New digital exhibition: Our friend, the Sun

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Sarah Severson

A gloomy winter day seems the perfect time to launch a digital exhibition about the therapeutic effects of the sun. The digital exhibit delves into the visual culture of Heliotherapy, an ancient practice of total bodily exposure to sunlight, and Phototherapy, an electric light therapy pioneered in the 1890s. How heliotherapeutic and phototherapeutic practices were disseminated and popularized within the history and visual culture of light therapeutics during the early twentieth century will be explored using illustrated texts and objects from the Osler Library‘s collection – so too will themes of pleasure and discomfort, ancient and modern, and the natural and artificial.

Take a break and learn more at http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/sun/

New digital exhibition: Writing in Company

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Sarah Severson

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The new digital exhibition Writing in Company: Forms of Collaboration in Artistic Works and Scientific Knowledge 1700-1914 features 52 carefully selected page openings from across the McGill University library rare and special collections and aims to demonstrate the essentially collaborative nature of printed works. It calls into question the commonly perceived equation, “one work = one author.” Forms of collaborative practices are expressed in stage performance scripts, musical score interpretations, the serialized novel, and even in institutional protocols for collective expeditionary works.

The physical exhibition was originally on display from April to August 2014 in the lobby of McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections. It was curated by graduate students Stéphanie Favreau (UQAM) and Adina Ruiu (Université de Montréal), and made possible by the collaboration between Interacting with Print and Rare Books and Special Collections of the McGill Library.

This project afforded the opportunity to digitize about 12 items in full and add them to our library catalogue, bringing to light items from the Pauline Donalda Collection, consisting of a donation of music scores and related printed works, which this McGill trained singer offered to McGill University in the 1940s. To see and download the full version of each item you can click on the images to go to the record in our catalogue.

Last two pages of the manuscript music score with Gabriel Fauré’s autograph signature, 13 septembre 1902.
Fauré, Gabriel, 1845-1924, composer. La fleur qui va sur l’eau : op. 85, no. 2 / Gabriel Fauré ; [poésie de] Catulle Mendès.
MSG 994 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University – Manuscript Collection

Der Kaiser und die Hexe, title within decorative border and engraved frontispiece. Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 1874-1929. Der Kaiser und die Hexe / von Hugo von Hofmannsthal; mit Zeichnungen von Heinrich Vogeler. Berlin : Verlag der Insel bei Schuster & Löffler, 1900.
Colgate 6 I57 H64 1900 Rare Books/Special Collections – Colgate Collection

Title page. Gounod, Charles, 1818-1893. Faust : opéra en 5 actes / de J. Barbier et M. Carré ; musique de Ch. Gounod ; partition chant et piano arrangée par Léo Delibes. Paris : Choudens, [186-?]
M1503 G711 F42 C4 1860z Marvin Duchow Music – Rare Books

Le sphinx, music score “14e tableau. Napoléon”, and lithograph on opposite page.
Fragerolle, Georges, 1855-1920. Le sphinx : épopée lyrique en 16 tableaux / poëme et musique de Georges Fragerolle. Ombres et décors de Amédée Vignola. Paris : Enoch : Flammarion, [1896?] (Paris : Charles Verneau, imprimeur lithographe)
M1523 F8 S65 1896 Rare Books & Special Collections – Rosalynde Stearn Puppet Collection

Histoire aussi intéressante qu’invraisemblable, page 8 and illustration on opposite
Quatrelles, 1826-1893. Histoire aussi intéressante qu’invraisemblable de l’intrépide capitaine Castagnette, neveu de l’homme à la tête de bois / par Manuel ; illustrée de 43 vignettes sur bois par Gustave Doré. Paris : Librairie de L. Hachette et cie, 1862 (Paris : Ch. Lahure et cie)
PQ2337 L52 H57 1862 Rare Books/Special Collections – Napoleon Collection

At the height of her career, Yvette Guilbert becomes an author, telling her life story and writing about the pedagogy of singing and of the stage. We can retrace this demonstration of emotional expressions back to Charles Le Brun.
Guilbert, Yvette, 1865-1944. L’art de chanter une chanson / Yvette Guilbert. Paris : B. Grasset, 1928.
MT892 G85 1928 Rare Books & Special Collections

A later example of the small café-concert music score, this piece replaces the illustration on the cover page with a photograph of the artist.
Stretti, R., composer. Un Mari à l’essai : chansonnette / paroles de Delormel et Garnier, musique de R. Stretti
Marvin Duchow Music – Rare Books

Cover. Ouvrard, Eloi, 1855-1938 composer. Les prédictions : chansonnette comique / paroles de Queyriaux et Chicot, musique de E. Ouvrard. Marvin Duchow Music - Rare Books

Cover illustration: smiling sorcerer with an owl on his shoulder surrounded by images of some of the predictions mentioned in the texts.
Ouvrard, Eloi, 1855-1938 composer. Les prédictions : chansonnette comique / paroles de Queyriaux et Chicot, musique de E. Ouvrard.
Marvin Duchow Music – Rare Books

Title page.
Recueil de ces messieurs. Amsterdam [i.e. Paris] : Chez les frères Westein, 1745.
PQ1268 R43 1745 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

This collection of burlesque stories, undated, brings together an edition of the Étrennes de la Saint-Jean, and the second edition of the Écosseuses ou les oeufs de Pasques, introduced as the second part of the Étrennes for the first time in 1757. Caption of the frontispiece: “Vers par rapport à ce présent Livre. De la Langue il est le soutien, / De plus, c’est qu’il y a du génie: / Commere, est-ce que ça n’ vaut pas bien / Un compliment de l’Académie?”
Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe, comte de, 1692-1765. Les Ecosseuses, ou, Les oeufs de Pasques : suivis de l’Histoire du porteur d’eau, ou, Les amours de la ravaudeuse, comédie : seconde partie des Etrennes de la Saint-Jean. A Troyes : Chez la veuve Oudot, et se trouvent à Paris, chez Duchesne …, [1782?]
PQ1961 C4 E4 1782 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page from vol. 17 of a collected work on French theatre.
Offenbach, Jacques, 1819-1880. La jolie parfumeuse : opéra-comique en trois actes / de MM. Hector Crémieux et Ernest Blum ; musique de Jacques Offenbach. Paris : Tresse & Stock, 1891 (Lagny : Imprimerie Émile Colin)
PQ1222 C66 v.17 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page.
Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870. Monte-Cristo : drame en cinq actes et six tableaux / de MM. Alexandre Dumas et Auguste Maquet ; musique de M Varney … [Paris] : N. Tresse, éditeur, Palais-Royal, [1848?] (Paris : Impr. de Boulé).
PQ1222 C66 v.17 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University
PQ2235 D43 N37 1890z Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

McGill Model School Girls’ Department

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Sarah Severson

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McGill Model School Girls’ Department. Prize awarded to Lulu Borden for Reading, French and Geography in the Junior Division. Montreal, 23rd June, 1897. Mary J. Peebles Head Mistress. S. P. Robins Principal.

Decorative book label from the Philippe Masson Collection of Ex Libris in Rare Books and Special Collections. The Philippe Masson Collection of Ex Libris comprises of approximately 4500 bookplates, of which, three thousand are Canadian in origin.

http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/bookplates/

Arabic lithographed books exhibition

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Sarah Severson

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As part of the Arabic lithographed books exhibition at the Islamic Studies library we digitized all 16 full volumes before they went on display. This summer we will be working together to create a digital exhibition but until then you can download the full volumes from the catalogue.

I’ve chosen a single page from a selection of the volumes to give you a taste for how beautiful they are. To learn more I would recommend you head over before September 30 2014 to the Islamic Studies library to see the full exhibition in person. This Collection includes many examples of lithographed books in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu, dated from the eighteenth century until the mid-twentieth century.

You can find a full bibliography of the books digitized and included in the exhibition over at the Islamic Library blog.

Qazwīnī, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad Bāqir, 1799 or 1800-1847 or 8. [Ḍawābiṭ al-uṣūl]. [Tehran? : s.n.], 1271 [1854 or 1855].

Jawwānī, Muḥammad ibn Asʻad, 1131-1192. al-Shajarah al-Muḥammadīyah.[Istanbul?] : Maṭbaʻat Muḥammad wa-Burhān al-Dīn, 1331 [1913].

Ibn ʻArabshāh, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, 1392-1450. ʻAjāʾib al-maqdūr fī akhbār Tīmūr, al-maʻrūf bi-Taʾrīkh Tīmūr. Lāhūr : Maṭbaʻ Sarkārī, 1868.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ.Risālah min rasāʼil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ wa-khullān al-murūwah wa-al-wafāʼ : qad ishtamalat ʻalá mā dāra bayna al-ins wa-al-ḥayawānāt min al-munāẓarah al-murattabah ʻalá badāʼiʻ al-aqwāl wa-al-mukhāṣamāt / bi-idārah Muḥammad ʻAbd al-Wāḥid. Kānfūr : Maṭbaʻah al-Intiẓāmī 1894.

Aṭṭafayyish, Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf, 1820 or 1821-1914. Risālah shāfiyah fī baʻd al-tawārīkh. [al-Jazāʼir] : [Bakīr ibn Qāsim al-Qarārī], 1299 [1881 or 1882]].

Jazāʾirī, Niʻmat Allāh ibn ʻAbd Allāh, 1640 or 41-1701. Nūr al-anwār fī sharḥ al-Ṣaḥīfah al-Sajjādīyah. [Tehran : s.n.], 1316-1317 [1898 or 1899].

ʻĀmilī, Bahāʼ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn, 1547-1621. Kitāb Zubdat al-uṣūl. [Īrān : s.n., 1267 [1851].

Tūnisī, Muḥammad ibn ʻUmar. Hādhā kitāb Tashhīdh al-adhhān bi-sīrat bilād al-ʻArab wa-al-Sūdān. Paris Duprat, 1850.

Ibn ʻĀṣim, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, 1359-1426. Ḥadāʼiq al-azāhīr fī mustaḥsan al-ajwibah wa-al-muḍḥikāt wa-al-ḥikam wa-al-amthāl wa-al-ḥikāyāt wa-al-nawādir. [Fez? : s.n., 19–].

Bakrī, Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn ʻAbd Allāh. Hādhā Kitāb Ghazwat al-Imām ʻAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ; maʻa al-laʻīn al-Huḍām al-Ḥajjāfī li-sabʻ ḥuṣūn bi-al-tamām… [S.l. : s.n., 19–].

Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī, 1702 or 3-1762 or 3. Fatḥ al-khabīr. Lak hanaʼu : Munshī Nawal Kishūr, 1314 [1896 or 1897].

Jazūlī, Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān, d. 1465. Dalāʼil al-khayrāt ; wa-yalīhi qaṣīdat al-Burdah wa-qaṣīdat al-Munfarijah wa-bi-hāmishihi majmuʻat al-awrād wa-al-aḥzāb wa-al-adʻīyah. [Istānbūl?] : al-Maṭbaʻah al-ʻUthmānīyah, 1302 [1884].

Montreal Leisure – What well dressed men will wear

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Sarah Severson

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The cover of the Brodie Tailoring Company’s catalogue featuring “tailored-to-measure” clothes entitled What Well Dressed Men Will Wear.
Creator: Brodie Tailoring Company
Date: 1929
Commercial and Industrial Catalogue Collection. Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill Library.

Excerpt of a text from the digital exhibition Art Deco and the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s.

Montreal Leisure – Consumer Society

Art Deco was a style that one could wear: luxurious furs, long gowns, three piece suits, and accessories for women and men were just a few of the means to display one’s sense of taste and fashion. Eaton’s was one of Montreal’s leading department stores and catered to a wide clientele. It operated a successful catalogue service through which orders could be placed by telephone or sent by mail. Other stores catering to Montreal’s elite were a block away from Eaton’s on Phillip’s Square; Henry Birks and Sons specialised in fine jewellery and table wares and Henry Morgan and Co. (now The Bay) featured fine goods from Europe.

Montreal Leisure – Travel & Leisure

Travel for both business and pleasure became far easier with the increased speed of transportation and the introduction of new modes of travel. Headquartered in Montreal, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) built on its nineteenth-century dominance of the Canadian railway service by establishing shipping lines. Following the coordination of the schedules of the transcontinental trains and transatlantic ocean liners, the volume of business at Montreal grew to be second only to that of New York City. By 1930, the CPR operated 14 first and cabin-class ocean liners, including the British Empire’s largest and fastest, the Empress of Britain, out of Montreal and Quebec City. These brochures depict the leisure activities of pleasure outings in the newly accessible countryside. Menus and views of interiors provide a glimpse of a few of the opportunities for fine dining in Montreal in the 1920s and 1930s. Theatre programmes participate in depicting the era in terms of society sensibilities.

This exhibition was organized to celebrate 10th World Congress being held in Montreal, Quebec, May 24 – 30, 2009 and put together by the staff from Rare Books and Special Collections and the Blackader-Lauterman Library.

Winter Olympic Games 1924-1956

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Sarah Severson

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Text and images from the digital exhibition “Celebrating the Winter Olympics 1924-2006“

1924-1936

Canadian Hockey Team, St. Moritz, 1928.

Although there were winter Olympic competitions in 1908 and 1920, only in 1924 at
Chamonix was a full winter sports programme presented for the first time. 16 countries participated and there were 294 competitors. The Canadians, members of the Granite Club of Toronto, won the first official Winter Olympic Gold Medal for ice hockey. The Canadians repeated the exploit in 1928 at St-Moritz; this time the team was made of members of the University of Toronto Graduates Team.

Canadians would repeat the exploit in 1932 at Lake Placid. Noteworthy, the International Olympic Committee approved demonstrations of sled dog race competitions at Lake Placid on the basis that it was a sport peculiar to the country holding the Games. Canada and the USA had teams. Manitoban Emil St Goddard won the first place. McGill University had a hockey team playing a game out of competition.

Canadian hockey team in action, Lake Placid, 1932. Official Report, III Olympic Winter Games, Lake Placid, 1932. III Olympic Winter Games Committee, [1932].

As can be seen from the photograph of the hockey game at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the events are held outside and are subject to the whims of temperature. Canadians will leave the Gold Medal to the Brits. Frank Shaughnessy Jr. who has dual Canadian-USA citizenship belonged to the USA hockey team and played against his Canadian friend, Kenneth Farmer, whom he had known at McGill in intercollegiate hockey. Canadians won the Silver Medal and Americans the Bronze.

1939-1956

Cover and title page of: Canada at the Olympic Games. Canadian Olympic Committee, [1939?]. Pre-publication mock-up copy for the 1940 Olympic Games.

The Winter Olympics that never happened. In 1940, the Winter Olympic Games were to be held in Sapporo while the Summer Olympic Games site was to be Helsinki. This mock-up copy attests to the fact that preparations had been made, Canadian athletes were getting ready and might have lost the opportunity of a lifetime to participate at the Olympics.

In 1948 at St-Moritz, neither Germany nor Japan were permitted to participate. However one may surmise whether they would have been able to provide athletes. The Canadian Hockey Team was composed of members of the Royal Canadian Air Force and won the Gold Medal. A prominent Canadian was Barbara Ann Scott from Ottawa who won the gold in women’s figure skating.

Photograph of Canadian Olympic Team Members, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Winter Olympic Games, 1956. Frank J. Shaughnessy Jr., Chef de Mission, is 7th from the right.

In 1952, when the Federal Republic of Germany won the Gold Medal for the bobsleigh competitions, there was an uproar. The weighty team of Ostler and Nieberl who won the two-man and four-man event was considered to have used the law of gravity to an unfair advantage. This compelled the International Bobsleigh Federation to introduce weight restrictions for future competitions. Here he is again: Frank Shaughnessy Jr. from 1956 to 1972, Frank is the chef de mission for the Canadian Olympic Association.

The Winter Olympic Games were televised for the first time at Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956.

Covers of the 11 daily programs of the Winter Olympic Games at Cortina D’Ampezzo. 1956.

Eaton’s 9th floor Art Deco restaurant

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Sarah Severson

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On Tuesday Heritage Montreal announced that they were putting Le 9e Eaton’s famed but long shuttered 9th floor restaurant “under observation” due to the uncertain future of the building it calls home at 700 Sainte-Catherine street west.

While the restaurant has been closed since 1999 you can see from the postcards below that it’s grand interior was an Art Deco gem back in 1931. The restaurant was designed by the famous French architect Jacques Carlu and his wife Natacha Carlu created the mural featured prominent in the back.

A postcard with a photograph of the Eatons’ Restaurant on the 9th floor, ca.1931.

A postcard with a view of the Eaton’s department store, ca. 1931. Designed by Ross and Macdonald architects, the Montreal store was the first of many Eaton’s stores designed by this firm.

You can read more about it in Ingrid Peritz Globe and Mail article, Future uncertain for famed Montreal Art Deco restaurant.

The Dark Room

The McGill Library digitization team

Tag Archives: Digital Exhibition

New digital exhibition: Our friend, the Sun

New digital exhibition: Writing in Company

McGill Model School Girls’ Department

Arabic lithographed books exhibition

Montreal Leisure – What well dressed men will wear

Winter Olympic Games 1924-1956

Eaton’s 9th floor Art Deco restaurant