Mardi Gras Designs

Mistick Krewe of Comus 1873 'Missing Links' Parade Costume Designs
&
Mistick Krewe of Comus 1910 Float Designs

New Orleans, Louisiana

Sea Nettle and Bat

Sea Dragon and Coral Polyp

Fly and Spider

Snail and Leech

Alligator and Zebra

Salamander and Lobster

African Elephant and Wild Boar

• Comus is the Greek god of revelry, merrymaking and festivity. He was the son and cup-bearer of the god Dionysus.
• Krew is an organisation that puts on a parade or ball for the Carnival season (New Orleans Mardi Gras and some other carnival sites in the US).
• Mistick Krewe of Comus is a New Orleans Carnival krewe founded in 1856 - prior to this, Carnival celebrations in New Orleans were mostly confined to the Roman Catholic Creole community, and parades were organised informally.

Tulane University Libraries has (so far) contributed two digital collections from their Carnival research works to the Louisiana Digital Library. [via]

Above, sample drawings from the Mistick Krewe of Comus 1873 'Missing Links' Parade Costume Designs {browse} [the collection contains 101 sketches]

"This collection is the complete set of costume design drawings for the 1873 Mystick Krewe of Comus "Missing Links" parade. It was an important event in New Orleans' Mardi Gras history, becoming one of the first major parades to use satire and political commentary.

That year, there were no floats, but the members paraded in costumes made of papier-mache, based on the drawings in this collection. A Swedish lithographer, Charles Briton, made the designs. [..] The official name of the parade was "The Missing Links to Darwin's Origin of Species". [..]

Many of the images depict figures related to the Civil War and Reconstruction, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Butler, and Louisiana Governor Henry Warmoth. Also depicted are notable figures such as Charles Darwin, and Algernon Badger (head of the Metropolitan Police)."

The images below are from the Mistick Krewe of Comus 1910 float designs {browse}

"This collection is the complete set of float design drawings by Jennie Wilde for the 1910 Comus Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, Louisiana. [..]

Jennie Wilde (1865-1913) was an artist who designed floats for many New Orleans Mardi Gras parades, including the Mistick Krewe of Comus and the Knights of Momus. The theme of the 1910 Comus parade was the Prophet Mahomet (Muhummad) and related subjects."

UPDATE: Recommended by a commenter: 'Mardi Gras New Orleans' by Henri Schindler, 1997.

Comus

The Cock

The Koran

Cadijah

Habib the Wise

Reward of the Faithful

The Mystic Shrine

Penny Prints

The fabulous Memory of the Netherlands site (part of the National Library of The Netherlands) presents a new collection of more than 1200 Penny Prints [translation] -- Gallery view.

These 19th century woodblock prints come from a single donor collection and depict a wide range of cultural themes: humorous slapstick, nursery rhymes, religious devotionals, games, military battles, disasters and contemporary events of significance. Most appear to be aimed at children, but the often unsophisticated nature of the illustrations and potential for esoteric visual satire (and language barrier) make it a bit difficult to tell.

It's rare for such a large collection of popular prints to be preserved: these were generally low quality, high volume A4-sized pages sold to the poorer members of the community and likely discarded soon after purchase.

• Previously: Le Monde Renversé - Penny Plain [kids]
• Via Het Archiefforum.

An Atlas of Anatomy

'An Atlas of Anatomy: or, Pictures of the Human Body in Twenty-Four Quartro Coloured Plates Comprising one Hundred Separate Figures, with Descriptive Letterpress' by Mrs Florence Fenwick Miller, 1879.

















































In the last week, Columbia University contributed this 1879 anatomy atlas by Florence Fenwick Miller to the Biodiversity Heritage Library (and also to the Internet Archive). The lithographic illustration plates are a little stylised and simplistic at times, but the author states in the preface that although the book might prove useful for medical students and science teachers alike, the target audience was really school students.

The remarkable Florence Fenwick Miller (1854-1936) was a leading British suffragette (or is that suffragist?) and vocal supporter of women's rights, particularly in respect of education. She received her medical degree by the age of twenty and was a member of the London Board of Education. Her unpublished autobiography was shared by her family in the last decade and became the basis of a 2001 biography by Rosemary T. Vanarsdel: 'Florence Fenwick Miller: Victorian Feminist, Journalist and Educator'. [see also: one, two]

"Under exclusively man-made laws women have been reduced to the most abject condition of legal slavery in which it is possible for human beings to be held...under the arbitrary domination of another's will, and dependent for decent treatment exclusively on the goodness of heart of the individual master."
(FF Miller in a speech to the National Liberal Club in 1890) {source}

The Sibyllene Prophecies

Arising from ancient legends, a Sibyl was a divinely inspired woman who revealed prophecies in poetic form, relating to Pagan, Jewish and Christian traditions.

The Sibyl are associated with the holy sites at which their predictions were made, such as Persian Sibyl, Cimmerian Sibyl, Delphic Sibyl, Tiburtine Sibyl etc. They first appear in the written record in about 500BC and their official numbers expanded over time, somewhat stabilising in the literature at ten by the 4th century AD and at about twelve during the Middle Ages.

As with Nostradamus, the Sibylline prophecies were open to interpretation and successive empires, religions and doctrines adapted the forecasts to serve their own ends. The sample images above come from a small manuscript that presents a miniature of each Sibyl with a snatch of Latin verse and the corresponding episode from the life of Christ that was said to have been predicted. The manuscript functions to cast the Sibyl as prophetic extra-biblical authorities from antiquity to bolster or promote the authenticity of Christian beliefs. Its appearance coincides with an increased prevalence of Sibyl in texts and artworks during the Renaissance.

The parchment manuscript, 'Sibylla Prophetae et de Cristo Salvatore vaticinantes', was produced in Tours in the 1490s. The current evidence suggests that Jean Poyer (or Poyet) was responsible for the elegant series of twenty five miniatures that feature generous shell gold illumination. In addition to the Sibyl framework, the manuscript draws iconographic inspiration from the Hours of Louis de Laval (1475) and devotional influence from the Medieval classic, 'Speculum Humanæ Salvationis'.

'Sibylla Prophetae et de Cristo Salvatore vaticinantes' [Cod.icon 414] is available from BSB München (note the 'Miniaturansicht' link up top for thumbnail images].

• Wikipedia (so-so): Sibyl; Sibylline Books; Sibylline oracles [& at New Advent].
• Background to the manuscript itself.
• Previously: Illuminated