Chagall Joins the Collection
The collection was able to take a wonderful leap forward about three years ago. It is no secret that university finances have been difficult for some years. Creighton's support of this collection had been reduced over years of belt-tightening to being less than one-third of what it had been. Soon after the collection became Creighton's, the University's development personnel had made attempts to garner support for the collection, but without much luck. This time, the Dillon Foundation in Lincoln, NE, came through in splendid fashion. They not only brought support of purchases up to the earlier level for each of the next five years, but they also enabled a stunning major purchase.
When I am too tired late at night to do more that might be productive, I sometimes look over fable offerings on the favorite websites that I have mentioned: eBay, ABE, and ZVAB. Sometimes, instead of starting with the cheapest, I will start from the most expensive. This night I was surprised. On ABE, there was a full edition of Chagall's 102 engravings of La Fontaine's fables selling for $55,000. Our collection had been lucky enough to purchase two such engravings singly. Their cost is normally in the $1,500 to $2,000 range. I thought to myself: "If somebody had the money, this complete edition is a real bargain!" A few days later, our development team approached me to suggest that I make a proposal that could bring the Dillon Foundation. Why not, I wondered, include the purchase of a complete original Chagall edition of La Fontaine? Image my amazement when the foundation accepted our proposal!
CHAGALL PIG, GOAT, SHEEP ETCHING
Chagall brings to La Fontaine often a kind of lyricism and even mysticism that is his own. He can also pierce the pathos of a scene. He does that here as the goat and sheep go calmly to market in the farmer's cart, but the pig screams. The pig is well aware that the market wants not milk or fleece, as from the other two animals, but butchered meat. He has reason to be upset! And so does the farmer, wanting him to quiet down.
About 2018, various things succeeded in getting me to notice John Ogilby. A bookseller friend, Jeff Weber, had been contemplating making a "leaf book" edition of Ogilby's splendid 1668 landmark edition of Aesop's fables and had asked me to consider writing a foreword. Each copy of our book would include a page from a copy of the original edition now in abject condition. I had written a draft of a possible foreword to the book. Back in 2000, our collection had acquired Ogilby's first publication of Aesop, less opulent than the larger 1668 volume, but already a leap forward in English-language appreciation of Aesop. This larger book had excellent illustrations by Franz Klein.
I had also been asked to be prepublication reviewer for a recent manuscript on Ogilby. In the midst of these activities, Creighton's archivist revealed to me that a careful inventory of Creighton's Rare Book Room had revealed three books that he thought belonged in the fable collection. I had actually made these overtures to his predecessors for the most valuable of these books years earlier, but had received littl response.
It turns out that Creighton possesses, in very good condition, a copy of Ogilby's most ambitious undertaking, the very "elephant folio" of 1668 that the bookseller and I were considering. This book contains marvelous illustrations by Wenceslus Hollar, Ogilby's revised verse "translations," and copious marginal notes printed in various languages. It was a thrill to have in my hands two great books with which Ogilby, a fascinating entrepreneur, changed the worlds of translating, publishing, and marketing.