Old Chinatown - Arnold Genthe - Bauman Rare Books

Old Chinatown

Arnold GENTHE

Item#: 65143 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Old Chinatown

“ONE OF THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT EXAMPLES OF THE CANDID-CAMERA APPROACH TO DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY”

GENTHE, Arnold. Old Chinatown. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1913. Octavo, original gilt-stamped black cloth.

First revised and expanded edition of Genthe’s photobook of San Francisco’s Chinatown, with 70 sepia-toned full-page photogravures, many never before published, and numerous in-text images.

“As famous in his own day as Richard Avedon is today” (New York Times), German-born photographer Arnold Genthe “is best known for two very different bodies of work: his documentation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the fire that followed it, and his book Pictures of Old Chinatown (1908). The book is a hybrid in many ways, a cross between the work of Jacob A. Riis and Edward S. Curtis… Where Genthe was highly innovative, however, was in his choice of camera. He used a very small camera, deliberately concealed under his coat to catch his subjects unawares. This makes this book one of the first and most important examples of the candid-camera approach to documentary photography” (Parr & Badger I:75). First revised and expanded edition of Pictures of Old Chinatown, with more than 20 full-page photogravures added to the initial 49 plates: printed from original glass negatives or lantern slides. Text by Will Irwin; postscript by Genthe. Without scarce original dust jacket. With bookplate of award-winning landscape painter John Marshall Gamble who, along with Arnold Genthe, barely survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

A fine copy with a notable provenance.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
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Calf Binding material made from cowhide—versatile, durable, usually tan or brown in color, of smooth texture with no or little apparent grain. Readily marbled (“tree calf”), mottled, diced, colored, polished, tooled in gilt or blind, even scented (known as “russia”). Reverse calf, with a distinctive suede-like texture, is occasionally used.
Chromolithograph Lithograph printed in colors, typically three or more.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
Edition Print-run from a single setting of type without substantial change. Depending on demand, any number of printings can be made from a setting of type For example, a first printing might consist of 1000 copies, followed by a second printing of 2500 copies; in which case the book would have a first edition, first printing of 1000 copies, and a first edition, second printing of 2500 copies.
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Half Title Leaf preceding the title page that bears the book’s title, originally used to identify the unbound text block. The book’s binder would often remove and discard the half title at the time of binding. Remaining half-titles are therefore of interest to collectors.
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Lithograph Illustration produced by transferring an image drawn on a carefully prepared stone to paper. The process allowed illustrations to more closely resemble the original drawings, paintings or sketches, as it gave the lithographer a freedom of line impossible to achieve in earlier intaglio and relief processes. It does not require the same sort of pressure as an engraving to transfer the image, but still has to be printed on separate stock from the text
Marginalia Handwritten notes made in the margins by a previous owner.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
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