The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

FALL/WINTER 2006

Framed Again

NO PLANT LEFT BEHIND

THE BIBLE IN PICTURES

GALLERY VISITORS FREQUENTLY ARE TEMPTED to drawclose to a painting—or as close as a security guard will allow.Perhaps they suspect an inadvertent slip in a brushstroke, ormaybe they want to marvel at the realistic depiction of sunlight

in a morning or late-afternoon scene.The cover photo of this issue is an invi-tation to readers to come close to the edge of a particular painting—in thiscase, to the fine detail of an authentic reconstruction of a 19th-century framefor Frederic Edwin Church’s Chimborazo (1864).

In “Framed Again,”Traude Gomez-Rhine tells the story of how artisans andHuntington curators worked together to replace a frame that had been lost tohistory (page 4).The newly adorned painting is on display in the BooneGallery through Jan. 3, 2007, accompanying the exhibition “Treasures fromOlana: Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church.” It will return to the ScottGallery after the close of the show.

This issue of Huntington Frontiers features other visual works that invitescrutiny. Dan Lewis, the Dibner Senior Curator of the History of Science &Technology, explores the differences between two versions of John JamesAudubon’s Birds of America: the original edition of 435 copperplate engravingsand a later edition of 105 chromolithographic prints (page 21). Curator ofPhotographs Jennifer Watts ponders two different prints of an iconic AnselAdams photo (page 2), and scholar Lori Anne Ferrell explains how thousandsof engravings in the Kitto Bible can enhance readers’ interpretation ofScripture (page 16).

But as often as gallery visitors lean into paintings, they also step back to takein the works of art in their entirety.Watts explains that Adams did somethinglike this himself when he followed his intimate Monolith with a much largerversion that could be seen from across the room.While it’s fascinating to isolatethe primary colors that are the stock-in-trade of a chromolithographer’s work-shop, the true pleasure of viewing Birds of America comes in seeing the lifelikeprints after the various inks have all come together.The Chimborazo frame,while captivating in close detail, should ultimately be seen at a safe distancethat allows the viewer to take in the landscape painting as the artist intended.

MATT STEVENS

The Huntington Library,Art Collections,and Botanical Gardens

SENIOR STAFF OF THE HUNTINGTON

STEVEN S. KOBLIK

President

GEORGE ABDO

Vice President for Advancement

JAMES P. FOLSOM

Marge and Sherm Telleen Director of the Botanical Gardens

KATHY HACKER

Executive Assistant to the President

SUSAN LAFFERTY

Nadine and Robert A. Skotheim Director of Education

SUZY MOSER

Assistant Vice President for Advancement

JOHN MURDOCH

Hannah and Russel Kully Director of Art Collections

ROBERT C. RITCHIE

W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research

LAURIE SOWD

Associate Vice President for Operations

ALISON D. SOWDEN

Vice President for Financial Affairs

SUSAN TURNER-LOWE

Vice President for Communications

DAVID S. ZEIDBERG

Avery Director of the Library

MAGAZINE STAFF

Editor

MATT STEVENS

Contributing Writers

LISA BLACKBURN

TRAUDE GOMEZ-RHINE

Designer

LORI ANN VANDER PLUYM

Huntington Frontiers is published semiannually by the Office of Communications. It strives to connectreaders more firmly with the rich intellectual life of The Huntington, capturing in news and features thework of researchers, educators, curators, and othersacross a range of disciplines.

This magazine is supported in part by theAnnenberg Foundation.

INQUIRIES AND COMMENTS:Matt Stevens, EditorHuntington Frontiers1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA 91108huntingtonfrontiers@huntington.org

Unless otherwise acknowledged, photography providedby the Huntington’s Department of Photographic Services.

Printed by Pace Lithographers, Inc. City of Industry, Calif.

© 2006 The Huntington Library,Art Collections, andBotanical Gardens.All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the contents, in whole or in part, withoutpermission of the publisher is prohibited.

FROM THE EDITOR

TAKING IT ALL IN

Opposite page, upper left: William Blake’s “Job and His Family Praising God” (1826), included in TheHuntington’s Kitto Bible. Right: High school science teacher Lan Nguyen speaking with Caltech graduate studentSean Gordon. Photo by Lisa Blackburn. Lower left: Carver José Macas from Eli Wilner & Co., working on thenew frame for Chimborazo. Courtesy Eli Wilner & Co.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 1

[ VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2 ]

FRAMED AGAIN 4A landscape returns to the perfect settingby Traude Gomez-Rhine

NO PLANT LEFT BEHIND 9Reviving an endangered topic in classroomsby Matt Stevens

BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS 16The art of extra-Illustrationby Lori Anne Ferrell

FF AA LL LL // WW II NN TT EE RR 22 00 00 66Contents

DEPARTMENTS

DISCOVERY: Ansel Adams sees doubleby Jennifer A.Watts 2

ACCESSIONS: Audubon’s night and dayby Dan Lewis 21

BOOKS IN PRINT: Recommended reading 24

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2 Fall/Winter 2006

Double ExposureANSEL ADAMS’ SECOND TAKE ON A CLASSIC PHOTOGRAPH

by Jennifer A. Watts

[ DISCOVERY ]

O N A BRILLIANT SPRING DAY IN 1927,Ansel Adams hiked to an out-of-the-wayspot in Yosemite that promised a spectac-ular view of the valley below.Adams had

already been making pictures for more than a decade (hisfirst visit to Yosemite in 1916 prompted the gift of his firstcamera—a Kodak Box Brownie), but he still was not sureabout photography as a vocation. Looking through thecamera lens that afternoon,Adams had an epiphany.“Ibegan to see in my mind’s eye the finished print I desired,”he wrote.Adams suddenly realized that he could translatehow he felt—a telepathic exercise he later termed “visual-ization”—onto the final image.The result, titled Monolith,the Face of Half Dome, not only irrevocably changed hisunderstanding of the medium, but it became one of hissignature works.

Monolith made its first appearance in a 1927 portfolioof 18 Adams images with the highfalutin title ParmelianPrints of the High Sierras. (“Parmelian” being a made-up wordmeant to evoke classical associations like the Parthenon andParnassus).This rare set, one of which is in The Huntington’scollections, reveals an Adams quite at odds with the artistmost of us think we know today.The images, printed ona delicate, parchment-like paper, are all of eight by sixinches and, despite the dramatic subject matter, have aquiet intimacy that beckons the viewer to come closerand examine the detail.

Fast-forward 50 years.What we see on the far right isAdams’ interpretation of the same negative around 1980.In the intervening half-century,Adams became a giant inthe field, a photographer who consorted with presidentsand statesmen, became a spokesman for conservationcauses, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Hewas an indisputable superstar feted in exhibitions andbooks, his photographs fetching record-breaking prices atauction.This later Monolith seems to attest to Adams’ larger-than-life fame. Now a generous 19 by 14½ inches withblinding whites and inky blacks that could be seen fromacross a gallery, this later print shouts down the quietelegance of the earlier rendition.

Why the difference? Perhaps, as some have posited,Adams’ failing eyesight in his later years is to account.Certainly prevailing trends in photography favored large-scale work with high contrast over the more muted andnostalgic shadings of the earlier era. Still, it is fascinatingto view these prints side by side and contemplate theartistic trajectory of the man whose very name is synony-mous with 20th-century landscape photography. Readerswill have the chance to do just that; both prints from TheHuntington are on loan for the exhibition “Yosemite:Artof an American Icon” (Part 1: 1855–1969) at the AutryMuseum of the American West through Jan. 21, 2007. m

Jennifer A.Watts is curator of photographs at The Huntington.

Two versions of Ansel Adams’ Monolith, the Face of Half Dome. Above: Oneof 18 images from the 1927 Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras (8 x 6 in.).Right: A larger rendition from around 1980 (193/16 x 149/16 in.). ©2006 TheAnsel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 3

4 Fall/Winter 2006

FR

AM

ED

AGAIN

The Huntington’s paintingChimborazo, by Frederic Edwin

Church, in a new frame constructedby Eli Wilner & Co. The canvas

alone measures 48 by 84 inches.Photo by John Sullivan.

a frederic church landscapereturns to the perfect settingby Traude Gomez-RhineN

6 Fall/Winter 2006

FOR MORE THAN 100 YEARS,Frederic Edwin Church’sChimborazo graced the NewYork City homes of William

H. Osborn and his descendents. Theluminous seven-foot-wide landscapehad been in the family since Osbornacquired it from Church not longafter the artist completed it in 1864.The friendship of the two men wouldremain strong right up until the famedHudson River School artist died inOsborn’s grand Park Avenue apart-ment in 1900.

In 1989 Chimborazo came westwhen The Huntington, with the helpof theVirginia Steele Scott Foundation,obtained the prized work for its fledg-ling American art collection. Holdingone of the last major Church paintingsin a private collection, the Osborns hadbeen courted by institutions aroundthe country.Now Southern Californiacould claim a monumental canvas bya painter who had never reachedCalifornia in person.

Inspired by the ideas of the Germanscientist Alexander von Humboldt(1769–1859),who wrote of the pristinebeauty of South America,Church trav-eled to Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazoin 1853 and 1857, making dozens ofsketches of the mountain and regionwhile documenting its trees and low-land plants with almost a scientificscrutiny. With Chimborazo, Churchcombined his empirical interests inbotany with a cosmic, transcendentview of nature, and his epic landscapecontinues to impress viewers as it didwhen it was exhibited to criticalacclaim in London in 1865.

But something wasn’t quite rightwhen Chimborazo was safely installedin The Huntington’s Virginia SteeleScott Gallery of American Art. Theframe had a lemony hue that wasn’twell suited to the painting.“The brightgilding made Chimborazo appear darkby contrast,” says Jessica Todd Smith,

The Huntington’sVirginia Steele ScottCurator of American Art.Though itsstyle was historically appropriate, theframe was clearly newer—made in the20th century—and not original to thepainting.

Just as a hairstyle can complementa face or a wall color transform a room,a frame can profoundly alter the appear-ance of a painting.Church (1826–1900)understood this; as far as he was con-cerned, the painting needed to “har-monize with the frame,” as he oncewrote. In fact,Church wasn’t merely anaccomplished artist, he was a seriousframe designer who cared deeply aboutthe presentation of his paintings. Most19th-century artists left the details offraming to others,unlike their Europeancounterparts who have a long historyof exploring frame design. JamesAbbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)was one of the few American excep-tions to this rule. (More Americanartist-framers would come into promi-nence by the early 20th century.)

Church was also a natural showmanand shrewd marketer who cleverly builtpublic excitement for his work. He

regularly sent his paintings on tour,earning extra income by selling ticketsto viewers. For Church, the frame wasa window that led the viewer deeperinto a painting.“Frederic Church gavea great deal of consideration to impress-ing the viewer with his work,” saysSmith. “While he could not alwayscontrol the environment in which hispaintings were displayed, he could atleast surround them with frames thatshowed them at their best.”

Church certainly hadn’t intendedChimborazo to be viewed in a framethat was too bright, too yellow. AmyMeyers, The Huntington’s curator ofAmerican art when Chimborazo arrivedin 1989,determined a new frame was inorder. In 1998 she asked the esteemedEli Wilner & Co. in New York City todesign and craft a frame that might

For Church, the frame was a

window that led the viewer

deeper into a painting.

Below: Chimborazo hanging in the dining room of William H. Osborn, New York, ca. 1865–70, from thearchives of the Frederick Osborn family. Above left: The frame that arrived with Chimborazo when TheHuntington acquired the painting in 1989.

match Church’s own conception of theproper border. Meyers brainstormedwith Suzanne Smeaton,gallery directorat Wilner, about how Church mighthave intended to frame the painting,based on his other frame designs.

A lucky break for the project camea year later when William Osborn’sgreat-grandson Frederick discoveredsome old family photos and sent themto Meyers.There was the painting inan intricately ornate, gilded frame, ondisplay in two different homes at dif-ferent points in its 100-year stay withthe family.

If this was the original frame,whenhad it been removed, and where hadit gone? In the 1970s the high cost ofinsuring Chimborazo had prompted theOsborn family to arrange its long-term loan to an East Coast museum.Had a curator there separated it fromits frame? Had someone in the family?Meyers implored the family to lookin the attic or barn on their property,but no frame turned up. Meyers thenshowed the photographs to Smeaton.“I immediately recognized the framestyle as a specific design,”Smeaton says.“It was nearly identical to one onanother Church painting. I knew withcertainty it had been designed byFrederic Church himself.”

The Church painting that Smeatonremembered was The Vale of St.Thomas,Jamaica (1867), at the WadsworthAtheneum in Hartford,Conn.Churchhad verifiably designed its frame.Theprimary bands of ornament in bothframes were identical.

Eli Wilner & Co. had previouslyworked with the Atheneum, and itdrew on this relationship when it strucka deal with the curator: Eli Wilner staffwould conduct minor restoration onthe frame of The Vale of St.Thomas, andthe Atheneum would allow them touse that frame as a prototype, even todismantle it to study its construction.With this model and the photographs,

What’s in a Frame?Eli Wilner & Co. employed some of the same processes that have been usedfor centuries in frame construction:

Wooden Substrate, or Basic FormFirst, craftsmen milled the wood pieces that form the “bones” of the frame.They then fitted these wood sections together into the frame’s skeletal form.

Molded Design Motifs and ElementsMost 19th-century American frames consist of wooden substrates embellishedwith applied ornaments that were made from a material called composition,or compo—a moldable mixture of chalk, resins, linseed oil, and glue, whichdried hard and could be used in place of the labor-intensive process of handcarving. Today, however, Eli Wilner & Co. uses its own proprietary material(similar to plaster) in place of compo. Artisans cast the design elements ofthe Chimborazo frame directly from the Vale of St. Thomas frame, usingmolds made from silicon rubber. They then affixed these new ornaments tothe wood frame, intricately fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Gilding and FinishingCraftsmen then applied a thin liquid plaster called gesso, essentially chalkmixed with glue and water. Six to eight coats are generally required to buildup a 16th-inch of gesso. The sanded gesso surface is then painted with bole,liquid clay that provides another layer of porosity as well as the color thatwill shine through the gold leaf. Bole on 19th-century American frames wasusually blue-gray in color, although red, yellow, brown, and white have alsobeen used in different eras. Indeed, Smeaton explains that red bole in theprevious Chimborazo frame indicated a modern reproduction and renderedthe frame too bright.

Craftsmen affixed 23-karat gold leaf with a mixture called gilder’s liquor—alcohol, water, and glue. They then polished selected areas of the frame witha tool called a burnisher, usually made with an agate stone, to create reflectivehighlights and contrast with the matte areas.

Finally, craftsmen applied a patina to make the frame look old and authentic.“This is the most challenging aspect of the gilder’s craft,” says Smeaton. The arti-sans all have their recipes—combinations of dyes, tints, and paints. “It’simportant that the frame look like it has always been on the painting.”

Above: Frederic Edwin Church’s sketch of a picture frame in profile, mid 1870s. Collection OlanaState Historic Site, New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation.

8 Fall/Winter 2006

a reproduction of the Church-designedframe was possible, and Chimborazowould once again be displayed in themanner intended by the artist.

Why someone had removed theoriginal frame remains a mystery, butthe answer may lie in the fact that19th-century American frames fell vic-tim to the shifting tastes of the art worldin the early 20th century.With mod-ernism and minimalism, a taste for sim-plicity reigned. “A frame as ornate asChimborazo’s may have looked dated,heavy, and old-fashioned,” says Smith.Indeed, American frames of the mid-to late 19th century became so passéto gallery owners and curators that theyroutinely took them off and stackedthem in basements or sent them tojunk stores. In some cases crafty scaven-gers salvaged the frames for their goldcontent, and in the process destroyedthem forever.

Museums don’t necessarily treatframes as accessioned objects—separatefrom the artwork that is a documentedpart of the collection—so their where-abouts aren’t always tracked. Galleriesoften reframe works of art, dependingon the styles and needs dictated by themarket and their clients. Private col-lectors, of course, always have usedreframing as a way to personalize theirartwork as well as to display their dec-orating tastes.

But the tides turned by the 1980s,with a revival of interest in 19th-century American art. “In the last 10years in particular, people have reallystarted to see frames as historicalobjects,” says Smeaton.“Museums, cura-tors, collectors, and dealers now givegreat thought and attention to the his-torical appropriateness of frame styles.”

As evidence, Eli Wilner’s LongIsland City workshop is in a perpetualswirl of activity as growing numbersof museums and galleries reuniteAmerican paintings with appropriateperiod frames. It was here that as manyas 11 craftspeople worked on the newChimborazo frame, spending more than300 hours regenerating Church’s orig-inal vision. Put on hold in 2001 whenMeyers left The Huntington, the re-framing project finally reached com-pletion under the watch of Smith,whoput the job on the fast track when TheHuntington signed on as a venue forthe exhibition “Treasures from Olana:Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church.”The project was also made possiblethrough a gift from actor Steve Martin,who gave The Huntington $1 millionto support its American art collectionand exhibitions.

Chimborazo’s new frame was shippedfrom New York on a truck and arrivedat The Huntington in early August 2006.A few weeks later the switch was made.

Smith stood in the Scott Gallery andnervously watched as Exhibits ManagerGregg Bayne and a crew gingerly re-moved Chimborazo from its old frameand set it into the new. The first sighof relief came when the painting actu-ally fit; with construction having takenplace across the country, the potentialfor a miscalculation was real. Bayneand his crew secured Chimborazo in itsframe, and breaths were held again asthe crew heaved the heavy canvasonto its wall hooks.

The impact of the new frame onthe painting was immediate and dra-matic, and it was readily apparent tothose in the room how the old framenever possessed the proper muscle tosupport such a monumental canvas.The layers of ornamentation have greatdrama and texture, and yet the detaildoesn’t overwhelm the painting, butrather enhances it, says Smith. Theframe’s stepped cove leads the eye intothe spatial depth of the painting, andthe warm tones of the gilding accen-tuate the luminous golden tones ofthe mountains that occupy its center.Church’s cumulus clouds,overshadowedby the bright gold of the other frame,pop out around the landscape’s edges.“The result is glorious,” says Smith. m

Traude Gomez-Rhine is a staff writer atThe Huntington.

Treasure from The Huntington

“Treasures from Olana: Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church” is on view in The Huntington’s Boone Gallery until Jan. 3, 2007.

It features 18 works from Olana, the home of Church in Hudson, N.Y., which became a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

This exhibition marks the first time that these works have traveled as a group. The Huntington supplements this traveling exhibi-

tion with an object-in-focus display of Chimborazo. This section also features 19th-century objects from the Library collections

not usually on public display, including editions of Alexander von Humboldt’s books. Object labels also link the plants depicted

in Chimborazo to specimens in The Huntington’s Botanical Gardens.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 9

Reviving an endangered topic inhigh school science classrooms

by Matt Stevens

RANDY GOOD BECAME CONCERNED last spring when he saw weedsovertaking a plot of land at Azusa High School.Good had taught biology and

chemistry at the school for 14 years, and he lamented the sorry state of the fieldthat had once been used for a popular horticulture class. Since the departure of ateacher only two years earlier, horticulture had dropped off the schedule of classes.

“I thought I’d better do something,”he says,“before the students lost the fieldas well as a greenhouse that had been used for the class.”

Good persuaded the principal to revive the class and then signed on to teachit this fall. He got an early start this summer by playing the role of student at TheHuntington’s Botanical Center.

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10 Fall/Winter 2006

The “Grounding in Botany”coursebegan in 2004 through a grant fromthe National Science Foundation. Fortwo years, biologist Martha Kirouac,an educator at The Huntington, ran aone-week summer workshop for 15 to20 Southern California high schoolscience teachers, who received smallstipends as well as grants for classroomsupplies upon completion of the course.This year a grant from the ArthurViningDavis Foundations helped expand theprogram to five weeks and broughtin Huntington Botanical Educator MikeKerkman as an additional instructor.

“We’re trying to improve highschool teachers’ understanding ofbotany and developmental biology,”says Kirouac. “If we engage them inthese topics, then they can teach thebasics with greater ease, confidence,and enthusiasm.”

Immersion for some and refresherfor others, the course balances lecturesand labs with guest presentations fromprofessors and graduate students fromCaltech and UC Irvine.

Gerard Besina, who teaches biologyat Paramount High School, relished the

opportunity to experience the labs ashis students will be experiencing them.

“Grounding in Botany is inquirybased—meaning we are discoveringthings as we go,” says Besina, who haslong kept plants in his classroom butnever quite found a place for them inhis lectures and labs.

This kind of approach encouragesstudents to ask questions that they canthen answer through further explo-ration. Besina and Good hope theirenthusiasm is infectious, but they arealso realistic when it comes to address-ing one of the most common questionsfrom their students: “Will we have toknow this for the test?”

If the subject has anything to dowith plants, the answer is probably no.The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001introduced strict curriculum standardsin many subject areas, including biol-ogy.Unfortunately, botany has fallen bythe wayside, given that the standardsemphasize examples from animal biol-ogy in addressing topics such as genet-ics, cell growth, and evolution.

But “plants have tremendous powerin the classroom,” says Kirouac.“They

can be used in lessons on a surprisingnumber of topics that might be hardto illustrate otherwise.”

On the first day of class, Kirouacand Kerkman passed out containers,fluorescent lights, and Wisconsin FastPlant seeds.This variety of Brassica rapaearned its nickname after a botanistfrom the Universityof Wisconsin accel-erated its development cycle throughyears of selective breeding.The weedy-looking plant—which is related to bokchoy, turnips, and rapini—goes fromseed to flower to new seeds in aboutfive weeks.The teachers would followthe life cycle of this plant and study

Above: Caltech’s Elliot Meyerowitz showing a mutation of an Arabidopsis plant to high school teachers from The Huntington’s Grounding in Botany program.From left to right: Randy Good, Craig Fox (obscured), Heather Starr, Meyerowitz, Deborah Fox, and Gerard Besina. Photo by Don Milici. Lower right: Growthover five weeks of the aptly named Wisconsin Fast Plant. Photos by Gerard Besina and Randy Good.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 11

not only its development, but thegenetics and cells that make develop-ment possible.

This little plant is ideal for countlessteachers who have limited resources,financial or otherwise.With just a littlewater and electricity, students have amodel organism at their disposal. Likefruit flies, the Fast Plant has a relative-ly small genome and is amenable togenetic manipulation. Kirouac herselfhas used everything from fungus in highschool to worms in her Caltech doc-toral dissertation to explore how differ-ential gene expression is established incells. (That is, finding out how a toecell knows to become a toe cell ratherthan a finger cell, given that the cellsof a particular organism all possess thesame DNA.) Worms go from egg toadult to new eggs in just three days,making them great candidates for grad-uate students but perhaps a bit too fastfor the high school setting. Studentshave little trouble maintaining plants,and they can also mix up their menuwith beans, radishes, corn, and a varietyof other garden-variety specimens—which all possess a range of strengthsand weaknesses, depending on the typeof questions students might be asking.

Plants can also provide tangible casestudies when a corresponding examplefrom the animal world is impractical.Take cancer, for example.Plants devel-op tumors, although their cells don’ttravel to other parts of the “body” and

lessons great and small. He took histurn as guest lecturer by leading afield trip through the various gardens,all the while asking deceptively sim-ple questions.

“Which part of this tree is a leaf ?”he asked as he positioned the groupunderneath a Caryota palm tree in TheHuntington’s Jungle Garden. Alsoknown as the giant fishtail palm, thetree has massive, fern-like leaves that

could each be mistaken for a collectionof distinct, smaller leaves.The teacherssensed the trick question but nonethe-less stumbled through their answers.

In no time at all, Folsom hadjumped from a description of leaves,stems, and roots to a discussion of theplant’s shoot apical meristem. Beforegiving anyone a chance to say themouthful five times really fast, Folsomexplained that an apical meristem isessentially a growing tip—the nodewhere plant cells develop into flowerbuds, leaves, or stems.The shoot apicalmeristem is the primary growing tipthat continues to push upward whileleaving the entire architecture of a plantin its wake, including other meristems.

metastasize into cancer as humans knowit.Nonetheless, students can safely con-duct experiments and observe out-of-control growth of abnormal cells byinfecting sunflower plants with a typeof bacterium that induces plant cellgrowth and division.This lab invariablyleads to a discussion of cell division,the differences between animal andplant cells, or the different methods ofcancer treatment.

After directing the teachers throughthe lab in the second week of thecourse, complete with information onhow to order and dispose of the bac-teria, Kirouac led the group on a walkthrough the gardens on a quest to findtrees infected with crown gall—thoselarge, bulbous growths that are essen-tially tumors. (On finding one example,Kirouac assured the group that such acondition is somewhat common anddoes not usually threaten the survivalof a tree.)

Jim Folsom, the Marge and ShermTelleen Director of the BotanicalGardens, showed how easy it was toexploit the variety of specimens onthe Huntington grounds to teach

The teachers would follow the LIFE CYCLE of theWisconsin Fast Plant and study not only its develop-ment, but the GENETICS and cells that makedevelopment possible.

12 Fall/Winter 2006

Folsom picked up a long stem andspun it gently, marveling at the con-centric arrangement of the flowersand leaves.“It’s like counting the ringson a tree stump,”he explained, showingthat the repeating pattern of flowersand stems tells its own story of meas-urable units of time.With each stopin the garden Folsom managed totake something familiar and convinceteachers they were seeing it for thefirst time.

Folsom reminded teachers theydidn’t need exotic plants and morethan a hundred acres at their disposalin order to hook students. “Sure, kids

get excited about Venus flytraps, but ahead of lettuce will do,” he said.“Andyou can eat it afterward!”

It turns out that Folsom’s discus-sion of the shoot apical meristemwas a prerequisite for a guest lecturein week four from Elliot Meyerowitz,the George W. Beadle Professor of

Biology and chair of the Departmentof Biology at Caltech. Think of themeristem as the botanical equivalentof the stem cell—both contain undif-ferentiated cells that have yet to forminto a specific cell, be it for a leaf, stem,or flower or an ear, nose, or throat.Meyerowitz has spent the better partof his career trying to figure out howthe cells of those growing tips “decide”their fates.

Meyerowitz explained that themodel organism of choice in his lab isthe Arabidopsis thaliana,more common-ly known as thale cress—a small plantrelated to cabbage and mustard, not tomention the Wisconsin Fast Plant.With

tweezers, small brushes, and a fair doseof patience, Meyerowitz and his col-leagues can cross-pollinate mutationsof the plant—monkeying with thenormal four-whorl pattern of theorgans of the flowers: four sepals in theouter whorl, then four petals, six sta-mens, and finally two carpels. Whilethe mutations always contain fourwhorls (with the customary 4-4-6-2pattern), the locations of the organs canbe altered almost at will.

Meyerowitz is trying to disprovehis own theory by testing and testingagain. Every configuration he comesup with is consistent with his ABC

model—A, B, and C being three dis-tinct gene functions that act in a varietyof combinations to specify the loca-tion of an organ.

Randy Good is a decade removedfrom graduate school, so he enjoyedinterspersing simulations of high schoollabs with graduate-style seminars. Inaddition to Meyerowitz, the teachersheard from José Luis Reichmann, thedirector of the Gene Expression Centerat Caltech, who spoke about micro-arrays, which allow scientists to pro-file RNA expression in a genome andcompare expression levels under dif-ferent conditions.

All the cells of a particular organ-ism have the same DNA, but “RNAexpression gives the cells their careers,”Kirouac pointed out.“This microarraytechnique allows the scientists to bet-ter understand how a cell reaches itscareer goals.”

Eric Mjolsness, an associate profes-sor in the Department of Information

“We’re trying to improve high school teachers’understanding of BOTANY and developmentalbiology,” says Martha Kirouac. “If we ENGAGEthem in these topics then they can teach the basicswith greater ease, CONFIDENCE, and enthusiasm.”

Standard epidermal cell

Guard cellStoma

Healthy stem tissue cells

Bacteria-induced tumor cellsshowing irregular growth

Above, top: Close-up view of the stomata on theepidermis of a Zebrina plant. A stoma is theopening where gas is exchanged between theenvironment and a plant. Above: Cross-sectionof a sunflower stem infected with a bacterium thatinduces a tumor-like growth. (The dark splotchesare merely thicker portions of the cross-section.)Photos by Gerard Besina.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 13

and Computer Science at UC Irvine,explained how he applies computationand mathematical models to biologi-cal observation. It was Mjolsness’ col-laboration with Meyerowitz thatbrought the high school teachers toThe Huntington in the first place.Their work on a project called “TheComputable Plant” earned the grantfrom the National Science Foundation,which included an outreach compo-nent as a requirement for funding.The two scientists turned to TheHuntington,which brought in Kirouacand later, Kerkman, to bridge the gapbetween high school curricula andthe research world.

Kirouac, Kerkman, and the guestlecturers worked together to empha-

size that a model is an extension of ahypothesis. So how practical is it tosubject high school teachers to suchsophisticated models?

“I look at this program as givingme more tools for my tool belt,” saysMike Milburn, who teaches biology,physical science,and earth science at theSoledad Enrichment Action CharterSchool in Hollywood. “The moretools I have, the more I can pick andchoose from to better communicate alesson in class.”

Good appreciated the interplay ofregular course lessons and master class-es.“If I had heard Meyerowitz’s lectureon my own before taking Groundingin Botany, I wouldn’t have understoodmost of it.” But instead he was able to

parse the details with Meyerowitz afterthe lecture.

Yet despite the rigor of the guestlectures,Kirouac and Kerkman attemptto present practical tools that can meetteachers’ day-to-day needs in the class-room.The entire set of 31 labs—plushandouts, lecture material, and Power-Point presentations, including thosefrom guest lecturers—are loaded ontoa CD for each teacher. And each labcross-references the California statestandard that it fulfills. Additionally,Kirouac and Kerkman will continueto work with the teachers throughoutthe academic year in five follow-upworkshops.

Joan Stevens, who took the classin the summer of 2004, has a literal

Program instructors Martha Kirouac and Mike Kerkman (far right) conducted dozens of labs and lectures throughout the five-week course. Here they answerquestions from Randy Good and Heather Starr. Photo by Don Milici.

14 Fall/Winter 2006

interpretation of the term “continuingeducation.” She has become a fixtureat every Huntington professional devel-opment opportunity for high schoolscience teachers. A botanist by train-ing, she is embarrassed to admit thatbefore taking the Huntington classes,she hardly used plants in her scienceclasses at Arcadia High School.

But now she conducts numerouslabs using plants as a model system inher Advanced Placement biology andenvironmental science classes, citing afew favorites from her stint at TheHuntington.“Students love hands-onactivities,” Stevens says. “And theylike dirt!”

Stevens developed friendshipswith the colleagues she met throughThe Huntington’s courses and sharesstrategies all the time.“It’s such a treatto connect with teachers from schoolsthroughout Southern California,”she says.

Time will tell if Good will reapthe same benefits. For starters, he mightwant to change his plans a bit regardingthat weed-infested field at his highschool. In the last week of the course,Kirouac and Kerkman took the teachersto a weedy corner of The Huntingtongrounds to look at the adaptations andhabits of invasive plants.They then rana lab using computational methods to

predict the invasiveness of these plants.As the saying goes, if someone givesyou lemons…then devise a high schoolscience lab that shows how citric acidinhibits the reaction rate of catecholoxidation. m

Matt Stevens is editor of HuntingtonFrontiers.Applications for next summer’sGrounding in Botany course are due in thespring.You can find more information athttp://www.huntington.org/Education/gib.html.

Not So

After AllABOMINABLE

What if your research on the evolutionary originof flowers hinges on a rare plant found in itsnative habitat only in the far reaches ofNamibia and Angola?

Botanist Michael Frohlich faced such a dilemma when herealized he needed to take a close look at the genes ofWelwitschia, a bizarre plant that produces just two leaves thatgrow continuously and get ripped to shreds by the dry desertwinds. Individual specimens can live as long as 1,500 years.

Welwitschia is a gymnosperm, which means it producesseeds in exposed structures like cones rather than hidden with-in the pistils of flowers, as in angiosperms. But the reproduc-tive structure of Welwitschia cones bears an uncanny resem-blance to that of flowers—sterile bracts like sepals surroundmale units with female structures in the center. Botanists havelong been trying to explain the origin of flowers, which Darwinonce dubbed the “abominable mystery.” Could cones likeWelwitschia’s be precursors to the remarkable flower structure?

How a rare Huntington plant might help explain the origin of flowers

In the mid-1980s botanists proposed the Anthophyte the-ory, which said that all flowering plants shared three closegymnosperm relatives, two of which were extinct. This left theGnetales, a small order that includes Welwitschia. The theoryarose from morphological studies—that is, physical observa-tions of shapes, sizes, and structures, including fossil evidenceof the two extinct groups.

By the time Frohlich took a sabbatical from his teachingposition at Union College, in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1993,technology had advanced so much that botanists were able tostudy the genes that control individual flower organs. Frohlichspent the year in the Caltech lab of Elliot Meyerowitz, who hadalready identified the combinatorial relationship of three genefunctions in Arabidopsis plants by observing various homeoticmutations—the phenomenon of an organ growing in thewrong location, such as a stamen growing where a petalshould be, or vice versa. His so-called ABC model could beapplied to other plants, and Frohlich was eager to use it in hiswork. If the cones of Welwitschia were indeed homologous toflowers, the ABC genes of Welwitschia should be active in thecone in a fashion consistent with Meyerowitz’s model.

As luck would have it, Frohlich did not have to travel all theway to southern Africa to get Welwitschia samples for genetictesting. Caltech is just a few blocks from The Huntington.“Several botanical gardens in the United States have smallWelwitschia plants,” says Frohlich, “but only The Huntingtonhas large plants that make many cones—and cones wereessential for my project.” He got to work extracting live tissues.

The results did not support the Anthophyte theory after all.Gnetales were closer to other gymnosperms than they were toflowering plants. But Frohlich turned his attention to a differentgene after discovering that it appears twice in Welwitschia and

other gymnosperms: one copy of the gene is expressedin the production of male cones, while the other isexpressed in female cones.

Frohlich hadn’t been the first to notice this gene (calledLEAFY, but don’t let that confuse you) or to realize that thereis only one copy in angiosperms and that it signals the plantto make flowers. But in 2000, he and his research partner,David S. Parker, found that the lone gene in flow-ering plants derived from the male-expressedgene of ancient gymnosperms, which ledthem to propose the Mostly Male Theory offlower evolutionary origins.

In 2002, Frohlich helped found the FloralGenome Project (www.floralgenome.org). By mappingthe genomes of 13 flowering plants and two gymno-sperms (one of which is Welwitschia), the research teamhopes to make further progress in solving the “abom-inable mystery.” They are now using Welwitschia samplesfrom The Huntington toconduct microarrays—aprocedure that helpsmeasure activity ofindividual genes. Thisproject is part of a growing fieldcalled evo-devo—or evolutionary-developmental biology—which combinesevolutionary studies, taxonomy, morphology,and molecular genetics.

“We couldn’t have come this far without theuse of Welwitschia from The Huntington,” saysFrohlich, who is now a botanist at the NaturalHistory Museum in London. m MMS

Above: A close-up view of female cones on a Welwitschia plant growing in The Huntington’s Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science. Photoby John Trager. Below: Renderings of young male (top) and female cones. Illustrations by Renee Seaman.

How the art of extra-illustration produced a unique version of the Bible

by Lori Anne Ferrell

BiblicalPROPORTIONS

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 17

N THIS ENLIGHTENED

age, we treat books withrespect—a bit too muchrespect, perhaps, con-

sidering the dire reports issued daily onilliteracy. My students highlight theirassigned texts with garishly coloredabandon, but outside the universityclassroom, it seems, few people daredo more than inscribe their name onthe flyleaf of a book, let alone removeits pages or dismantle its bindings.

Yet there has always been an openand thriving market for bits of books.In the mid-19th century, for example,a London print seller and bookbindernamed James Gibbs removed thebinding from a modest two-volumeBible originally edited by a clergymannamed John Kitto. Gibbs interleavedits now-loose pages with his own vastassortment of prints and engravings ofbiblical scenes, mounting both theoriginal pages and his own prints onuniformly-sized sheets of paper. Now“extra-illustrated” and rebound, Kitto’sBible became a new book but retainedits old name. By the time a laterowner—Theodore Irwin of Oswego,N.Y.—finished supplementing Gibbs’earlier work, the set had expandedinto 60 volumes.Henry E.Huntingtonpurchased the “Kitto Bible,” possiblythe largest Bible in the world, in 1919.

No matter its sacred status—in fact,precisely because of its sacred status—the Bible has often been dealt with inthis incisive fashion.Not a single book,but a library of books covering a vastrange of stories,purposes, and historicalepochs, the Bible has been dismantledand reassembled for better study on aregular basis over the nearly two thou-sand years of its history as a Christiancompilation. One memorable exam-ple predates the Kitto by 200 years. InLittle Gidding, a private home nearHuntingdon, England, members of the

extended family of Nicholas Ferrar,a deacon in the early 17th-centuryChurch of England, spent many hourscarefully snipping the passages of allfour gospels out of Renaissance Bibles.They then glued these scraps of Scrip-ture onto clean sheets of paper in orderto create one continuous, coherentgospel narrative out of the four differ-ent versions presented in the NewTestament. Ferrar used the books tocatechize the community’s children,who were required to read through aHarmony in its entirety every month.

The Little Gidding Harmonies arenot the only books that dealt with theconfusions of gospel narrative by wayof the cut-and-paste method. In 1795,Thomas Jefferson outlined an ambitiousplan he had once sketched out withthe Philadelphia physician BenjaminRush: to write an account comparingthe “moral precepts” of Jesus to thoseof the ancient philosophers.

I have made a wee little book,which I call the Philosophy of Jesus.It is a paradigma of his doctrines,made by cutting the texts out of thebook, and arranging them on thepages of a blank book, in a certainorder of time or subject. A morebeautiful morsel of ethics I havenever seen.

Jefferson simply discarded thoseparts of the gospel accounts that didnot correspond, either to each other orto his own sense of what constitutedrespectable moral teaching.

The Kitto Bible represents, then, aseemingly more secular and unusual

style of interactive scriptural interpre-tation, built from a leisured pastime.Extra-illustration, which flourished inBritain and America between the mid-18th and the early 20th century, wasalso called “grangerizing” after its firstadvocate, the Rev. James Granger, an18th-century English cleric and enthu-siastic collector of published portraits.Grangerizing eventually captured theattention of print sellers, who recog-nized its potential for organizing andpresenting not only the paintings anddrawings, but also the pages and repro-

ductions (often excised from printedbooks and manuscripts) they then soldto extra-illustrators.The print sellers’canny appropriation of the hobbyists’own techniques thus created a tightcircle of acquisition and commerce.

The Kitto Bible is proof that col-lecting, like all hobbies, walks a thinline between gentle pastime and fierceobsession. It contains more than 30,000added engravings and drawings, as wellas hundreds of excised leaves frommany other printed Bibles.Called “oneof the most comprehensive collectionsof early European prints in America,”it has appeared to more than one daz-zled observer to contain nearly everyvisual image of biblically inspired topicsthat could have been made available toan obsessively ambitious 19th-centurycollector.The prints—woodcuts andengravings—represent every majorschool of art from the 15th throughthe 19th centuries.

By far the largest number of Kittoprints depict typical biblical charactersand subjects:“The prodigal son,”“Jobin despair,”“Herod in his rage,”“Noah’s

Is the Kitto Bible simply an overstuffed Victoriancuriosity cabinet or a book in its own right?

Claremont Professor Lori Anne Ferrell looks at the Kitto Bible, which is housed in 60 large volumes that measure 221/2 by 151/4 inches and contain approximately200 sheets each. Photo by Don Milici.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 19

ark,”“The empty tomb,” and the like.Judging by sheer numbers alone, itwould seem that Gibbs included everysingle version of each topic he couldfind, which he then grouped first byschools and then by date. Prints of themost popular subjects—“Eve tempt-ing Adam” or “The Expulsion fromParadise,” for example—can run to 40or 50 versions, and in each groupingwe observe how famous artists influ-

enced not only each other but also thelesser artists who made their livingsproducing copies of famous works.Turning page after page of the samedepiction thus provides a crash coursein the patterns and fashions of religiousiconography. To view all the printskeyed to a particular passage, in chrono-logical sequence, can feel more than abit like leafing through a family albumof scriptural symbolism.

One person’s remarkable industry,then, turned an ordinary Bible into anextraordinarily comprehensive collec-tion of scriptural arts and letters, butwhat we may never know is exactlywhy. We know very little about theman listed on its title pages. Our Mr.J. Gibbs may well have crafted all 60volumes to serve as devices to displayprints for the purpose of sale. (If thisis so, however, it is a remarkable case ofcommercial overkill.) In fact,we cannotbe absolutely sure that James Gibbs

did the actual collecting himself oreven collected for others on commis-sion. For all we know, he may simplyhave done the cutting and pasting.

Which leaves us with an obviousquestion: Is the Kitto Bible simply anoverstuffed Victorian curiosity cabi-net or a book in its own right? Withscissors, paste, and theological intent,Nicholas Ferrar and Thomas Jeffersoncreated coherent gospel narratives.Butwith its original two little volumestucked well away in 60 folios, eachroughly the height (and seemingly theweight) of a home safe, the Kitto mightwell stretch the concept of a book toan illogical extreme.

Can we read it? The answer to that question is per-

haps best sought in its Book of Job.Memorable enough to have circulatedorally for more than a century beforeit was finally written down, the OldTestament Book of Job has a tidy plotand plenty of narrative drive. It is struc-tured as any good story ought to be,with a beginning, a middle, and an end:a prologue that features a conversationbetween God and Satan that sets a talespinning into motion;a set of attention-grabbing, heart-wrenching reports ofthe destruction of all Job holds dear thatadvances the plot; a series of accelerat-ing and ultimately unsatisfying debates

In the Kitto Bible, thepowerful narrative ofthe Book of Job isaccompanied by visualimagery every bit asprofuse and evocativeas the Hebrew Bible’soriginal poetry.

Opposite: Cherubs calculate the relative positions of God and the world using an astrolabe in one of the 750prints in Johann Jakob Scheuchzer’s series Physica Sacra (1731–35). Above: Job 36:17 as imagined byWilliam Blake, from his Illustrations of the Book of Job, Invented & Engraved by William Blake (1826).

20 Fall/Winter 2006

between Job and his friends over thereason for Job’s suffering that raises thetension level to unbearable heights—and then a daring, impassioned chal-lenge to God by Job that leads to asweeping denouement: God’s breath-taking declaration of divine power andjustice.The End.

In the Kitto Job, this powerful nar-rative is accompanied by visual imageryevery bit as profuse and evocative asthe Hebrew Bible’s original poetry.Amidst a plethora of pages from otherBibles (and what is, quite possibly, thelargest grouped collection of depic-tions of Job being harangued by his

wife in the history of engraved art),the volume is regularly and frequentlypunctuated by prints from two remark-able 18th-century series.These two verydifferent series create a visual analog—and dialogue—that stretches across thewhole of the volume and provides anarrative “spine” for the story.

The Kitto Job contains a large num-ber of the fascinating plates from anambitious and eccentric visual ency-clopedia created by the Swiss physicianJohann Jakob Scheuchzer. Scheuchzerspent four years cataloging the fossilsand other artifacts held by the PublicLibrary of Zurich, creating in the pro-cess a system designed to make scien-tific knowledge available to the public,demonstrate rational proof for the exis-tence of God, and explicate the naturalhistory underpinning Protestant doc-trine. His images combine mathemati-cal calibrations, highly detailed depic-tions of flora and fauna, and faithful

renderings of the geological and cos-mological record with imaginative the-ological iconography: angelic beings,the voice of God, the scales of divinejustice. Scheuchzer’s is a strikinglybeautiful attempt to make religioustruths evident to the eye—and, there-fore, believable.

Another notable set of engravingsin the Kitto Job takes quite a different,though no less spiritual, view. Illustrationsof the Book of Job, Invented & Engraved byWilliam Blake (1826), arguably Blake’smost powerful artistic achievement,is a series of 21 scenes from this mostcompelling of the tales told in theHebrew Bible.The swirling lineamentsthat fuse the figure of God, the formsof angels, and the human players inthis visual drama find their refrain inthe arcing words, extracted from thescriptural text, that frame each image.The effect is neither rational nor nat-ural: Blake’s faith required no expla-nation and no proof. His religion wasa religion of art—and his art was an artof magnificently, eccentrically realizedimagination.

Unusual for an extra-illustratedbook, however, the Kitto also containsa more focused plot within its narrative,one made up of underlined passages onthe pages of the original Bible aroundwhich the vast collection associatedwith James Gibbs was dispersed.Whenwe read only those highlighted pas-sages, the essential elements of theBook of Job remain, expressed in thepertinent turns of its plot: disasterstrikes; Satan departs the story, leavingthe washing-up to others; Job acknowl-edges his fate; he defends his God onceand his faith twice; and then he is putin his place by the One whose workstranscend any human ability to praiseor justify or explain.

It seems clear, then, that our extra-illustrator was moving about his taskintentionally, but on further examina-tion it also seems he may well have

been tracking the intentions of another,more famous biblical analyst:WilliamBlake. For with only one exception,every underlined passage in the KittoJob faces or is sandwiched betweenengravings from the Blake series.Theextra-illustrator’s intent might well havebeen simply to highlight the aspects ofthe story already given prominence inthis well-known collection of prints. Inshort, the underlinings may be nothingmore than a set of labels advertisingBlake’s Book of Job.

Does this return us to a merelycommercial argument for the Kitto’sexistence? Possibly. Does this meanthe primary purpose of the Kitto wasnot to tell the biblical story but to houseart? Who cares? A measure of the Kitto’stranscendent greatness is that one canfind between its covers—bound nextto each other as if in passionate andcontentious conversation—the rationalworks of a Johann Scheuchzer and themystical works of a William Blake. Atthe very least, the Kitto stands as anincomparable testament to the manifoldcomplexities of the Victorian religioustemperament, poised uneasily betweenthe recognition of science and thedemands of faith.But it also reflects therange of voices—historical and current,competing and complementary—thatcan be read into any Bible. m

Lori Anne Ferrell is professor of English andHistory at Claremont Graduate University.She is an NEH Research Fellow at TheHuntington for 2006.This article is adapt-ed from a chapter in her upcoming book TheBible and the People, to be published byYale University Press in 2007.

Blake’s religion was areligion of art—and hisart was an art of mag-nificently, eccentricallyrealized imagination.

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 21

Night and DayREVISITING AUDUBON’S BIRDS OF AMERICA

by Dan Lewis

[ ACCESSIONS ]

JULIUS BIEN’S CHROMOLITHOGRAPHIC EDITION

of Birds of America is the elephant folio in the roomthat no one ever talks about.As few as 40 copies ofthe single volume are thought to exist, but The

Huntington has been fortunate enough to receive a copyas a gift from Jay T. Last, Beverly Hills lithography collectorand author of The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-CenturyAmerican Lithography.

John James Audubon’s original edition of copper-engraved, hand-colored plates was called the DoubleElephant folio because of the sheer size of the paper—about two by three feet—although the moniker mightalso apply to the project’s rather long gestation. Born inHaiti in 1785 and raised in France,Audubon was alreadyadept at sketching birds when he arrived in America in1803. By 1820 he was determined to publish life-sizedillustrations of his accurate renderings, and after a false startwith an Edinburgh engraver,William Lizars, he eventuallysecured Englishman Robert Havell Jr. as the engraver in1827. Sold to subscribers in 87 parts, the entire collectionof 435 plates was completed by 1838. Collectors coulddisplay the prints as they wished or bind them in multiplevolumes.The precise number of complete sets issued byAudubon remains unknown—somewhere between 175and 200, of which a small percentage have been lost totheft, fire, or war. Still others became known as “breaker”sets since the individual images were sold separately.

Havell used a burin, the tool of choice among copperengravers of the era, which produced extremely fine linesthat lent themselves well to hand coloring. Bound volumesintersperse plates of sparrows, wrens, and jays, depicted intheir natural habitats, with the occasional large bird of preyor flamingo tucking its neck in acrobatic splendor.Thanksto this engraving technique, known as an intaglio process,one can almost see Audubon folding up these massive birdsso they can fit on the rectangular white space, their longnecks bent toward some invisible bug or grub on theground or in a tree.

Havell’s engraving process was expensive and timeconsuming, however, since he had to hire an army of

The Carolina Parrot (detail), from the Bien edition of Audubon’s Birds ofAmerica. The birds also known as Carolina parakeets once ranged overmost of the United States east of the great plains. They preferred to roost inhollow trees, usually deep in the heart of a swamp forest. The last specimendied in the Cincinnati Zoo on Feb. 21, 1918.

22 Fall/Winter 2006

colorists to complete each and every image. So whenJohn Woodhouse Audubon decided to republish the set in1858, seven years after his father’s death, he sought outNew York printer Julius Bien (pronounced “bean”), achromolithographer who could make Birds of America moreaffordable to middle-class Americans.

Like copper engraving, lithography required an enor-mous amount of labor up front.The process, however, wasentirely different. Rather than etching onto copper, litho-graphers copied images onto slabs of smooth, homogeneouslimestone using grease pencils.The limestone was thentreated with gum arabic and nitric acid to “fix” the imageto the stone. Lithography is based on the natural inclinationof water and oil to repel one another; in this case, water

repelled greasy printer’s ink.Appliedwater would soak into the untreatedlimestone, but not into the areas markedby the pencil.The printer would thenapply black ink, which would adhere tothe fine lines of the fixed image—but notto the surrounding wet stone surface.

The resulting image would be blackand white. Color would still have to beapplied by hand, similar to the copper-engraving process—and a financially andlogistically daunting task. For instance, thecolorists for the copperplate bird imageshad to apply washes of color to more than80,000 individual images from Audubon’soriginal full print run. Chromolithography,a technique that began to gain popularityin the 1850s, brought a major advance.Instead of applying black ink to the entireimage and having to hand-color it after-ward, the printer would apply a specificcolor of ink to just one portion of a litho-graphic stone. He would then line up, or“register,” the paper very carefully, placingit against the stone so that the colortransferred to the precise location desired.A separate stone had to be drawn foreach color; as many as 20 stones wereused for a particular image.This processwould then be repeated for the next color,until all of the colors—including black—were deposited on the paper.

Although such a process seemed just asexpensive and time consuming as copperengraving, a workshop could mass-produceprints after perfecting that elaborate setup.

This certainly appealed to Audubon’s son, although bythe end of the 19th century, the comparison betweenchromolithography and other color processes becamemoot. Photographic processes and offset printing weretaking the place of all hand lithographic methods.Thechromolithography practiced by Bien and other 19th-century printers is a direct precursor to the methodsused today by color printers.

While the younger Audubon’s scheme sounded like agreat plan on paper, the impending Civil War intervened,and work halted in 1860 after the completion of only 105plates. Subscribers—whether they were northerners orsoutherners—suddenly had other things on their minds.Sadly, the failed enterprise bankrupted the Audubon

[ ACCESSIONS ]

family, who had to sell off many original drawings andpaintings to debtors.

There are some notable differences between Bien’sset of images and the corresponding illustrations from theHavell copper-engraved edition. Many background detailschanged between the original and the Bien set.Whitecapsin waves in the backgrounds of images of seabirds disap-peared (or appeared anew), quantities of foliage waxedand waned, and the colors of both birds and backgroundssometimes differed. Bien also sometimes paired illustra-tions of smaller birds on one sheet, yetanother indication of the son’s tightbudget.The overall size of the Bienvolume still lives up to the elephantname, however, being only a half-inchshorter (39 in.) than the original edition,and the same width (26½ in.).

It would be unfair to compare theBien edition to the Havell edition—thereis no substitute for hand-coloring, whichadds dimension and vitality in a way thatchromolithography really wasn’t quite upto doing, especially in the 1850s.And yetthe Bien edition remains one of the mostimportant works of 19th-century chro-molithography. In producing this set ofprints, Bien perfected the use of over-printed transparent inks, which allowedfor subtle variations in tone. Some expertsalso feel that a number of the Bien back-grounds contain a vitality and richnesslacking in the originals.The Audubon was,in large part, a kind of college course inchromolithography for Bien, helping tochart his future work in the field. He even-tually became a specialist in lithographedmaps and charts and also developed newcoloring and shading techniques.

While Bien would never become asbig a name as Audubon, his impact onchromolithography rivaled the famousnaturalist’s contribution to ornithology. m

Dan Lewis is the Dibner Senior Curator of the History of Science & Technology at TheHuntington.The Bien edition will be on display this fall in the Library ExhibitionHall—in place of Audubon’s original edition.

The Bien images, while mostly very similar to the original double–elephant folioimages, sometimes differed considerably. In the case of the Barn Owl, Biendisplays the bird during the day (below), while the original showed the bird atnight (left).

Books in PrintA SAMPLING OF BOOKS BASED ON RESEARCH IN THE COLLECTIONS

READING MATERIAL IN EARLY MODERN

ENGLAND: PRINT, GENDER, AND LITERACY

Heidi Brayman Hackel

Cambridge University Press, 2005

Brayman Hackel argues for a history ofreading centered on the traces left by merchants and maid-ens, gentlewomen and servants, adolescents and matrons—precisely those readers whose entry into the print market-place provoked debate and changed the definition of literacy.This interdisciplinary study of 16th- and 17th-centuryreaders draws on portraiture, prefaces, marginalia, common-place books, inventories, diaries, letters, and literature.

AMERICA’S JOAN OF ARC: THE LIFE OF

ANNA ELIZABETH DICKINSON

J. Matthew Gallman

Oxford University Press, 2006

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932) wasa charismatic orator, writer, and actress who rose to fameduring the Civil War. Dickinson’s passionate patriotismand fiery style, coupled with her unabashed abolitionismand biting critiques of antiwar Democrats (known asCopperheads), struck a nerve with her audiences. Gallmanexplores Dickinson’s many public triumphs, but also disclosesthe barriers faced by her and other 19th-century women.

THE HUMBOLDT CURRENT: NINETEENTH-

CENTURY EXPLORATION AND THE ROOTS

OF AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM

Aaron Sachs

Viking, 2006

Naturalist and explorer Alexander vonHumboldt (1769–1859) influenced many 19th-centuryAmericans, including writer Walt Whitman and painterFrederic Church. Sachs looks specifically at the impact ofHumboldt on the careers of four explorers: J.N. Reynolds,the founder of the 1838–42 U.S. Exploring Expedition;Clarence King, the first director of the U.S. GeologicalSurvey; George Wallace Melville, chief engineer on thedisastrous 1879 Jeannette expedition to the North Pole;and John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.

LOS ANGELES TRANSFORMED: FLETCHER

BOWRON’S URBAN REFORM REVIVAL,

1938–1953

Tom Sitton

University of New Mexico Press, 2005

Neo-progressive mayor Fletcher Bowron(1887–1968) presided over fundamental reforms in LosAngeles’ police department, public utilities, and otheragencies charged with basic services, rooting out bribery,kickbacks, and influence peddling.After World War II, heinitiated massive public housing and desegregation projectsthat alienated enough voters to cost him the 1953 election.Sitton demonstrates that the choices made during Bowron’sadministration have had a direct bearing on how the cityoperates today.

And the prize goes to…While The Huntington houses literary materials from the age of Shakespeare through the early-20th-century exploits of the Bloomsbury Group, it also collects a number of contemporary authors who regularlysend material to be added to their archives in the Library’s stacks. Two of these writers have receivedsignificant honors in recent months. British novelist Hilary Mantel was made a Commander of the BritishEmpire (CBE) for “services to literature” in the Queen’s June honors this year, and local playwright LucyWang received the Television Writing Award sponsored by the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainmentfor “Born Again,” a script for an episode of the TV program Without a Trace.

Hilary Mantel has nine novels, a memoir, and a short-story collection to hercredit, including such titles as A Change of Climate and Every Day Is Mother’sDay. She participated in a scholarly conference at The Huntington on British nov-

elists in 2000, and a selection from her most recent novel, Beyond Black (2004), is currently on displayin the Library’s Main Exhibition Hall.

Lucy Wang, a resident of Glendale, is primarily a playwright, with successful productions from Off-OffBroadway to L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum. She also writes film and television scripts, has sold an originalcomedy pilot to Disney, and is working on a novel.

24 Fall/Winter 2006

Jerr

y Ba

uer

Hilary Mantel

Lucy Wang

The name Marco Polo might have been less familiar tomodern readers if not for a 16th-century chroniclernamed Giovanni Battista Ramusio. Although the writings

of the 13th-century Venetian traveler had circulated in manu-script form long before, Ramusio revived them in the 1550sfor his printed compendium of explorers, Navigationi e Viaggi(Navigations and Voyages). Ramusio was not alone; otherentrepreneurial printers and editors were compiling narrativesof exploration and discovery, taking advantage of an increas-ingly literate audience hungry for stories of faraway places.

In Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery, University ofSouthern California history professor Peter Mancall has collectedhis own anthology of 37 travel accounts from the 15th and16th centuries. He introduces each text with commentaryabout the journey and the circumstances leading to publication.One example comes from Frenchman Jacques Cartier, whoexplored Canada in the 1530s and described his interactionswith the St. Lawrence Iroquois. The narrative was eventuallyprinted in Italian in Ramusio’s Navigationi—a version that wasthen translated into English in Richard Hakluyt’s Divers VoyagesTouching upon America (1582). Mancall has included the latterversion in his anthology, reminding his own readers that theunique perspectives of writers and publishers should be con-sidered when assessing the accuracy of a story.

Mancall directs the USC-Huntington Institute on Early ModernStudies, which offers seminars, lectures, and conferences on a

variety of subjects ranging over four centuries, about 1450 to1850. The institute’s global perspective gives equal attentionto Europe’s emerging imperial powers and the indigenouscultures of the Americas.

“I’m interested in the encounter between Europeans andNative Americans,” says Mancall when describing his own schol-arship. He realized that one way to tell the story of the formativeperiod of contact is through the work of Hakluyt (1552–1616),that prolific publisher in England who went on to print ThePrincipal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the EnglishNation in 1589 and counted Shakespeare among his readers.

Hakluyt might have taken a page from Ramusio, but hedrew his inspiration from a map. As a teenager, he visited hisolder cousin, also named Richard Hakluyt, whose map of theworld seemed a fitting backdrop to a conversation that min-gled geography with a reading of Psalm 107:23–24: “Theywhich go downe to the sea in ships, and occupy by the greatwaters, they see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in thedeepe.” The younger Hakluyt made a promise to himself tospread knowledge of every sea and land in God’s dominion.

In Hakluyt’s Promise, Mancall traces the productive publish-ing career that followed, recounting the remarkable influence ofa man who started out as a minister and didn’t seem interestedin traveling anywhere himself. A strong advocate of the Roanoke(1585) and Jamestown (1607) settlements, Hakluyt escapedthe fate of disease and starvation by staying home in Londonto advise the Virginia Company and the East India Company.His enlarged edition of Principal Navigations (1598–1600) andVirginia Richly Valued (1609) played critical roles in England’scommitment to persevere in its colonial ventures.

“Hakluyt consulted many texts in producing his own work,”says Mancall. “I was able to look at those same books at TheHuntington—in a way reconstructing Hakluyt’s own library.”Mancall was also able to use numerous editions of Hakluyt’spublications in The Huntington’s collection. These two new booksare being published on the eve of the 400th anniversary of thesettlement of Jamestown. The combined exploits of travelersand publishers ultimately demonstrate the unique role playedin history by a third group—readers. m

Hakluyt’s Promise will be available Jan. 1, 2007.

TRAVEL NARRATIVES FROM THE AGE

OF DISCOVERY: AN ANTHOLOGY

Edited by Peter C. Mancall

Oxford University Press, 2006

HAKLUYT’S PROMISE: AN

ELIZABETHAN’S OBSESSION FOR

AN ENGLISH AMERICA

Peter C. Mancall

Yale University Press, 2007

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On the CoverInspired by the ideas of German naturalist Alexander vonHumboldt, Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900) traveled toSouth America in the 1850s to make dozens of pencil sketchesof Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo. In 1864, he celebrated themountain by naming a monumental painting after it. Churchwas just as meticulous in designing the frames he used forcanvases, however the frame he planned for Chimborazo hassince been lost to history.

In this issue we describe how curators and artisans recon-structed a frame for Chimborazo that is faithful to the artist’soriginal vision. The painting, newly framed, is on display in theMaryLou and George Boone Gallery in conjunction with theexhibition “Treasures from Olana: Landscapes by FredericEdwin Church” through Jan. 3, 2007. The painting will thenreturn to its permanent location in the Virginia Steele ScottGallery of American Art.

Photos by John Sullivan

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