France

In the early 1900s, wood sculptures from Africa (long regarded as curios in the West) suddenly caught the attention of Picasso and other artists who were intrigued by the stylized treatment—simple yet powerful—of human and animal figures. Their experiments with this “new aesthetic” announced the beginning of Modernism, the shift from realism to increasing abstraction.

The Hampton Album elegantly depicts the industrial and agricultural skills that were taught to students at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton Institute in 1930, and finally Hampton University in 1984), the historically black school founded in Virginia in 1868 to educate freed slaves. The original images in this album were part of a series of photographs compiled by W.E.B Du Bois for the exhibition of African American life featured at the sensational world’s fair, the Paris Exposition of 1900.

Travel to Paris was a prerequisite for aspiring American painters of the late nineteenth century. Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), an African American painter born in Pittsburgh, was among the throng of artists to journey there. Tanner decided to become a painter at the age of thirteen after seeing an artist painting outdoors in a park in Philadelphia. In 1897, Tanner enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied under Thomas Eakins (1844-1916).

Published in 1859, Michel Eugene Chevreul's (1786-1889) The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours is considered a masterpiece in the science and exploration of color. A chemist who specialized in the study of animal fats and fatty acids, Chevreul is one of the 72 French engineers and scientists whose names are inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

This very rare copy of the second edition from 1752 was once owned by rocket scientist Frederick Ordway III, spaceflight visionary and consultant on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, this work of fiction by Voltaire is a work akin to Gulliver's Travels, but set in outer space.

The Expedition Citroën crossed Africa (from October 1924 to June 1925) to establish a reliable automobile link between French territories in West Africa and Madagascar. Tourists, businessmen, and government officials would be able to travel in comfort, riding in Citroën’s new half-track vehicles and lodging in specially built, rather luxurious accommodations. The sixty-three photographs included in this volume are invaluable records of people, customs, and dwellings seen along the way.  The most iconic image is the head elongation and elaborate coiffure of the Mangbetu woman.

The year is 1890. The French public is eager to learn more about the new colonies that France has won in the "Scramble for Africa." Colonel Henri-Nicholas Frey addresses their curiosity by compiling this geography, which describes in vivid detail the people, places, and things on the coastal regions of West Africa, from southern Morocco to the Congo. Frey draws on his own military experience in West Africa, but his primary sources are the writings of explorers, missionaries, and travelers to the region.

Authentic early images of West Africans are rare—and quite sought after. David Boilat offers us just such a portfolio in Esquisses Sénégalaises, published in 1853. The twenty-four color plates are remarkable for their attention to details of clothing, jewelry, hair styles, skin color, and facial features. His accompanying text describes, with remarkable equanimity for his time period, pertinent customs and behaviors ranging from the admirable to the deplorable—all judged from the local point of view.

This copy of a 1784 tribute to the Montgolfier Brothers was owned by the author, Comte d'Imbert de La Platière. A tipped-in engraved portrait of the author appears at the end of the book. Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier invented the globe aérostatique, a hot air balloon made of fabric and paper, and tested its flight through summer and autumn 1783 in France. The first manned, untethered flight took place in a Montgolfier balloon piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783 in Paris.

Ernst & Engramelle's work on the butterflies of Europe was originally issued by subscription in 29 fascicles over 13 years. The Cullman Library holds the complete work: eight volumes of text (bound as three) with 342 meticulously and beautifully hand-colored plates in three separate volumes (Paris: Delaguette etc., 1779-1792).