Last chance to see: 'High Society'

Wellcome Collection's current temporary exhibition, High Society, closes this Sunday (27th February), meaning there's not much time left to sample its stimulating wares.

High Society draws upon a range of intoxicating material from the Wellcome Library - a small sample though, of our extensive holdings relating to mind-altering substances in all their shapes and sizes.

So, if the closure of the exhibition leaves you seeking more mental stimulation, a trip to the Wellcome Library may well be in order...

Image: Two wealthy Chinese opium smokers. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 19th century (Wellcome Library no. 25052i)

Merry Christmas!

The Wellcome Library closes today for the festive period at 5pm and re-opens at 10am on Tuesday 4th January 2011.

We would just like to take this opportunity to wish all Library readers and followers of this Blog, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Image: A Christmas entertainment, presented in sign language for the deaf and dumb, at the Hanover Square rooms, London (Wellcome Library no. 17959i)

Theodor Schwann Bicentenary

"The treatise has now been seven years before the public, has been most acutely investigated by those best competent to test its value, and the first physiologists of our day have judged the discoveries which it unfolds as worthy to be ranked amongst the most important steps by which the science of physiology has ever been advanced"

The treatise being described here is Theodor Schwann's work of 1837, Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen. This was translated into English in 1847 as Microscopical researches into the accordance in the structure and growth of animals and plants (the quote above comes from the Translator's Preface). But to summarise Schwann's achievements, let's just use two words: cell theory.

Schwann - who was born 200 years ago today - played a key role in our understanding that cells are the basic units of life. Schwann's associate Matthias Schleiden had examined the cellular structure of plants, but Schwann extended Schleiden's research to animal tissues. As the title of Section II of Schwann's Microscopical researches... states: "On cells as the Basis of All Tissues of the Animal Body".

Schwann's work was aided by developments in nineteenth century microscopy. Microscopical researches... includes a number of plates with figures of the cells Schwann observed under his microscope (magnified by about 450 diameters). Here were membranes from a hen's egg and cells from the tail of a tadpole, not served up as remarkable feats of magnification but as evidence to support his theory.



Aided by being part of the laboratory of the influential German physiologist Johannes Muller, Schwann's monograph caught the attention of the scientific community and he was awarded the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1845 (two years before his work was published in English).

Although Schwann's theory was refined in later years (Rudolf Virchow showed that cells developed from themselves, rather than as Schwann argued, crystallizing out from a "blastema" or amorphous fluid) he played a vital role in the adoption and acceptance of cell theory. Considering also Schwann's earlier research - he made pioneering discoveries in both fermentation and digestion - the bicentenary of his birth seems an apt date to mark.

Item of the Month, November 2010: A Victorian Paper Trail

Among books, journal articles, pamphlets and bound volumes of patents about Victorian toilets (flushing or non-flushing), systems of varying complexity for the disposal (and recycling) of human sewage and many items about personal and household hygiene; we also have in the Wellcome Library’s Ephemera Collection what must be fairly scarce examples of late 19th century toilet paper.

Our main example comes from the 1870s, when one popular product was the Diamond Mills Paper Company’s ‘Bromo Paper’ which came in packs of about 500 individual sheets inside a solid card box (21 x 15 x 3 cm.), open at the top so that single sheets could be pulled out as required. Every sheet had a distinguishing watermark of ‘Bromo’ so that counterfeit versions could be easily spotted (the packaging states this was a problem in India). This toilet tissue had been awarded the highest prize at the Paris Exposition in 1878 and every pack proudly bore reproductions of both sides of the medal to prove it. The Wellcome Library holds one such pack, now catalogued as EPH471A.

The paper contained the "disinfectants and curatives" Bromo chloralum and carbolic acid, which the manufacturers' claimed would "...render its use not only a positive preventive of that most distressing and almost universal complaint, the Piles, but also a thorough deodorizer and disinfectant of the water closet". However common haemorrhoids were at the time, the flush toilet was certainly not standard in 1878 and the smells that would have developed in the non-flush version, particularly over a hot summer, would have needed all the help with deodorization that could be given.

The pack would have slotted neatly inside a wooden case which hung from a nail in the water closet wall, next to the toilet. A typical toilet paper polished wood case that would have held the box of individual sheets is illustrated on what is most likely a salesman's sample sheet of ‘Globus’ paper (EPH471:38) and was available from John Miller, Ltd., manufacturing stationers, 116 Renfield Street, Glasgow for one shilling. If you preferred your paper on a varnished wood and bronze finish toilet roll holder (illustrated on the ‘Excelsior’ paper sample, EPH471:37), that could be purchased from the same firm for one shilling and threepence. The samples would have been shown to prospective retail stockists by hopeful salesmen.

John Miller Ltd. also manufactured 'Purolette' (EPH471:39) and 'Silkine' (EPH471:40) brands of paper. They promised no stoppage of drains or injury to health (whatever injuries other brands of toilet paper may have been causing at the time...) and were advertised as being soft as silk, but also thin and tough. The samples we have feel more like greaseproof paper than silk - which makes us wonder what our Victorian ancestors would have made of today's luxury toilet paper brands.

As today is World Toilet Day - which raises awareness on sanitation in the present day - it seems the perfect occasion to ponder these examples of nineteenth century sanitation advancement. Furthermore, as all the thousands of items in the Library's Ephemera Collection share the fact they had a practical use before being discarded, can there be more apt examples of ephemera than our surviving material from John Miller Ltd and the Diamond Mills Papers Co. ?

Author: Stephen Lowther

Brandreth's Pills

Yesterday (4th October) BBC Radio 4 aired Brandreth's Pills which told the story of Benjamin Brandreth, a pioneering patent remedy salesman of the nineteenth century.

Brandreth's Vegetable Pills earned their creator a fortune, and the programme investigated Brandreth's ground-breaking marketing techniques.

The programme also featured William Schupbach, Curator, Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Wellcome Library, discussing the testimonials included in Brandreth's publication The Doctrine of Purgation.

Brandreth's Pills will be available to listeners in the UK through the BBC iPlayer until Monday 11th October.

Imperial China comes to Hartlepool

Those of you with a good memory might recall previous postings here about the exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 opening first in Beijing last year, and then in Liverpool earlier this year. Well, its tour of the UK continues when it opens at the Hartlepool Art Gallery on 4th September. It will run until 13th November and will include over 100 reproductions of Thomson’s wonderful photographs of the people and landscapes of China in the 19th century.

The exhibition is a joint collaboration between the Wellcome Library (who own the original glass negatives from which the reproductions were made), and Betty Yao, an independent curator. Having been closely involved with the exhibition’s creation, I can attest to the beauty of the photographs and the high quality of the scholarly input that has gone into their accompanying labels. They offer a fascinating insight into life in China at the time, so if you’re in the area, pop by the museum to have a look!

Image: Camel sculptures on the road to the Ming tombs outside Peking. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871 (Wellcome Library no. 19258i)

Author: Rowan de Saulles

The Great Moon Hoax

As announcements go, the following - made in the New York Sun newspaper, on this day in 1835 - is a tantalising one:

GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES
LATELY MADE
BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c.
At the Cape of Good Hope
[From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science]

What was it that one of the most acclaimed astronomers of his day had observed? Must have been something of great scientific importance to have made the pages of the respected Edinburgh Journal of Science first...

The author of the report - serialised in six extracts - was given as Dr. Andrew Grant, who described himself in the New York Sun as a colleague and travelling companion of Herschel's.

As for what Herschel (pictured left) had seen through his telescope, Grant's claims were extraordinary: no less than evidence of life forms on the moon. And what life forms they were: unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats... Aside from the animal life on the moon, the articles also offered detailed accounts of the moon's landscape (which included trees, beaches and rivers).

Although extraordinary, the style of Grant's accounts fitted with the Sun's emphasis on clear narratives, indicative of the paper's status as one of the new "penny press" papers.

Oh, and there was one small issue about Grant's accounts - they were entirely made up.

Whilst Herschel was of course an astronomer - and had recently travelled to the South of Africa - Grant was not a colleague of Herschel's but a fictional character. And the Edinburgh Journal of Science - as the Wellcome Library's holdings for the title indicates - had stopped publishing a few years before.

So - a 'silly season' splash by the New York Sun? Well, something a bit more intriguing than that. Evidence suggests the stories originated from the pen of Richard Adams Locke, a Sun reporter educated at Cambridge University who had an important point to make: that being to satirise speculation on extraterrestrial life, which was popular at the time. Such writers as the Reverend Thomas Dick (pictured left), who made the case for a universe teeming with life forms in his work The Christian Philosopher and who claimed that the moon alone had over 4.2 billion inhabitants.

Were readers really taken in by the New York Sun's story? It's said that the duped included a delegation of scientists from Yale University, who even travelled to New York in search of the Edinburgh Journal articles. The staff of the Sun then proceeded to send the scientists all round the offices of the newspaper in search of the bogus journals, before the delegation retreated back to Yale without realizing they had been tricked. It seems this story is also a fiction (after all, one would have expected the men from Yale to have checked with their own University's Library staff first...).

Despite other newspapers commenting upon the hoax, the Sun never broke cover and admitted it had duped its readers. It did publish a column on the 16th September in which it discussed the possibility that the story was a hoax, but it never actually confessed to anything, writing "Certain correspondents have been urging us to come out and confess the whole to be a hoax; but this we can by no means do, until we have the testimony of the English or Scotch papers to corroborate such a declaration."

For a more detailed account of this story, we refer readers to Matthew Goodman's The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York (2007), which you can find on our shelves. The Sun, continued to operate until 1950. It never did, however, produce a story as extraordinary as "The Great Moon Hoax" nor admit that this story was a hoax.

With thanks to History.com for alerting us to this anniversary.

The Art Nouveau Whiplash

Illustration: Design work, 1900.

One of the defining emblems of the Art Nouveau movement was the whiplash motif. It has been known by various other names and formats, ranging from 'noodle' to 'tapeworm' but the moniker of 'whiplash' has stayed with the movement.

The lines that very often make up the design work of the period, were often seen as languorous, sensual and by some even lascivious, but they could also provoke ideas of sharper and more defined movement and gesture. 'Whiplash' is not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the soporific qualities that Art Nouveau is often famed for. However, it does show that the movement could be adaptable and when it needed a harder edge, it could find one, even if just a metaphor.

Illustration: Design work, 1900.

No decorative style appears fully formed devoid of roots, and the Art Nouveau movement is no different. It has its origins in a number of styles and cultures from a range of eras that include Victorian Gothic and the Arts & Crafts movement. The iconic whiplash however, can trace its origin to a revived interest in the highly decorative, but very often fragile Rococo interiors of the eighteenth century.

Similarities between the two decorative styles are there and can be identified quite clearly. Both used the sensual and the sinuous in large quantities, and both have become associated as feminine in style and sympathy. However, they were also both often accused in their own contemporary eras of being overly fussy, convoluted and resorting to studied decadence and affectation. It would perhaps be stretching credulity a little too far to draw too many conclusions as to their shared similarities, this would imply that at some basic level ,they were the same, and they were clearly not. The world of the eighteenth century Rococo was not the same space as nineteenth century Art Nouveau, there were different theoretical ideals to the two decorative styles, as well as general social and political differences in the historical eras themselves.

Illustration: Design work, 1900.

There were also many new and different influences on the latter style than the former. For example, Art Nouveau was heavily indebted to traditional Japanese design culture, Japan being a largely isolated and unknown entity in the eighteenth century. Out of the interest in Japanese decorative styles and particularly their art and craft techniques, came the use of the graphic flat one-dimensional aspect of much of the Art Nouveau output. Although surface pattern and design was used extensively through much of the nineteenth century across Europe, it was the Japanese influence that produced some of the most recognised elements of the Art Nouveau period.

Illustration: Design work, 1900.

Which brings us back to the whiplash. While it undoubtedly has its origins in the European Rococo decorative style of the eighteenth century, it also owes a great debt to a range of style eras from Celtic to Japanese. it would perhaps be more accurate to call the whiplash and Art Nouveau in general an eclectic style may well help to sum up, at least broadly, both the appeal and purpose of the movement.

Further reading links:
Art Nouveau Designs (Design Source Books)
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau: Utopia: Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Taschen's 25th Anniversary Special Editions Series)
422 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau (Art and Ideas Series)
305 Authentic Art Nouveau Jewelry Designs
Treasury of Art Nouveau Design & Ornament (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau Flowers (Design Source Books)
300 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau 1890-1914
Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics, Psychology, and Style (Studies on the History of Society and Culture)
The Art Nouveau Style
Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
The Essence of Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau: An Anthology of Design and Illustration from "The Studio" (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

The Publications of Christopher Dresser

Illustration: Christopher Dresser. Decorative example from Studies in Design, 1876.

Christopher Dresser as well as being an innovative and often ground-breaking designer and critic, is probably just as well known today for a series of books he wrote and published, starting in his early twenties and stretching throughout his career.

The titles, mostly dealing with decorative and ornamental design, tended to correspond with his frequent lecture tours throughout the UK during the latter half of the nineteenth century and were often used to publicise not so much his career, but his strong belief in the benefits of fundamental design reform in Britain.

Illustration: Christopher Dresser. Decorative example from Studies in Design, 1876.

In 1857, he wrote a series of six articles entitled Botany as Adapted to the Arts and Art-Manufacture that appeared in the prestigious British Art Journal magazine. These articles were the start of a highly successful and influential writing career.

By 1862 when he published the Art of Decorative Design, his written work had become more like a manifesto in its character, than an observational exercise. Dresser had never intended to merely sit back and dispassionately comment on contemporary and historical decorative styles without any form of engagement. He was a born reformer and had a number of fundamental and wide-ranging issues with Britain's often-difficult relationship between manufacturing and design.

Illustration: Christopher Dresser, Decorative example from Studies in Design, 1876.

A number of volumes in a largely educational tone appeared in the next few years, one of which Principles of Decorative Design published in 1873, had originally appeared as a series of articles in the monthly Technical Educator magazine.

Dresser was by no means unusual in producing educational books, articles and lectures dealing with decoration and design. There was a genuine interest in expanding the educational knowledge of the educational establishment, industry and indeed that of the general public. Both student and professional designers were encouraged to concentrate on all aspects of design thinking in order to try to produce mass produced work that could be seen as both rational and functional, rather than that of decoration and flippancy for its own sake. As far as the public were concerned, it was thought that a consumer with at least a rudimentary knowledge of good design techniques would be better placed to make wise decisions when purchasing goods. This, it was hoped, would pressurise manufacturers and retailers into producing consumer goods that were both better styled and better manufactured.

Illustration: Christopher Dresser. Decorative example from Studies in Design, 1876.

Probably Dresser's most famous and successful book was Studies in Design published between 1874 and 1876 from which these illustrations are taken. Originally published in twenty parts, Dresser himself felt that this title was his most prestigious publication. He summed up his intention with this particular publication, by explaining that the book was "to bring about a better style of decoration for our houses", though this explanation could equally apply to many of the titles published by him throughout his career.

After the publication of Studies in Design Dresser's ideas about design, decoration and manufacturing were to change direction fundamentally when in 1876 he made his first trip to Japan. Dresser had been dealing in Japanese goods for a number of years and was well aware of Japanese styles of decoration and ornamentation, as can be seen in the images shown here from his Studies in Design. However, it was the four months that Dresser stayed in Japan, travelling widely, visiting and observing every aspect of Japanese life, which changed his thinking on fundamental aspects of both decoration and design.

Illustration: Christopher Dresser. Decorative example from Studies in Design, 1876.

Dresser began to lecture and write on subjects that dealt with the use of materials and the simplicity of form. His trip to Japan put in place ideas about form and function that were to lead inevitably towards the twentieth century's mantra of  form follows function, a concept that was to be at the very core of Modernism.

In the 1880s, Dresser published a series of books that dealt with Japan and contemporary ideas on decoration and ornamentation. In 1882, he published Japan, its Architecture, Art and Art Manufactures which did much to popularise, not only Japanese styles of decoration, but more importantly, the fundamental ideas that lay behind Japanese ideas on design and the manufacturing of consumer goods.

Dresser is often classed today as a pioneer of Modernism through his work as a designer. However, he was also a great educator who believed that to progress within design you needed to bring the general population along with you, and this could only be done through education. His books helped many to understand the design and manufacturing ideals of the nineteenth century, but also helped to prepare many for the coming century where new ideas about the use of materials, form, style and function were to change design dramatically and fundamentally from all that had gone before.

Further reading links:
Christopher Dresser : A Pioneer of Modern Design
Dresser's Victorian Ornamentation: 150 Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Shock of the Old: Christopher Dresser's Design Revolution
Christopher Dresser: A Design Revolution
Christopher Dresser
Christopher Dresser 1834-1904
Pomegranate Christopher Dresser Standard Boxed Note Card Set (Pack of 2)
Studies in Design
Alessi Christopher Dresser Tray
christopher dresser oil & vinegar set by alessi
Japan : its architecture, art, and art manufactures (1882)
christopher dresser cheese cellar by alessi
Principles of Victorian Decorative Design
Pomegranate Dresser Design Square Embossed Boxed Note Card Set (Pack of 2)
christopher dresser small footed bowl by alessi
Tea-Service with Gilt Interiors, Manufactured by James Dixon & Sons, 1880 (Electro-Plated Silver) Giclee Poster Print by Christopher Dresser, 18x24
Language of Ornament : Style in the Decorative Arts
A Fine Clutha Solifleur Vase Giclee Poster Print by Christopher Dresser, 18x24

William Morris and Carpet Reform

Illustration: William Morris. Bullerswood, 1889.

William Morris and his company are probably primarily known for their textiles and wallpapers. However, some of the most stunning design work to come out of Morris & Co has to be from some of the large, luxurious carpets that were produced mostly during Morris lifetime.

Many of the designs were influenced by traditional carpeting designs from around the world. There are constant flower and wildlife images that are recognisably linked with the native Persian carpet industry for example, of which Morris was a particularly keen and avid fan.

Morris was also committed, as were many leading designers of the mid-nineteenth century, into producing design work that was basically graphic in nature, as opposed to that of the three-dimensional qualities that were commonplace amongst the more fashionable designs of the period, two examples of which are shown below.

Illustration: Carpet design, 1840s.

These extremely popular carpet designs were produced for both effect and status. Carpet manufacturers had seen a large increase in their market with the expansion of the nineteenth century middle class. This class had only recently started to expand in numbers and many were still unfamiliar as to role that their heightened position in society had given them. Many were keen to portray their new wealth and status by procuring instant possessions; unfortunately, the more ostentatious and glaring these possessions were, the better they were often deemed to be.

Illustration: William Morris, 1857.

Morris was convinced that a flat, graphic quality to the design, particularly with regard to textiles, was more fitting to the flat nature of the medium. He saw no real gain in employing mock three-dimensional trickery in order to produce a realistic image, where none was needed. He felt that much of the contemporary decorative qualities in carpet and rug design served no purpose other than to jar the ambiance of a planned interior, and felt that much could be learnt from traditional surface pattern techniques, particularly those used within the Islamic world.

Although Morris carpet designs were very often complex, the colour palette and compositional work produced by him and his company, was never heightened to the detriment of an interior. As far as Morris was concerned, the carpet was supposed to compliment the furnishings not dominate them.

Morris, along with many others in nineteenth century Britain, felt that the newest and latest members of the by now burgeoning middle class, needed to be educated towards a better management of their interiors. It was assumed that taste was something that could be taught. The constant publication throughout the century, often by self-proclaimed connoisseurs of taste, of books and articles dealing with the achievement of taste and refinement, and their undoubted and obvious popularity, showed that large sections of the general public had an appetite for these lessons and were more than willing to be taught.

Illustration: William Morris. Bullerswood, 1889.

Further reading links:

Designs of William Morris (Phaidon Miniature Editions) 

William Morris (Temporis) 

V&A Pattern: William Morris (Hardcover with CD) 

William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Home 
William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs (Pictorial Archives)
News from Nowhere and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)
William Morris (Temporis)
William Morris: Patterns & Designs (International Design Library)
William Morris on Art and Socialism
William Morris: A Life for Our Time
William Morris Decor and Design
William Morris: Artist, Craftman, Pioneer
The Gardens of William Morris