contemporary inscriptions remind us of the instant popularity and enduring qualities of the tale. This small book about the struggles of mid-19th century American women has worked its way into the culture in a very personal way. Writing was survival for Alcott. Being paid to publish, especially when she was able to retain the copyright, provided her with an ongoing stream of income for herself and her family.

Woodhull, Victoria (1838-1927) & Tennessee Claflin (1844-1923)
Five Cartes-de-visite, circa 1870.

Three cards of Woodhull, two images of the same pose, one printed by Geo. Stinson & Co., in Portland, Maine, one unmarked, the third New York: G.W. Thorne; and two images of Claflin in which she is identified as “Broker” on both; some toning, other slight defects, each 4 x 2 1/2 in. (5)

In 1870, Woodhull and Claflin were the first women to open a Wall Street stock brokerage. Their father was a snake oil salesman and occasional sham attorney or physician. The two girls were exploited for profit by their father who promoted them as psychic mediums in their early years, a career they continued to cultivate in young adulthood.

The brokerage was very successful, and the profits enabled Woodhull and Claflin to publish their own eponymous weekly radical newspaper. Advocates of the Free Love movement (which pushed for women’s right to marry, divorce, and have children without social or state restrictions), their paper was also the first in the U.S. to publish Marx’s Communist Manifesto in English. Woodhull and Claflin ran for President and Vice President of the United States in the 1872 election, nominated by the Equal Rights Party. They faced stiff disapproval and opposition and were often simply ignored. Anthony Comstock jailed both sisters for publishing an obscene newspaper at the time of the 1872 election, making it impossible for them to attempt to vote or promote their feminist and suffragist causes. Both women left New York for Great Britain in 1877.

Bernhardt, Sarah (1844-1923)
Signed and Inscribed Portrait Illustration.

Paris, 1903.

Print of Bernhardt wearing a theatrical costume, seated, arms outstretched, looking up and away, her face in profile, signed and inscribed to a René Choret (?) with a short message, signature, and date (some gaps to the bottom margin repaired, corner and marginal tear repairs, toned, 11 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. [together with] two unsigned Goupil cabinet cards from Paris, one reproducing the famous Clairin portrait, the other showing her dressed as the Queen of Spain in the 1879 production of Hugo’s Ruy Blas. (3)

Cassatt, Mary (1844-1926)
Denise Holding her Child.

Drypoint, circa 1905, second state of two; printed on cream laid paper with small bunch of grapes watermark; full margins, a very good impression with significant burr in the mother’s hair; 8 1/4 x 5 7/8 in.

Breeskin 204.

Vassar College, Tintype Album circa 1865.
Harriet Griggs Barnes (1845-1918)

Miniature album containing fifty-two gem portrait tintypes, approximately seventeen identified in pencil, with a note taped inside the ffep identifying Griggs, and mentioning Vassar; Griggs and her mother are both represented and identified; the majority of the images depict women, although whether any others attended Vassar is unclear; male sitters include four images of the same young man at different ages, including two in which he wears his military uniform, his kepi has the initials “JG”; and two photos of a puppy; rouge has been added to cheeks of most sitters, some plates trimmed to ovals; a few with surface cracking, the last three album pages empty; the album in period gilt-tooled red morocco with brass clasp, aeg, spine panel detached, chipped at head and tail, some of the paper overlays holding the photos to the heavy card album pages torn, 3 1/2 x 3 in.; the tintypes 3/4 x 1 in.

Harriet (Hattie) Griggs (1845-1918) enrolled as a freshman in the inaugural Vassar College class for its first school year in 1865. She was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts to parents from the East coast. The family was living in Ohio when her younger brother was born, and then moved to Minnesota in the 1860s. She lists Faribault, Minnesota as her hometown at the time of her college enrollment and is recorded living at the same location on the census of 1870. Although she did not graduate, she did go on to marry Civil War veteran Elmer John Barker of the 5th New York cavalry in McHenry, in Illinois in 1876. She had three sons who lived to adulthood and a daughter who passed away in her first year. The details of Griggs’s life seem to indicate that her parents explored an adventurous lifestyle in the middle part of the 19th century. She eventually settled in Crown Point, New York, on the west shore of Lake Champlain. Although Griggs herself never graduated, her daughter-in-law, Harriet Provost Fisher (1886-1974) successfully completed her Vassar degree in 1907, and her granddaughter, Janet Barker (1916-1973) was in the graduating class of the college in 1937. (cf. Vassar College. Alumnae Biographical Register Issue, page 438; Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 1939.)

Weaver, Anna K. (born circa 1847)
Cast Thy [Anchor] in Heaven.

Connecticut, circa 1875.

Photogram after a cyanotype or photogenic drawing, with the words spelled out in ferns, mounted on a period board (toned, brittle, and chipped at edges and corners), with her stamp on the verso.

Weaver served as a missionary in Bogota, Colombia in the 1870s. She was inspired to create and sell these religiously themed mottoes to financially support her missionary work. Contemporary notice of her life and work was made in Vol. V of the journal, Woman’s Work for Woman, October 1875, No. 8, pages 270-271. “The mottoes are exquisitely beautiful, made of green fern leaves, and then photographed. The background is dark, and the motto stands forth as though carved in marble, each vein and thread of the tiny leaves being clearly depicted.”

Käsebier, Gertrude (1852-1934)
Woman Artist.

Circa 1910.

Platinum print with Käsebier’s signature on recto; the image measuring 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in., the mount 10 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.

Käsebier started formal arts training at the Pratt Institute in the late 19th Century and opened her successful portrait studio in 1897. She was a devoted follower of the Pictorialist style, which sought acceptance of photography as a fine art, and she became celebrated for her photographic depictions of motherhood and domestic scenes. A founding member of the Photo-Secessionist group along with photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz and Clarence White, Käsebier’s work appeared in many photographic publications and exhibitions of the period

Brown Chittenden, Alice (1859-1944)
Lone Mountain.

Circa 1910.

Oil on board depicting a cross on the mountain with a few shacks and a tent in the foreground, later frame, the board 14 x 10 1/2 in., 19 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. overall.

Brown Chittenden depicted Lone Mountain more than once in her career. We have traced a different oil on board and a watercolor with the same basic composition and elements. The temporary housing in the piece was originally set up to shelter survivors of the 1906 earthquake and stayed in place for years.

Brown Chittenden is considered the foundational San Francisco female painter of the 19th century. Her success in creating botanical paintings, portraits, landscapes, and pastels earned her gold and silver medals at various expositions. An active promoter of the rights of women, she considered herself a “New Woman.” This term was used by feminists [notably Sarah Grand (1854-1943)] to describe an educated, independent person who earned her own money and exercised complete autonomy, free from male domination.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins [aka Stetson] (1860-1935)
The Yellow Wall-Paper.

New England Magazine, Boston: New England Magazine Corp., September 1891-February 1892.

The first appearance of the story in print, occupying pages 647-656, with three illustrations by Joseph Henry Hatfield (1863-1928), bound in later boards, awkwardly attached at the inner joints (preliminaries glued tightly to inside of front board), other defects to contents include spotting, marginal tears to inner gutters of the story; waterstained at the end, some tears to other parts of the book, 9 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.

The autobiographical Yellow Wallpaper is part of the feminist canon. It appears in countless textbooks and is the Feminist Press’s bestseller. Gilman had suffered through Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell’s (1829-1914) unsuccessful “rest cure” for her depression at her husband’s behest. Scholarship by Julie Bates Dock on the work has shown that later reprints contain textual changes when compared to this first edition.

“In its twenty-five-year odyssey of rediscovery by literary critics, […] the story has picked up along the way an assortment of blemishes and distortions, from textual anomalies to skewed accounts of its publication history to misinformation about its contemporary reception.” (cf. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the History of its Publication and Reception: a Critical Edition and Documentary Casebook, published in the Penn State series in the History of the Book, Penn State Press, 1998.)

Munson, Laura Gordon (fl. circa 1864)
Flowers from my Garden. Sketched and Painted from Nature.

New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, 1864.

First edition, large quarto, illustrated with eighteen lithographic plates painted in many colors by hand; each subject accompanied by verses; introductory poem by Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865); Munson’s frontispiece is a large basket of flowers that includes many of those illustrated separately, viz., crocus, pansies, forget-me-not, lily of the valley, rose campion, rose, fairy bell, day lily, thunbergia, heliotrope, cypress vine, morning glory, jessamine, verbenas, blue fringed gentian, and autumn leaves; bound in publisher’s green textured cloth, blocked in blind with gilt illustrated title, neatly rebacked, original spine replaced, coated white endleaves decorated with gilt pattern, 11 3/4 x 10 1/2 in.

Bennett page 81; McGrath page 209; Worldcat http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63571097, listing six copies in U.S. libraries.

The Working Women’s Relief Association.
The Women’s Journal.

Philadelphia: Printed by Ringwalt & Brown, 15 September and 15 October 1864.

Two issues: Vol. 1 Nos. 1 & 2; each eight folio-format pages, on uncut sheet, (old folds, minor dampstaining, light edge wear), each with contemporary “sample” ink stamps above the title and contemporary library acquisition note in pencil, “1864, Nov. 29, Gift of Hon. Chas. Sumner”; 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 in.

A group of women working as professional garment sewers, shop clerks, and in factories (including wartime munitions workers) organized the Working Women’s Relief Association in Philadelphia to lobby for wage protection and increase. They succeeded in obtaining direct government contracts for 1,000 to 2,000 women workers and gained a 20% pay hike. This anonymously published periodical served as the platform for the group’s female labor issues, and include very concrete actions. One article advises women to collect hard data about their workplaces to make the case for adequate compensation and fair treatment. The Relief Association’s organizing documents are also published in The Journal, along with details of pending petitions and reports of success. Opinion pieces argue for better apprenticeship programs for girls and seek “to arouse woman to action; [and] to rally with mighty strength and number around that standard of justice which is now lifted on her behalf.” Most moving are the painful stories of poverty and starvation, as working women try and fail to get respectable work that pays a living wage. Their message ultimately reached President Lincoln, who met with the group and enacted more reforms on their behalf in 1865.

Rare, no copies in Worldcat; no copies at the American Antiquarian Society; or in the auction record.

Demmer, Margaret (1865-1924)
Two Journals Recording Details of her Daughter’s and Granddaughter’s Births and Childhoods.

Belmont, Allegany County, New York, circa 1886-1911.

Two folio-format ledger books from the period, one in half red morocco with marbled paper boards, the other in blind-stamped buckram; containing birth information about both children, beginning with Demmer’s own daughter, Margaret Anderson (d. 1973), with her birth in 1886, recording the child’s height and weight for her first fifteen years, vaccinations, school details, childish drawings, social events, gifts, lists of friends, a large hair lock, flowers from MA’s wedding, swatches of clothes (perhaps made by MD), and wedding ephemera, including a few dried flowers.

The granddaughter, Lucy Emma Barnfield’s (1906-1955) album is more detailed, dedicated by MD on first leaf, “To the child whose baby days go all too quickly,” including newspaper clippings on baby care, LB’s published birth announcement, lists of gifts and givers, and extensive notes taken almost daily and quite factual at first: “Born Oct. 22nd, 1906, Monday 7:15 am, 8 lbs. undressed. We all went to see the baby, a little worried about her feet at first, but Dr. B. said they would be all right,” “Nov. 10, I changed L. first time,” “Nov. 17, Mar. not so well, Dr. says not get up yet,” “Nov. 24, Mar walked from couch to bed first time and came to table for first time,” with MD’s own personal social notes mixed in.

By February, as the baby starts to engage with her grandmother, the details become more interesting, “Lucy doesn’t sleep quite as well toward a.m. Her face is quite broken out [eczema]. She laughs out loud, reaches out her hands & knows people, began 3rd big bottle malted milk,” other important milestones are recorded in July, when LB can stand alone, walk by holding onto furniture, play peek-a-boo and pattycake; the grandmother also notes her own emotions, “I wish they would give her to me, it seems as though she must be mine!” “She does so many cunning things, I don’t know how to write them. For instance, she doesn’t care for graham crackers, the one thing she could eat. She will feed them to Roxy and she has found out she can tease him by keeping them back & I will say, give it to Roxy, & she will shake her head for no, & when we ask her if she has any teeth she shakes her head & she waves her arms and legs for everything, and waves her hand bye-bye.”

In all nearly 200 pages are meticulously filled with very detailed notes covering LB’s first five years, as well as several family photographs, LB’s early childish scrawls, followed by drawings, and some of her first letters; in addition to being an exhaustive history of this child, MD’s journal is also a document of attitudes and practices surrounding children and child-rearing in rural America at the beginning of the 20th century, sizes vary, content is extensive. (2)

Humphrey, Maud (1865-1940)
Pensive Young Woman.

Watercolor on oval board, the image possibly used in an advertisement for the book, Poems, by Dobson, Locker and Praed, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1892, and illustrated by Adams; signed and dated in lower right image; in an oval mat (taped along upper edge) and ornate frame; image is 7 1/4 x 6 in. on a 10 x 8 in. board.

Maud Humphrey, mother of actor Humphrey Bogart, was known for her heartwarming illustrations for children’s books and magazines, as well as greeting cards and advertisements.

Stowers, Jessie A. (1865-1948)
Small Archive of Ephemera and Material Documenting her Nursing Career.

Including: an album compiled during Stowers’s time working as a nurse on Blackwell’s Island [now called Roosevelt Island] circa 1894 containing approximately thirty-four black-and-white images taken at the nurses’ residence, patient wards, showing patients in beds, one showing seven small babies in the same bed, group photos of nurses, an image of a classroom with a cadaver, and a photograph of the nurses on a ferry in the East River, an early photograph of the old Gouvernour Hospital with the ambulance parked outside, and many others; two pairs of Stowers’s eyeglasses; an album containing approximately eighty letters from her Gouverneur Hospital colleagues (mostly doctors) writing with donations for her retirement gift in 1921; a small group of ancestral family papers; Stowers’s signed personal copy of the Hospital Formulary of the Department of Public Charities and Correction of the City of New York, New York: Printing Bureau, New York City Asylum for the Insane, Ward’s Island, 1886, octavo, title stained, original paper wrappers (broken, chipped); a cabinet card of Stowers and her sisters in youth; two snapshots of Stowers holding a set of newborn triplets; a family wallet; a few other miscellany papers.

Stowers was born in Waddington, New York. She was an 1892 graduate of City Hospital, a nurse at Blackwell, and Superintendent of Gouveneur Hospital from 1895 until 1921. In the early photo of the original Gouverneur Hospital buildings its famous horse-drawn ambulance is standing in readiness. In 1902, Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer (1876-1961) became the first woman ambulance physician at Gouverneur Hospital, which served the lower east side of New York. Circa 1894, when Stowers was stationed on the so-called “Welfare Island” i.e., Roosevelt Island, in the East River, it housed a notorious complex of workhouses which included a large central hospital, as well as an almshouse, a smallpox hospital, and a hospital designated for patients deemed “incurable” by the system, which included those suffering from mental and physical disabilities. Investigative reporter Nellie Bly infiltrated the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island in 1887, and wrote Ten Days in a Madhouse, an exposé on the inhumane conditions she found there.

Sister Nivedita (1867-1911)
An Indian Study of Love and Death, Author’s Presentation Copy.

[No place: no printer], August 16, 1905.

First edition, 12mo, presentation copy from Sister Nivedita, in deluxe full morocco with message tooled in gilt inside front board, “Sophiae Wallerstein / Spiritu Sorori Sibi / in Maerore Iacenti / ut Auxilium Ferret / Soror Nivedita / Hoc Libellum / Ex Animo / Scripsit / Anno MCMV”; indicating that the book was written for the dedicatee; with full morocco doublures and flyleaves, patterned endleaves, endbands worked in silk, silk ribbon bookmarker, aeg; some sun fading, otherwise very nicely preserved; with original blue limp paper wrappers bound in; four blank endleaves with notes in French, English, and German, in different hands, ex libris Froissart with bookplate; 5 1/2 x 3 in.

Sister Nivedita was born and raised in Ireland with the name Margaret Elizabeth Noble. She first visited India in 1898, and in that year swore to uphold Brahmacharya, complete control of body and mind through asceticism, principle fundamental to a monk’s life. She studied with Swami Vivekananda, who gave her the name Nivedita, which means “Dedicated to God.” A champion of Indian Nationalism, she lived the rest of her life in India, where she founded a school for girls (her main reason for coming to the country), nursed plague patients in the 1899 epidemic, and participated in international fund and awareness raising efforts on behalf of the Indian independence movement. She died at Roy Villa in Darjeeling in 1911. At time of the publication of this catalog, the dedicatee, Sophie Wallerstein, has yet to be identified.

Rare, OCLC locates no copies.

Goldman, Emma (1869-1940)
Living My Life, Signed & Inscribed First One Volume Edition.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934.

Octavo, with yellow erratum slip between pages 226 & 227, illustrated at the end, with index, lacking the dust jacket; inscribed on ffep, “Miss Ida Maston, Toledo, March 19, ‘34 Emma Goldman”; binding rubbed, 8 3/4 x 5 3/4 in.

Artist Portraits, Three Examples.

Large black-and-white photographic portraits of Juliana R. Force (1876-1948), Anne Goldthwaite (1869-1944), and Elisabeth Weber-Fulop (1886-1966), all images produced by Peter A. Juley & Son of New York, each mounted on album pages, each measuring approximately 7 x 9 1/2 in. on 11 x 14 in. mounts. (3)

Force served as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s private secretary, eventually becoming the first director of the Whitney Museum. She also actively promoted the artistic legitimacy of American folk-art beginning with a Whitney show in February of 1924.

Goldthwaite exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show. An activist and vocal supporter of the woman’s suffrage movement, she observed, “that women have a valid place as women artists is both obvious and logical. We want to speak to an audience that asks simply, ‘Is it good?’ not, ‘Was it done by a woman?’” (Lynne Blackman, Central to their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, Columbia, South Carolina, University of SC Press.)

Weber-Fulop had her first solo show in Vienna when she was eighteen years old. In New York, she painted interiors and cityscapes, like her painting of the Essex House seen in this portrait.

Matthews, Kate (1870-1956)
Signed Silver Gelatin Photograph of Rebecca Porter (d. 1921) as “Mom Beck.”

Black-and-white image with background wash applied by hand, matted in a folder with gilt rough-deckle edges, signed by Matthews in pencil on the mat, titled in ink below, “Rebecca Porter, ‘Mom Beck’ of the Little Colonel, Annie Fellows Johnston. She belonged to Edwin and Mary Johnson Dade Conway, grandparents of Miss Lee Lewis,” some spots on Porter’s apron filled in with pencil, pale reverse matte burn, generally good, 10 1/2 x 7 in. overall.

Porter, Matthews, and Johnston all lived in Pewee Valley, Kentucky at the turn of the 19th century. This portrait unites the three women’s work as they each contributed something to Johnston’s book series, The Little Colonel, whose characters were based on real people. Even the photographer made her way into the stories. Porter who born into slavery in Virginia. As Mom Beck, she cares for the titular white child of the series. She passed away in 1921 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Sex Work.
Leggi e Memorie Venete sulla Prostituzione fino alla caduta della Republica.

Venice: Tipografia del Commercio di Marco Visentini, a spese del Conte di Oxford, 1870-1872.

First edition, limited, copy number 124 of 150 printed, never offered for public sale, folio, title page in red and black, frontispiece and additional full-paged allegorical and other plates in the text; bound in full olive calf binding by Riviere & Son ruled in gilt and tooled with an emblem of the Doge of Venice and the St. Mark’s lion, (tooling on front board gouged with loss to the head of the winged lion), head and foot of spine lightly worn, but generally in good condition, internally clean and well-preserved, 12 3/4 x 9 1/4 in.

This catalogue of Venetian sex workers, complete with addresses and prices, also includes the names of women prosecuted for sex work between 1579 and 1617. The text is taken from a manuscript copy at the Raccolta Cicogna in Museo Correr of Venice (Misc. 2483), which itself was derived from an anonymous Venice imprint of 1535. A note in the State Archive of Venice refers to a trial against the printer Hieronimo Calepino in 1566 for printing and selling the same work. Text of the many laws banning sex work can be found here, dating from 1228 to 1796, and the various state-imposed punishments for sexually related crimes.

Soranzo 8771 and 8965; Gay Bibl. De l’Amour II, 790.

Delaney, Emma Beard (1871-1922)
Autograph Postcard Signed 13 June 1912.

Photo postcard featuring a small portrait of Delaney, and inspirational missionary-themed quotes, with a message handwritten and signed by Delaney on the back, to a Master Laurence Jefferson, of Halesite, New York, some signs of smudging and old creases, with Transatlantic Post Office postmark, 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.

Text written mid-ocean on the way to Liberia on a Christian missionary voyage. Delaney was one of the earliest African American missionaries to work in Africa. An 1894 graduate of Spelman Seminary in Atlanta, she finished formal missionary training two years later, and traveled to Africa for the first time in 1902. Upon arrival, she became the first African American woman missionary to arrive on the continent. The present postcard was composed on a later mission to Monrovia. During this venture, she established the Suehn Industrial Venture (1916) and stayed until disruption because of the first world war forced her back to the U.S. in the fall of 1920.

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle (1873-1954)
Autograph Letter Signed, Paris, circa 1935-1938.

Single leaf of blue wove writing paper with the Immeuble Marignan, 33 Champs-Elysées address printed in blue block letters; inscribed in black ink on recto only, to an unnamed male friend, acknowledging receipt of a telegram that gave her “une vraie joie”; old folds, 9 x 7 in.

Vassar College Album, 1873.

Large quarto format album containing approximately fifty-eight photographs, including portraits of the graduates, the majority of which are signed by the subjects on the verso (a few names trimmed); other subjects include professors and administrators; Vassar buildings and local landscapes; and one group shot of the class assembled in and around row boats tied up along the shore of Vassar Lake; [and] a carte-de-visite of Matthew Vassar inserted; each photo mounted on a heavy card page; bound in full dark brown morocco tooled and ruled in blind, titled in gilt on the front board, with the initials L.S.T., almost certainly Lilla Sarah Thomas’s (1853-1907) copy, as she is the only graduate with these initials, and her photo is unsigned; some toning, pages slightly rippled, generally good, aeg, 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.

Lilla S. Thomas grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. She married Samuel J. Elder in 1876, and the two lived in Winchester, Massachusetts. Lilla was also a poet, Lilacs in the Wood, was published by her friends and family after she passed away at the age of 53. The Vassar Archive holds her college diary, in which she wrote as an undergraduate between 1866 and 1873. In it, she records details about her college experience. “The diary ends with her thoughts on how her Vassar education developed her character but had a negative effect on her romantic relationships with men.” https://digitallibrary.vassar.edu/islandora/object/vassar%3A2796/Metadata

Another notable Vassar graduate of 1873 is Ella Weed (1853-1894), whose photograph is signed on the verso of the mount. Weed served as Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Board of Trustees of Barnard College during the first five years of its existence, and was the author of A Foolish Virgin, a satirical novel published in 1883 about a Vassar graduate who fears revealing her intelligence and higher education “in order to meet accepted standards for female behavior.” “Her policies at Barnard were the practical expression of her belief that women could gain full intellectual standing only if their education were equal to men’s in rigor.” (cf. James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson, eds. (1974), “Weed, Ella”, quotes from entry by Annette K. Baxter in Famous American Women: a biographical dictionary, Harvard University Press, pp. 556–7)

Oakley, Violet (1874-1961)
Photograph of the Artist in her Studio, circa 1897.

Albumen photograph on a period mount inscribed in pencil on verso with the artist’s name and her 1523 Chestnut Street Philadelphia studio address; the photo hinged onto a new archival mat and joined window, 5 x 7 in.

Oakley and her sister Hester rented the studio on Chestnut Street in 1897, for their own use, along with the artists Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Jessie Wilcox Smith. The friends were all former students of Howard Pyle, who gave the group the moniker, the Red Rose Girls. The living arrangement of mutual support is described in detail in Alice Carter’s book, The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love. In this contemporary image, Oakley stands with her back to a mirror, holding a large palette, in the background we see a comfortable sofa decorated with patterned pillows, a mantle draped in fabric with sculptures and objets d’art, framed pictures on the walls, floral drapes, and a full coal scuttle. The group disbanded in 1911 when Green married. Okaley was a successful muralist and designer of stained glass who favored historical topics and Pre-Raphaelite, and Renaissance-revival style. Her illustrations appeared in The Century Magazine, Collier’s, St. Nicholas, and Woman’s Home Companion.

Reed, Ethel (1874-1912)
Folly or Saintliness.

Boston: Lamson Wolffe & Co., Heliotype Printing Co., 1895.

Color lithographic poster on paper, matted and framed, 19 1/2 x 14 1/4 in. sight, 26 1/2 x 21 in. overall.

Reed’s illustration was created to promote the English-language adaptation by Hannah Lynch (1859-1904) of Spanish playwright José Echegaray y Eizaguirre’s (1832-1916) O Locura o Santidad. Reed was born in Massachusetts and studied at the Cowles Art School in the 1890s. Her career was short but productive. She illustrated many books and posters to great critical acclaim and died in obscurity in London before turning forty. This poster endures as one of her most memorable images.

Stein, Gertrude (1874-1946)
Paris France.

Covelo, CA: The Yolla Bolly Press, 2000.

Limited edition, copy number 47 of 200, signed on limitation page by illustrator Ward Schumaker and afterword writer George Plimpton, with the original prospectus; housed in publisher’s slipcase (slightly sun faded), 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 in.

King, Jessie M., illustrator (1875-1949)
A Carol, Good King Wenceslas.

London: Published by Leopold Hill, [printed by Edmund Evans], [1919].

Quarto, in publisher’s gray-brown paper boards, illustration on front cover repeated as title, colored illustrations tipped in throughout, with blue ruled borders, text printed in blue ink, small vignette on back cover; paper wrappers thumbed, some tears with loss to one corner of the back cover, scrape to front cover, 10 x 7 1/2 in.

St. Leger Eberle, Abastenia (1878-1942)
Photographs of her Sculptures, Five Signed Examples.

Including black-and-white silver gelatin images mounted on board of the following works: Hurdy Gurdy in clay; Girl Skating in bronze; Windy Doorstep in clay; Skirt Dancer, likely bronze; Dancing Children in clay; notes on versos of the mounts, some noting the name of the holding museum; some mount corners chipped and broken, affecting Girl Skating's mount most seriously, the photographs themselves not damaged; sizes vary, most images approximately 7 x 9 in. (5)

St. Leger Eberle's most famous work, The White Slave, was exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, where its content, a barely pubescent nude girl under the cloak of a leering older man in the process of offering her for sale, proved controversial. The juxtaposition of the nude female form as an object of exploitation did not suit the taste of many contemporary observers. St. Leger Eberle's studio was on New York's Lower East Side, and her subjects were predominantly the poor and working-class children who inhabited the neighborhood. She felt a personal responsibility as an artist to "see for people -- reveal them to themselves and each other."

Masaryková, Alice [aka] Alice Garrigue Masaryk (1879-1966)
Signed Photograph.

Prague: František Drtikol, 1915.

Gelatin silver print mounted on the photographer’s beige mat with his blind-embossed logo; signed on the mat by Masaryková, with the date, 3 November 1922 (image oxidized, corners of the mat bumped, with some reinforcements on verso, 12 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. overall, the photo 6 x 4 1/4 in.

Working in Czechoslovakia during and between the world wars, Masaryková applied lessons learned from Julia Lathrop, Mary McDowell and Jane Addams at the University of Chicago Social Settlement. Despite coming under scrutiny of the government, being censored, serving time in jail and on house arrest, she was able to establish the first Bohemian welfare organization recognized by the ruling Austro-Hungarian regime.

Sanger, Margaret (1879-1966)
Family Limitation, with Edits in her Hand.

[New York: no publisher or date, likely 1914.]

Small octavo, presumed first edition, with several substantive revisions, deletions, and corrections in brown ink in Sanger’s hand, along with a note at the foot of the title, “Revised 2nd Edition, 1916,” 16 pages, saddle stitched, fairly ragged, with a number of names and addresses added in pencil and crossed out in ink, 6 3/4 x 5 in.

Pavlova, Anna (1881-1931) & Valerian Svetloff (1860-1934)
Anna Pavlova, Signed Limited Edition.

Paris: M. de Brunoff, 1922.

English edition, folio, copy number two of 300, signed by Pavlova on half-title, and by Brunoff on limitation page, illustrated throughout with wood engravings by Galanis, color lithographs, and photographic plates; restored, resewn, and bound in full red goatskin by San Francisco bookbinder Paul Mucci in 1970 with binder’s signed letter tipped in after the text describing the work he performed; lettered in blind on front board; housed in a custom calf parchment-covered box also by Mucci, (the box neatly repaired at a later date); ex libris Philips Academy, with de-accession letter and no library stamps, 13 x 10 in.

Artist Portraits, Three Examples.

Large black-and-white photographic portraits of Margaret Frances “Peggy” Bacon (1895-1987); Hilda Belcher (1881-1963); and Marguerite Thompson Zorach (1887-1968) all images produced by Peter A. Juley & Son of New York, each mounted on album pages, each measuring approximately 7 x 9 in. on 11 x 14 in. mounts. (3)

Bacon was a prolific drypoint print maker, author, and book illustrator whose images graced many New Yorker magazine covers. She was a winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship and is known for her satirical caricatures and illustrations of cats.

Belcher was the second woman accepted into the National Academy of Design. Her prize-winning 1907 watercolor portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe, “The Checkered Dress,” features the sitter cloaked in yards of black-and-white plaid, with an enigmatic expression. As Grace Conkling wrote in her poem, To the Lady in the Checkered Dress, “Mona Lisa so would smile!”

Zorach was an American Fauvist painter, designer, and textile artist from Santa Rosa, California. In her portrait, she sits in her studio, palette and brushes at her right hand, one of her paintings dated 1910 on the wall, wearing an imaginative garment likely of her own design. Zorach began to explore batik and embroidery after the birth of her second child and used the textile medium to explore Fauvist and non-narrative expression.

Ulmann, Doris (1882-1934)
Park Fisher, Brasstown, N.C. (Wood Carver).

Circa 1930.

Silver print with Ulmann’s signature in pencil on mount recto and partial title in pencil on mount verso, the image measuring 8 x 6 in., the mount 14 1/4 x 11 1/4 in.

Ulmann studied under Clarence White at Columbia University and later at his Clarence H. White School of Photography. In the late 1910s, she began a career as studio photographer. Her best-known work is from the mid-1920s and 1930s, during which time she traveled throughout Appalachia, documenting the traditions, culture, and people of the region.

Ulmann, Doris (1882-1934)
Woman at Vegetable Market.

Circa 1930.

Platinum print with Ulmann’s signature in pencil on primary mount recto, the image measuring 8x6<AF1/8> inches, the tissue primary mount 13 x 9 1/2 in., and the secondary mount 14 1/4 x 11 1/4 in.

Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941) and her father; Photograph

Photographic portrait of the author and Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) taken by George Charles Beresford (1864-1938) in 1902; the two subjects looking in the same direction, with Woolf in a three-quarter view, her father in profile; with Beresford’s 20 Yeoman’s Row Brompton Road stamp on the verso of the mount, sepia-toned platinotype on paper, mounted to the original khaki-colored board along the top edge verso of the photograph; chipped with loss to bottom left corner of the image, some very narrow marginal surface loss along top and bottom edges; the image 4 1/4 x 6 in.; the mount 8 x 6 1/4 in.

Woolf’s relationship with her father was fraught. She speculated that he “would have blushed with pride,” when she was offered the same Clark lectureship in 1932 that he held in 1883, and she also noted that had he lived longer, “his life would have entirely ended mine. What would have happened? No writing, not books;– inconceivable.” (See Hill, Katherine C. “Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen: History and Literary Revolution.” PMLA, vol. 96, no. 3, 1981, pp. 351–362. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/461911. Accessed 12 Apr. 2021.)

Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884-1962)
Signed Photograph.

Black-and-white 7 1/2 x 9 inch image taken later in life, on a card mount, signed on the mount to William D. Harriett; Life Magazine stamp on verso of mount, top corner of mount cracked without affecting the image, signature and inscription faded.

Treidler, Adolph (1886-1981)
For Every Fighter a Woman Worker. Care for her through the YWCA.

Circa 1918.

Color lithographic poster on smooth cream wove paper, framed, 28 1/2 x 40 in.; 48 x 36 1/2 in. overall.

This striking image features a central female figure in full-length wearing work cap and coveralls, with the inverted triangle logo of the YWCA behind her. She holds an artillery shell in one hand and a biplane in the other.

Wolf, Estelle (1886-1988)
Table with Sunshine Cookies.

Circa 1935.

Silver print with Wolf’s signature in pencil on mount recto, the image measuring 6 3/4 x 9 in., the mount measuring 15 3/4 x 12 1/8 in.

Wolf worked as a WPA photographer in Detroit, where she documented federally funded projects in the area. Wolf founded Friends of Central Park and lived to the age of 102.

O’Keeffe, Georgia (1887-1996) by Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946)
Portrait Photograph.

Silver nitrate black-and-white print produced by Peter A. Juley & Son after Stieglitz’s image, O’Keeffe is depicted before one of her paintings, in crisp white shirt, and dark head covering and jacket; on a dark gray mount, and large paler gray album page, the image itself oxidized around the edges, 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. on a 14 x 12 in. mount.

Bocker, Dorothy (b. 1888)
Birth Control Methods.

New York: Birth Control Clinical Research, [1924].

First edition, octavo, copy number 1604, initialed J.M.G. by the former physician owner; the publication expressly published only for the use of medical professionals, 31 pages, saddle stapled with publisher’s original brown heavy paper covers with title and author on front cover; illustrated with four full pages of plates reproducing photographs of birth control devices and products (some foxing to plates, covers somewhat thumbed, generally good), 9 1/4 x 6 in.

Bocker worked with Margaret Sanger for some years in women’s birth control. In this work, Bocker recounts the results of a study she had just finished. “Since January 1, 1923, the full-time efforts of a physician have been devoted to testing various devices, methods, and procedures. Work has been done with 1,208 patients, aggregating 1,558 cases, strictly within the legal boundaries set forth by Judge Frederick Crane of the New York Court of Appeals.” Of the 1,208 patients in the study, 800 used some method of contraception. Bocker’s conclusions are stark. Nursing baby, failure 100 percent; “holding back,” failure 100%; condom, failure 100%; douche, failure 100%; sponge, failure 100%; and so on. She does offer some successful alternatives. Along with the helpful image gallery, she includes brand names, descriptions of various devices, pharmaceutical preparations, and the names of pharmacies and manufacturers where doctors could obtain such products for their female patients.

Loos, Anita (1888-1981)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady.

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.

First edition, first issue with ‘Divine’ for ‘Devine’ on contents page; octavo, illustrated by Ralph Barton; bound in publisher’s red cloth and the original dust jacket (toned, torn with loss, old tape damage on the interior), 7 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.

Christie, Agatha (1890-1976)
Black Coffee, Proof with MS. Pencil Corrections & Publisher’s Autograph Letter Signed.

London: Alfred Ashley & Son, 1934.

First uncorrected proof of the acting edition with pencil corrections in Alfred Ashley’s hand throughout, first sixteen leaves stapled, leaves 17 through 75 stitched with a bit of thread in the upper left corner; [together with] a letter on Alfred Ashley & Son Publishers’ letterhead, signed by Ashley to a Mr. Berman, dated 18 July 1934, discussing the proof it accompanies (and originally accompanied), mentioning that he has changed the subtitle of the work, “it seemed to me that the word ‘play’ was more non-committal and perhaps better than ‘comedy’ which seems a trifle misleading”; mentioning how he plans to title the finished book down the spine, and enclosing a playbill for the Mereleigh Players performance of Black Coffee on 14 February 1934 (also present and printed by Ashley) for a sample of the titling typeface he intends to use; [and] the original mailing envelope that contained all three documents; all pieces show signs of use and age without great defects, except for the envelope, which is open along two and a half edges, overall 9 x 6 in.

The first edition acting script of Black Coffee, Christie’s first play, is much sought after by collectors. It is also the only Christie play published by Ashley. The plot features the beloved Hercule Poirot and his friend Hastings. After being summoned to meet Sir Claud Amory, famous physicist to help solve the mystery of a stolen secret formula, the two arrive to find that Sir Claud has just met an untimely death. Christie is still the best-selling novelist of all time.

https://www.collectingchristie.com/post/black-coffee-play

Anonymous American Female Compiler.
A Month in Palestine and Syria.

[Privately Printed, no place: no printer], 1891.

Octavo, forty-one numbered leaves of text illustrated with forty-one original silver gelatin prints captioned by hand; presentation copy with an inscription in the same hand that titled the photos, to Alice Baker (1865-1913) from an otherwise unidentified “Katharine” who we may expect is the author and compiler; the photos taken during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and include images of Memphis, Egypt; a boat trip on the Nile; Jaffa; Jerusalem; Jericho; Hebron; Shiloh; Nazareth; Damascus; Baalbek; and Beirut; bound in full cloth, titled in gilt on the spine and front board, aeg; with the bookplate of English-born architect George Strafford Mills (1866-1939) who married the dedicatee Alice Baker after moving to Toledo, Ohio in 1885; 8 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.

Artist Portraits, Three Examples.

Large black-and-white photographic portraits of Audrey Buller (1902-1984), Bashka Paeff (1889-1979), Antoinette E. Schulte (1897-1981) all images produced by Peter A. Juley & Son of New York, each mounted on album pages, each measuring approximately 7 x 9 1/2 in. on 11 x 14 in. mounts. (3)

Buller was a Canadian artist who emigrated to New York in the early decades of the 20th century to study at the Arts League. She painted in a hyper-realistic style, often uniting objects in a still life tableau suggestive of a dreamscape, hinting at hidden meaning while simultaneously resisting obvious narrative interpretation. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

When Paeff was a young teenager, she left her family in Minsk to study art in Boston. Her public sculptures dot New England. In Boston’s Public Garden, her fountain sculpture of a small boy holding a bid is a stop on the Women’s Heritage Trail. The original 1934 casting was stolen decades ago.

Schulte was a New Yorker that spent a significant part of her career working and painting in Paris. Another product of the Art Students’ League, she was known for still-lifes and cityscapes, and her canvases are held by the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and MoMa.

Crosby, Caresse (1892-1970)
Crosses of Gold: A Book of Verse.

Paris: Black Sun Press [printed by Léon Pinchon], 1925.

First edition, limited & unnumbered, from an edition of 100; ex libris Harry & Caresse Crosby, with their gilt-tooled morocco book ticket pasted on ffep; illustrated with pochoir-colored plates and decorative vignettes by Daniel-Girard, the first poem with “Harry” supplied by hand; bound in publisher’s original printed paper wrappers and glassine, well-preserved and housed in a custom black buckram chemise and matching half-morocco slipcase, 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in.

Women in Astrophysics, The Harvard Computers.
Three Glass-plate Astronomical Photographs [together with] New England Magazine, 1892.

Glass-plate photographs circa 1889; all separately mounted and framed in oak, each image plate sandwiched between a sheet of clear and a sheet of milk glass to facilitate viewing and scrutiny; labeled 22: Spectrum of B[eta] Aurigae; 23: Peculiar Spectra, and 41: untitled, photographic plates measure 8 x 10 in., 15 1/4 x 12 1/4 in. overall; [and] the April 1892 issue of New England Magazine, Boston: New England Magazine Corporation, 1892, containing the illustrated article, “Women’s Work at the Harvard Observatory,” by Helen Leah Reed, in original publisher’s printed paper wrappers, edges chipped, some toning, contents generally good, 10 x 7 in.

Mary Anna Draper (1839-1914) established and endowed the Draper Memorial after the death of her husband, pioneering astronomical photographer Henry Draper. She had worked alongside him for more than fifteen years and sought to continue his work in the spectral analysis of stars based on photographs taken through telescopes. Because of her influence, women were included on the immense Draper project. Although Reed claims in her article that the female scientists who worked under the auspices of the Harvard Observatory were paid the same wages as their male counterparts, it is now known that they were paid half the hourly rate of men and one of the institution’s motivations for hiring them.

Antonia Maury (1866-1952) was the first astronomer to detect and calculate the orbit of a spectroscopic binary. Maury also discovered Beta Aurigae, the second spectroscopic binary star to be identified through spectral analysis. Beta Aurigae, whose glass-plate photograph is included in this lot, appears as a single star in the night sky, but is actually a binary star system. Williamina Fleming (1857-1911), head of the Henry Draper Catalogue, developed a classification of stars based on their hydrogen content, and discovered the Horsehead Nebula in 1888. Anna Winlock (1857-1904), who worked at the Harvard College Observatory for thirty-five years, began by reducing and computing meridian circle observations (a potentially useless set of numbers left behind after her father’s death) and spent twenty years making significant contributions to the Astronomische Gesellschaft Katalog.

Clayton, Mary Morris (1893-1993)
Photo Album, circa 1929-1939.

Three-ring binder containing approximately 400 photographs depicting an approximate decade in the life of Dr. Clayton; all are small-format, black-and-white images, beginning with her time at Mount Holyoke College, where she was an assistant professor in the physiology department, many showing her colleagues, including the founder of that department, Professor Abby Howe Turner (1875-1957), and the other physiology adjuncts: Dorothy Elizabeth Williams, Mary Isabel Newton, and Helen McGregor TeWinkel; in addition to images of Clayton’s recreational activities, which include a trip to Europe with friends, day tripping in coastal Maine, hiking, and photos of family, snapshots of other medical professionals, such as obstetrics and gynecological physician Dr. Katherine Kuder and her sister, the researcher Alberta Kuder, and many other women working in the medical and scientific fields; photos in a good state of preservation.

Clayton was born in Shelbyville, Indiana. She graduated from Bucknell Institute in 1912, and earned a bachelor’s degree at Barnard, through the Columbia Teacher’s College in 1918. She subsequently entered the University of Rochester, where she earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in vital economics. Clayton taught at Mount Holyoke for six years in the physiology department under Professor Turner, specializing in nutrition studies. In 1934, she moved to Maine to take a position as nutritionist at the university in Orono. This album covers the period at Holyoke, and the move to Maine. It illustrates Clayton’s life brimming with travel, social activities, and adventure, surrounded by a network of other women with careers and education similar to her own. When this album arrived at Swann, Clayton was unidentified. She had only written “self,” “myself,” or nothing at all on her own pictures. The cataloger is gratified to attach Clayton’s name and biography to the stories told by these photos.

McDaniel, Hattie (1893-1952)
Declaration of Appreciation from the State of Colorado.

Denver, [circa 1940].

Proclamation typed in black and red, signed by the Secretary of State George Saunders, Deputy Secretary of State W.B. McLean, and the Chief Clerk, with the gold foil seal of the state of Colorado, and pink silk ribbon and blue presentation folder joined by grommets with the ribbon (old tape repair with discoloration top left corner), 13 1/2 x 9 in.

McDaniel won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gone with the Wind in February of 1940.

Provenance: from Hattie McDaniel’s personal collection.

Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Helena (1894-1980)
Illustrated Books & Prints: a Small Archive with Signed Material.

Including: Vyškov, [Brno]: Nákladem Vlastním, [1924], an unbound portfolio in paper publisher’s wraps as issued illustrated with six woodcuts, each signed in pencil by the artist (wrappers chipped, front and back covers detached), 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.; Indiáni Jindy a Dnes, Brno: Hranice, 1934, first, edition, limited, signed by Bochoráková-Dittrichová in pencil on ffep, with prospectus inserted, unnumbered on limitation page, bound in publisher’s full cloth, housed in original slipcase, 10 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.; Kristus, Prague, 1944, illustrated with thirty-two woodcuts from the New Testament, in publisher’s binding, 9 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.; eight woodblock bookplates, some signed, some printed in two colors; two etchings; [together with] two books with H B-D’s woodblock illustrations on their covers: Habrina’s Venec z Klokoci Brno, 1941; [and] Zemek’s Z Asie do Europy, Brno, 1926. (group lot)

Bochoráková-Dittrichová was an illustrator, painter, and is considered to be the first female graphic novelist. She studied printmaking at Prague and exhibited across Europe in the 1920s and ’30s. Like Lynd Ward, she was influenced by the work of Frans Masereel.

Business and Professional Women of Leadville [Colorado].

Leadville, CO: Excelsior Printing and Publishing Co., [1895].

Oblong octavo, [2], 46, [2] pages, illustrated with photogravure portraits; bound in publisher’s blue paper printed wrappers, (front cover with small corner loss, following few pages folded), 6 x 9 in.

This delicate pamphlet contains detailed biographical sketches of forty Colorado women in business for themselves in Leadville at the time of publication. Their professions range from physician, inn keeper, dressmaker, milliner, teachers of elocution, dancing, and music, to Mrs. Lottie Lanphier, “Pioneer Hairdresser of Leadville.” Even more interesting are the pictures painted of their lives. The vast majority are widows, a few are single; all are described in glowing terms. As noted on the front cover: “Equal Opportunity to both Sexes has Given Woman the Place to which She is Entitled by Virtue of Her Ability.”

Rare at auction, two copies in Worldcat.

Jesenská, Milena (1896-1944)
Cesta k Jednoduchosti.

Prague: Topic, 1926.

First edition of the author’s first book, one of 300 copies, unnumbered, bound in contemporary red textured cloth with marbled paper boards, 7 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.

Jesenská was a correspondent of Franz Kafka, and translated several of his works from German into Czech. She worked in letters throughout her life, editing, translating, and writing short and long works. Vocal regarding the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia while writing for and editing the magazine Prítomnost (The Presence), she stayed in Prague at her own peril in 1939. There she was detained by the Gestapo, first at Pankrác and later in Dresden. She died as an inmate at the Ravensbrück concentration camp on May 17, 1944.

This particular work, whose title translates to The Journey to Simplicity, contains straightforward advice about marriage, love, freedom, and other topics.

Ludins, Ryah (1896-1957)
Four Signed Lithographs, 1929-1930.

All artist-signed, titled, dated, and numbered, including: Pearl Street, Provincetown, 15/50, 1929; Fishermen, 18/30, 1929; Dories, 15/50, 1929; [and] From the Bridge, 7/30 1930; each matted separately, sizes vary.

Ludins, Ryah (1896-1957)
Untitled Drawing of the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA.

Pencil drawing on wove cream paper circa 1929, matted, 19 1/4 x 12 1/4 in.

Ludins was a WPA muralist, printmaker, and author-illustrator. She was born in Russia and emigrated to the Bronx with her family in 1904. Ludins attended Columbia’s Teachers College, completing her Teacher of Fine Arts Master’s degree in 1925. She lived and taught at the Chelsea Hotel in the last part of her life in the 1950s.

Smith, Betty (1896-1972)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947.

First illustrated edition, signed and inscribed to Pat Dwyer by Smith on ffep; with “First Printing Illustrated Edition” on copyright page, and the date code 10-7; in the original dust jacket priced $3.00, dated 10-29-47 inside back flap; bound in publisher’s green cloth; binding slightly bumped, dust jacket with thumbing, signs of handling, toning and minor surface losses, 8 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.

Waugh, Dorothy (1896-1996)
Mystery Veils the Desert. National Parks.

[No place: no printer, circa 1935.]

Lithographic poster on paper, bold black and white palette, depicting a horseback rider beneath a starry night flanked by two cacti with text below, 39½ x 27 in.

Dorothy Waugh studied design at the Chicago Institute of Art, then moved to New York where she managed Alfred A. Knopf’s children’s book department. During the 1930s, she worked for the National Park Service as production supervisor as well as providing them with original artwork and copy. She designed sixteen posters for the National and State Parks in all, using her own signature combination of bold typography and graphics. Her pared-down two- and three-color graphics create strong visual impact and stand out when compared to other American designs of the period. “[The National Parks posters] show Waugh’s stylistic range, design clarity and inventive typography.” (Resnick p. 48); Posters for the People, page 83.

Earhart, Amelia (1897-circa 1937)
Photographic Portrait.

Silver print by Ben Pinchot (1890-1986), with his stamp on verso, c. 1925, matted, 9 x 7 in.

Stirling, Alexa (1897-1977)
Signed Photograph, May 20, 1921.

Sepia-toned image on matte paper likely trimmed from a printed publication and mounted on card, with handwritten instruction on verso, “Please sign opposite of card,” depicting Stirling in her characteristic golfing garb, with dark hat, herringbone wool jacket, vest sweater, white button-down shirt, and striped tie; 7 x 4 1/2 in.

Stirling won the U.S. Women’s Amateur golf championship in 1916, 1919, and 1920, and the Canadian Women’s Amateur competition in 1920 and 1934. Signed photographs are rare on the market.

Abbott, Berenice (1898-1991)
Berenice Abbott: American Photographer, Signed Limited Edition.

Jones Brown, Zenith (1898-1983)
Typed Letter Signed, 11 July 1947.

Two sheets of blue writing paper with the author’s King George Street, Annapolis, Maryland address, typed over one side only of each page, to a Miss MacPherson, signed “Leslie Ford (Mrs. Ford Brown),” in answer to a letter of complaint to Saturday Evening Post, she defends her syntax, in particular her use of “It is me”; stating that, “I know it is technically incorrect in serious, dignified and non-colloquial writing, or in light fiction in the speech of dignified and cultivated characters of a pedantic or even just conservative nature. […] If however, in a Leslie Ford story I wrote, ‘It is I,’ said the police sergeant, I would be doing it to indicate that the speaker used a pedantic or pretentious kind of speech. Such people don’t talk that way.” She goes on to cite several references in support of her points, each sheet, 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 in.

Brown was a crime fiction writer who wrote under the names David Frome, Leslie Ford, and Brend Conrad. Her series featuring the characters Grace Latham and John Primrose were among her most popular.

Soong Mei-ling [aka Madame Chiang Kai-Shek] (1898-2003)
Chinese Orchids, Signed Presentation Copy.

[Taipei, 1971].

Signed and inscribed on English-language title page to author Kenneth L. Wilson (biographer of Lillian Dickson), in 1972; illustrated throughout with black-and-white reproductions of Soong Mei-ling’s watercolor paintings of orchids, with a foreword in English by her husband; in a publisher’s limp paper covers, stab sewn, and housed in original folding publisher’s case, 17 x 10 1/2 in.

Nevelson, Louise (1899-1998)
Female Nude in Profile.

Circa 1930s.

Pencil drawing on paper, signed lower right, depicting a standing women in profile, arms up, right leg forward, face in profile, before a background of shapes patterned in dots, dashes and zig-zags, unframed, 16 x 8 1/2 in.

Ex-collection Albert Argentieri, New Jersey, friend of the artist; thence by descent, private collection, New Jersey.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Argentieri, a photographer and artist, lived near Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) and her assistant, Ted Haseltine, his dear friend. Albert photographed Louise, her artworks and sculptures; both Albert and Ted, when staying in New Jersey would collect wooden pieces from abandoned buildings and other locations for Nevelson to use in her sculptures. The early etchings and drawings she gifted to Argentieri are unique.

Nevelson, Louise (1899-1998)
Seated Female Nude.

Circa 1930s.

Pencil drawing on cream wove paper, depicting a seated woman with arms crossed over her head, matted and framed (drawing slightly shifting in the mat), 15 1/4 x 9 in. sight, 22 x 15 in. overall.

Ex-collection Albert Argentieri, New Jersey.

Nevelson, Louise (1899-1998)
Seated Female Nude.

Circa 1930s.

Pen and ink on paper, signed lower right, depicting a partially dressed seated woman wearing a shirt or jacket, stockings and shoes, hands on hips, her face in three-quarter profile, matted and framed, 21 x 11 3/4 in. sight, 26 1/2 x 17 in. overall.

Ex-collection Albert Argentieri, New Jersey.

Jones, Hélène (fl. circa 1918)
The Motor Corps of America.