November 11, 2022 – March 17, 2024
Nature of the Book explores books of the hand-press era (from the use of moveable type in Europe in about 1450 to the rise of mechanization in the 19th century) through the myriad natural materials—animal, vegetable, and mineral—that went into their making. From essential ingredients like flax, leather, copper, and lead, to the unexpected, like wasps and seaweed, the exhibition shows what the use of these materials can tell us about the book, touching on questions of use, process, global trade, and economy.
Nature of the Book features books from the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ rare collections, paired with specimens ranging from ochre, azurite, and cotton bolls to silkworm cocoons and wasp nests. It tells a story of both local resources and resourcefulness, and global influence—from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa—that was essential to the Western book as we know it. Notable highlights include Mark Catesby’s The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1729–1747), Francisco Hernández’s Nova plantarum (Rome, 1651) bound in tawed pigskin leather, Hokusai’s Hokusai Manga (Japan, Late Edo period, 1780–1868), John Addington Symonds’ Wine, Women, and Song (London, 1884) in an exquisite jeweled binding, and a gold illuminated partial Qur?an (Qajar-period Iran, c. 1800s).
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I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
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