Patricia Feeley « Digital Commonwealth News & Announcements

Path of Life I M. C. Escher (1898-1972). Prints and Drawings (BPL)

This month, the Boston Public Library (BPL) added 36 items from its M.C. Escher prints and drawings collection. It also happens that this month the Museum of Fine Arts opened an exhibit of M.C. Escher prints. Great minds really do think alike.

In addition, the BPL added items to six existing collections as well as lithographs, etchings and drawings of James McNeill Whistler, a Commonwealth-born artist most famous for his mother’s portrait.

The Leicester Public Library has uploaded a collection of architectural drawings while the Atwood House Museum of the Chatham Historical Society and the Jamaica Plain Historical Society have added new items to existing collection.

It appears winter is not done with us yet, so let the wonders on Digital Commonwealth warm your day and inspire your spirit.

Atwood House Museum of the Chatham Historical Society
Nautical Chart Collection of the Chatham Historical Society – 49 items added to existing collection

Boston Public Library

Boston Printmakers Collection – 110 items added to existing collection

Colonial and Revolutionary Boston (Collection of Distinction) – 7 items added to existing

collection

Incunabula (Collection of Distinction) – 2 items added to existing collection

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Lithographs, Etchings, and Drawings – 239 items

M.C. Escher (1898-1972). Prints and Drawings – 87 items

Medieval and Early Renaissance Manuscripts (Collection of Distinction) – 36 items added to existing collection

Paintings and Fine Arts Collection at the Boston Public Library – 1 item added to existing collection

Stereograph Collection – 1 item added to existing collection

Jamaica Plain Historical Society

James Michael Curley Negatives – 71 items added to existing collection

Leicester Public Library

Leicester Public Library Architectural Drawings c. 1895 – 19 items

Written by Patricia Feeley, Interlibrary Loan Librarian, Boston Public Library

Frontal close-up view of two rams from Osborne Library American Textile Museum — Frontal close-up view of two rams from the Osborne Library at the American Textile Museum

When I come upon an image that deserves A Closer Look, I am usually rewarded with a story that deserves telling as well. The giant whale on the beach of Ostende print led to a story of 18^th century Europeans encountering strange and wonderful creatures. An 1895 photo of attendees at a rope pull led to a discussion of campus fashion. This photo from the Osborne Library of the American Textile Museum is just what it says it is: a frontal close-up view of two rams. The angle, looking up rather than down at the rams, adds stature to them. They almost seem to be standing at attention to review the herd.

The backstory here is really just the caption on the back. The description on Digital Commonwealth ends, “Written on reverse: ‘His Majesty’ and friend.” Assuming we are meant to read the photo left to right, His Majesty is the first ram on the left. The ram on his right is his nameless friend. I can’t help but feel sorry for his friend. What makes one ram more nameable than another? The nameless friend seems as woolly to me. His horns turn out more than His Majesty’s. His snout seems a little shorter. I really don’t see much to choose between the two. It’s an eternal diss to what seems to me to be a perfectly worthy ram.

I don’t know why the shepherd didn’t name the friend. Or why the photographer didn’t ask. I just know I am naming him “The Heir Apparent”.

The observatory, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. from Anna Maria College Blumsack Travel Postcards

Have you kept your New Year’s resolution to digitize your historical treasures? These institutions did. Anna Maria College’s The Travel Postcards of Charles Bumsack Collection includes this view of Smith College’s Observatory (left). If you explore more, you’ll also find views of the Crab, Dumbbell and Horsehead Nebulae. I kid you not.

If whimsy is not your cup of tea, the BPL has added some significant correspondence collections and Barre Historical Society has added maps. (See example below.) Wilbraham Public Library chips in some photographs of the Glendale section of town while the Center for the History of Medicine (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine) has added prints, sculptures, photos and more in its six collections.

Earlier this month Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so we have six more weeks of winter. Plenty of time to visit all these great collections.

Anna Maria College

Travel Postcards of Charles Blumsack – 120 items

Barre Historical Society

Barre Historical Society Map Collection – 11 items