Katherine C. Bartholomew, Bookplate Designer

Katherine Collens Bartholomew (1907-1992) studied art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in hopes of becoming a portrait painter in oils. She was a resident of West Hartford Connecticut and very active in many local organizations. She organized at least two bookplate exhibits in Hartford and designed bookplates for friends, family and local organizations.

Katherine C. Bartholomew circa 1960
Sent by Tracy Munn, her grand daughter

Her sketchbook contains a checklist of some of her bookplates. If you wish to enlarge the image double click on it. In addition to the bookplates on the checklist Edith Anderson Rights in her monograph Women Bookplate Artists mentions a plate designed for the Town and Country Club of Hartford. If you know of additional plates designed by Mrs. Bartholomew please send a scan to Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com

and it will be added to this posting

Checklist By Date

1930

Stevenson

Kay Collins

 sketches for proposed bookplates

K.C., Charles Dickens set

H.W.H and W.H.B.

1931

Anne Bulkeley

Pomeroy Day

Mary Lydia Peck

William Brewster

The completed plate for William Brewster along with preliminary sketches.

J.H.and K.C.B (German Fable)

1934

Nancy and Gale Harper

Charles L.Taylor

1935

1010 Asylum Avenue

The owner of the plate shown below was Atwood Collins, a local banker.

1937

Guy Bryan Holt

J.C. and K.C.B  ( Captains Chest)

1938

Helen Patricia Cowles

1940

H.H.Armstrong

John Robinson Hart

Initial Sketch and completed plate

1948

D.G.Brinton Thompson

1949

Wilmar M.Allen

1967

The initial sketch for a presentation bookplate from the Connecticut Valley Garden Club to the West Hartford Library was drawn on the back of a menu.

1969

Connecticut Town and Country Club

1972

Harriet Putnam Perry

1973

Julia Watson Marlow

National Society of Colonial Dames

This is another more whimsical plate she designed for her own use.It was printed in several colors on very poor quality paper which is quite brittle.

I hope the bookplate for Nancy and Gale Harper was completed.It is one of my favorites.

Here is a link to the latest issue of Fine Books & Collections. They are doing an outstanding job and the information is always of interest.

http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/

Next week I will write about some of the bookplates recently obtained through purchases and exchanges .

Two Dumpster Tales

New York Times Obituary for Frederick C. Blank -1942

Mr. Blank's bookplate from The Richard Schimmelpfeng Collection

The One That Got Away

I am not exactly sure exactly what year I became infected with bookplaticitis. I assume it was in the early 1980's. 

By then Frederick Charles Blank had been dead around forty years.

At the time I was selling advertising space for a trade publication so I was a firm believer in the power of advertising. I placed an ad  in The Antique Trader  and was quickly contacted by a dealer who had about six hundred items relating to Mr. Blank . They included correspondence between him and King Gillette about a proposed bookplate. along with sketches.

The dealer explained that a picker found the items in a dumpster and the asking price was $125.00. Unfortunately, I had no idea who Charles F. Blank was and I declined the offer. Several days later I found out that I made a big mistake and contacted the dealer. You guessed it. By then the lot had been sold.

The One That Didn't Get Away

In 2010 a real estate broker called to tell me that he sold a house in which a bookplate collection had been stored in the attic.The new owner threw everything into a dumpster and the broker contacted me.
I bought the collection from him  without hesitation. The most significant item in the collection was this Charlie Chaplin bookplate.

Here is a detailed inventory of the collection. The original owner was Katherine C. Bartholomew.

http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/search?q=katherine+bartholomew

=========================================================

Mystery Bookplates

Dear Mr. Jaffe,

I received an inquiry regarding the bookplate of Robert Hoe, and your name was referred to me as someone who might be able to proffer some assistance or opinions. 

One of our members recently acquired a book bearing the blue bookplate of Robert Hoe, which differs from (but is quite similar to) his red bookplate.  The red bookplate I am familiar with, but the blue one I have never seen before.  The question is, do you know if the blue bookplate is a variant of the red, or if it could be the bookplate of his son, Robert Hoe III?

I have attached photographs of both bookplates herewith.  Any thoughts you might have on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

With my best regards,

Sophia

Sophia Dahab, MLIS

Assistant Librarian

The Grolier Club

47 East 60^th Street

New York, NY 10022

Phone: 212-838-6690

sdahab@grolierclub.org

www.grolierclub.org

This title page was sent by Tom Boss .

7/19/2017 Fellow collector  Richard Cady  sent the following message:

 I think both your plates are Robert Hoe's.

Grolier Club members at around the turn of the century often had their leather bookplates printed in varying colored leathers as well as on paper.  And there are some design variants.  I have three Hoe plates - one reddish, one brown, one blue. In my own collection Cortland Bishop had at least three - green, red and blue.  William L. Clements four, Barton Currie two, Ernest Gee two, Frank Hogan five, Pierpont Morgan two, W. Van R. Whitall two, John Camp Williams three (diamond shaped), and assume this is just the tip of the iceberg.  RHC

=========================================================

Hats off to Stephen Fowler, owner of The Monkey Paw Bookshop in Toronto
In this day of diminishing antiquarian book shops Mr. Fowler figured out a way to
get customers from all over the world .

http://www.monkeyspaw.com/the-biblio-mat/

Bookplate Odds and Ends.

One of the bookplate images sent by Tracy Munn

 On at least five occasions grand children or great grandchildren of bookplate designers have spotted a blog posting I've written and  have sent me information about their grandparents.
I wrote about Katherine Bartholomew back in 2010. Recently Tracy Munn ,, her grand daughter  sent me a photograph of her grand mother along with scans of some bookplates not shown in my original checklist.

 Here is a link to the updated blog posting.

http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/2010/09/katherine-c-bartholomew-bookplate.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The auction conducted by the Bookplate Society is progressing nicely

The start date for the auction will be sent to participants in February. In the meantime you can  begin looking at what is being  offered. 
Following registration, participants will receive a bidding list showing all the lot numbers, for use in recording and sending in bids.

I've spoken to a few collectors who are intimidated by its size (over 2500 bookplates to choose from)
My suggestion is to spend  fifteen minutes a day selecting the items that interest you.

http://www.bookplatesociety.org/WebAuction2.html

Here are a few randomly selected items from the auction:

Lot E244 (page11)

Lot J026 (page11)

Lot E260 (page11)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------