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Object Timeline
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2014 |
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2025 |
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Book Illustrations, Let the Pen Live (L) and Plate 5, Studies of the Proportion of the Body, in Universal Penmanship, compiled as The Museum of Arts, or, The Curious Repository
This is a Book Illustrations.
This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives as part of Making Design.
In his introduction, Bickham extols the "usefulness and beauty" of writing: the "make and proportion of letters [must] be once well fixed" then, after much practice, the writer will gain an "easiness of gesture and disengaged air." Bickham opines that drawing is a necessary part of writing.
These plates capture the essence of Bickham’s words. The plate on the left glorifies the art of writing—the hand holding the quill appears to be ensconced in a cloud. The plate on the right is a more technical study of letter formation through the use of circles and ideal drawing proportions exampled by mythological figures, Venus and Meleager.
It is credited Smithsonian Libraries, Gift of the Misses Hewitt.
- Book Illustration, Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis et des rolliers:...
- hand-colored engraving on paper.
- Collection of Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
- SIL39088006379374
- Book Illustration, Liber artificiosus alphabeti maioris, oder, Neu...
- engraving on paper.
- Collection of Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
- SIL39088006394266
Its dimensions are
Closed: 37 x 23.3 x 2.5 cm (14 9/16 in. x 9 3/16 in. x 1 in.) Open: 37 x 4605 cm (14 9/16 in. x 151 ft. 1 in.)
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Making Design.
