Many years ago, I worked as a ghost tour guide in New Orleans and struck up a deal with one of the palm-readers who set up tables along the periphery of Jackson Square. I led my group to his table at the beginning of my tour, and he would choose a volunteer and read the shape …
Here at the Rosenbach we celebrate all things bookish. Our latest exhibition, The Art of Ownership: Bookplates and Book Collectors from 1480 to the Present, celebrates the many wonderful bookplates throughout our collections and uses them to delve into the biographies of book collectors/owners. I happened to stumble upon another curiously self-referential book about books …
Unless you come from the Midwest or from Amherst, Massachusetts., the name Eugene Field may not instantly ring a bell. However, you probably know some of the works of this poet and newspaper columnist best remembered for his sentimental pieces for children and about childhood (although he also translated Horace and wrote an erotic story …
Following up on last week’s post on our cockfighting chair, I thought I’d highlight another interesting set of chairs in our collection in anticipation of next Thursday’s conversation on the history of the chair with Witold Rybczynski. If you’ve been on a Rosenbach house tour, you’ve seen these English mahogany chairs around the dining room …
In two weeks, on September 22, our “In Conversation with the Rosenbach” series will feature a conversation on the history of the chair with architectural writer Witold Rybczynski, author of Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair, A Natural History. There are more than 60 chairs in the Rosenbach’s decorative arts collection, but …
It was a time of increasing globalization, sectarian conflict, and political polarization. No, I’m not talking about the U.S. today, but about Europe in the 1630s, when the Continent was tearing itself apart in the Thirty Years War and England was drawing the battle lines of its own Civil War, which erupted in 1642. In …
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, which was created on August 25, 1916. In celebration, here are two great National Park items from our collection. Yellowstone was established in 1872 as the first National Park (there were individual parks before the system to administer them was created). Drawing on the precedent …
The past year has been a busy year for religious events in Philadelphia. Last September the city hosted the World Meeting of Families, capped off by the pope’s visit, and now the Latter-day Saint community is welcoming thousands of visitors to an open house in advance of the September dedication of its new Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple. …
Greetings bibliophiles! My name is Sony Mathew, an intern who has been working in the collections department at the Rosenbach as part of the Arts Intern program hosted by Studio in a School. The program allows undergraduate students such as myself to experience what it would be like to work at a museum. This summer …
Do you know what a rubricator does? Or what a morocco binding looks like compared to Russia leather. Have you ever gotten up close with a medieval manuscript or a Kelmscott Press book by William Morris? All this and more is part of our new Book Arts Hands on Tour, being offered for the first …