Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
The peacock's tail
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Manuscripts
This collection contains the papers of English art historian Katharine Ada Esdaile (1881-1950), with the bulk of the materials relating to her research and writings on British monumental sculpture, sculptors, and church monuments from the medieval period to 19th century. Material types include personal writings, diaries, correspondence, business papers, family papers and photographs, research files and research notebooks, and miscellaneous published and unpublished materials. Notably the collection includes more than 600 chiefly pre-World War II visitor booklets and pamphlets produced locally by British churches and approximately 3500 photographs taken or collected by Esdaile of sculpture, often funerary monuments in English churches, ranging from large churches like Westminster Abbey to small rural parishes. This collection provides a resource for viewpoints on monumental sculpture in the early 20th century (for instance as represented in book reviews by Esdaile) and for information about Esdaile's experience as a woman art historian in the early 20th century. Given the broadness of Esdaile's scope, from medieval to 19th century British monumental sculpture, the collection is less useful for specific information about monuments or sculptors. In addition, many of Esdaile's attributions in her notes appear to have been based primarily on her own instincts and do not have citations. Many of Esdaile's notes are handwritten on small scraps of paper or are fragments, sometimes making the information difficult to parse. The collection is chiefly Esdaile's files, but the dates on some items (such as post-1950 booklets) indicate the collection was added to and used after her death, presumably by her son Edmund Esdaile, who also made notes on items in the collection and appears to have done the preliminary organization of the papers after Esdaile's death.
mssEsdaile
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Visual Materials
The Fanchon & Marco collection contains approximately 1400 photographs depicting hundreds of Fanchon and Marco Inc. sets and performers between approximately 1925 and 1938. The collection also includes three boxes of ephemera, dated from around 1912 to 1940, that consist of newspapers clippings, musical scores, miscellaneous photographs, and the supplemental press books that were included with Fanchon & Marco's promotional magazine, Now (later The Idea), dating from 1930 and 1931. The 16 volumes (now disbound) of photographs in this collection served as a visual inventory for hundreds of Fanchon & Marco sets and performers. The images document the actors, dancers, costumes, sets, and concepts and appear to have been primarily photographed during rehearsals before the shows premiered in Los Angeles theaters such as Loew's State Theater and the Paramount Theater. The first volume contains some photographs presumably taken in San Francisco and later volumes include a few photographs by New York-based photographers. Photographers represented in the collection are: Archer's Art Shop of Los Angeles; Hollywood photographers Irving Archer; Archer's Studios; Curt Fox; Paralta Studios; and Harry Wenger. A few photographs include the imprints of Peerless Photo of Los Angeles, John Sirgio, H.W. Steward of San Francisco, Talbot of New York, Weaver of Los Angeles, and White Studio of New York.
photCL 487
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Visual Materials
The Citrus label collection contains more than 1,500 lithographed labels related to the California citrus industry in the United States from 1880 to 1960, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1890 to 1940. The vast majority of the collection consists of lithographed labels produced for Californian growers, packers, and distributors to identify brand names and packing locations on wooden shipping crates of oranges, lemons and grapefruits. Many of the labels were printed by Los Angeles and San Francisco lithographers. The collection includes a range of lithography techniques from crayon drawing and hand stippling to the use of Ben Day screen patterns and half-tone lithography. The collection also includes more than 100 examples with "bronzing," a printing technique where varnish is printed on the label, followed by a dusting of fine bronze powder. A significant number of labels are stamped on verso with a received date by the Fruit Growers Supply Company, and some include signatures of approval or notations about printing corrections. The collection provides a broad view of the development of citrus fruit advertising over time, and also touches upon topics of commerce, manufacturing, travel and tourism, and promotion of the western United States. In the earliest examples, themes include naturalistic designs of flowers, animals, women, historical subjects, and scenic landscapes. Brand names, simple designs, block letters, and geometric patterns dominate in later examples. Many of the labels depict orange groves, scenic views, or flowers, though the collection also includes a wide variety of imagery beyond these themes including Native Americans, transportation, children, and portraits of famous or fictional people.
ephCL P_26