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Bodleian Plate

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Print made with Bodleian Plate.
Print made with Bodleian Plate.

The Bodleian Plate is a copperplate depicting several colonial buildings of eighteenth-century Williamsburg, Virginia, as well as several types of native flora, fauna, and American Indians. Following its 1929 rediscovery in the archives of the Bodleian Library, it was used extensively in John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg. The plate has been tied to Williamsburg resident William Byrd II and may have been produced by English illustrator Eleazar Albin and engraver John Carwitham.[1]

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Intaglio (printmaking)

Intaglio (printmaking)

Intaglio is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print where the parts of the matrix that make the image stand above the main surface.

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is bordered by James City County on the west and south and York County on the east.

Virginia

Virginia

Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. Its geography and climate are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay. The state's capital is Richmond. Its most-populous city is Virginia Beach, and Fairfax County is the state's most-populous political subdivision. Virginia's population in 2022 was over 8.68 million, with 35% living within in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the U.S., about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. As defined by the United States Census, "Native Americans" are Indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives. Indigenous peoples of the United States who are not listed as American Indian or Alaska Native include Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, and Chamorros. The US Census groups these peoples as "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders".

Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in Britain after the British Library. Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom, and under Irish law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or "the Bod", it operates principally as a reference library and, in general, documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia. Its 301-acre (122 ha) historic area includes several hundred restored or recreated buildings from the 18th century, when the city was the capital of the Colony of Virginia; 17th-century, 19th-century, and Colonial Revival structures; and more recent reconstructions. The historic area includes three main thoroughfares and their connecting side streets that attempt to suggest the atmosphere and the circumstances of 18th-century Americans. Costumed employees work and dress as people did in the era, sometimes using colonial grammar and diction.

William Byrd II

William Byrd II

William Byrd II was an American planter, lawyer, surveyor, author, and a man of letters. Born in Colonial Virginia, he was educated in London, where he practiced law. Upon his father's death, he returned to Virginia in 1705. He was a member of the Virginia Governor's Council from 1709 to 1744. He was the London agent for the House of Burgesses in the 1720s. Byrd's life showed aspects of both British colonial gentry and an emerging American identity.

English people

English people

The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity began with the Anglo-Saxons, when they were known as the Angelcynn, meaning race or tribe of the Angles. Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain around the 5th century AD.

Eleazar Albin

Eleazar Albin

Eleazar Albin was an English naturalist and watercolourist illustrator who wrote and illustrated a number of books including A Natural History of English Insects (1720), A Natural History of Birds (1731–38) and A Natural History of Spiders and other Curious Insects (1736). He has been described as one of the "great entomological book illustrators of the 18th century".

Engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called "engravings". Engraving is one of the oldest and most important techniques in printmaking.

Imagery

The top third of the image depicts the campus of the College of William and Mary in Virginia looking west. Labeled "1" and to the left (to the right on the plate itself) is the Brafferton, a school for American Indians. Visible in the center–labeled "2"–is the eastern side of the Wren Building, then often known simply as "the College".[2] The building labeled "3" on the right is the President's House.[3] Topiary surrounding the buildings is also visible in the top panel.[1]

The center third of the plate again depicts the Wren Building in the middle, this time from a perspective to the southwest with the chapel wing in the foreground. To the left of the print is an eastern-facing perspective of the Capitol as it appeared before a 1747 fire. The right-center image depicts the Governor's Palace and associated structures in a north-facing perspective from above the Palace Green.[4]

The bottom third is ten separate images. Among them are plants and animals from Virginia and nearby. Labeled "16", a lined seahorse–a native species of the Chesapeake Bay–is depicted.[5] Additionally, two images of local Indians flank both sides of the bottom portion.[1]

Buildings from the middle panel of the plate. Left to right: Capitol, Wren Building, Governor's Palace.
Buildings from the middle panel of the plate. Left to right: Capitol, Wren Building, Governor's Palace.
Buildings from the middle panel of the plate. Left to right: Capitol, Wren Building, Governor's Palace.
Buildings from the middle panel of the plate. Left to right: Capitol, Wren Building, Governor's Palace.

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Brafferton (building)

Brafferton (building)

The Brafferton, built in 1723, is located southeast of the Sir Christopher Wren Building, facing the President's House on the campus of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the U.S., about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. As defined by the United States Census, "Native Americans" are Indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives. Indigenous peoples of the United States who are not listed as American Indian or Alaska Native include Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, and Chamorros. The US Census groups these peoples as "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders".

Wren Building

Wren Building

The Wren Building is the signature building of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Along with the Brafferton and President's House, these buildings form the College's Ancient Campus. With a construction history dating to 1695, it is the oldest academic building in continuous use in the United States and among the oldest buildings in Virginia. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Topiary

Topiary

Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. As an art form it is a type of living sculpture. The word derives from the Latin word for an ornamental landscape gardener, topiarius, a creator of topia or "places", a Greek word that Romans also applied to fictive indoor landscapes executed in fresco.

Capitol (Williamsburg, Virginia)

Capitol (Williamsburg, Virginia)

The Capitol at Williamsburg, Virginia housed both Houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the Council of State and the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia from 1705, when the capital was relocated there from Jamestown, until 1780, when the capital was relocated to Richmond. Two capitol buildings served the colony on the same site: the first from 1705 until its destruction by fire in 1747; the second from 1753 to 1780.

Governor's Palace (Williamsburg, Virginia)

Governor's Palace (Williamsburg, Virginia)

The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia, was the official residence of the royal governors of the Colony of Virginia. It was also a home for two of Virginia's post-colonial governors, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, until the capital was moved to Richmond in 1780, and with it the governor's residence. The main house burned down in 1781, though the outbuildings survived for some time after.

Lined seahorse

Lined seahorse

The lined seahorse, northern seahorse or spotted seahorse, is a species of fish that belongs to the family Syngnathidae. H. erectus is a diurnal species with an approximate length of 15 cm and lifespan of one to four years. The H. erectus species can be found in myriad colors, from greys and blacks to reds, greens, and oranges. The lined seahorse lives in the western Atlantic Ocean as far north as Canada and as far south as the Caribbean, Mexico, and Venezuela. It swims in an erect position and uses its dorsal and pectoral fins for guidance while swimming.

Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the Bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states and all of District of Columbia.

History

Richard Rawlinson
Richard Rawlinson

The Bodleian Plate is so-named for its discovery in the archives of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in England. The copperplate was bequeathed to the library as part of the collection of Richard Rawlinson, a nonjuring Church of England clergyman and antiquarian who died in April 1755. His donation to the library totaled over one million books, manuscripts, and engravings–all of which had been originally willed to the Society of Antiquaries before a falling-out.[2][6]

Efforts to rebuild the Wren Building to its colonial appearance began in 1928 as part of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s broader efforts to restore Williamsburg. The project had been in part the brainchild of W.A.R. Goodwin, the Episcopal rector of Bruton Parish. In December 1929, researcher Mary F. Goodwin located and recognized the Bodleian Plate as depicting colonial-era Williamsburg, Virginia.[4][7]

The discovery proved instrumental in the reconstruction of the Wren Building–for which no other complete colonial depiction of the western side existed. Prior to the discovery of the plate, much of what renovation was planned came from descriptions written by Thomas Jefferson, an alumnus of the college. It also helped in the reconstruction of all four other structures depicted, particularly the Governor's Palace and its outbuildings.[2]

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Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in Britain after the British Library. Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom, and under Irish law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or "the Bod", it operates principally as a reference library and, in general, documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.

University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.

England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea area of the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Richard Rawlinson

Richard Rawlinson

Richard Rawlinson FRS was an English clergyman and antiquarian collector of books and manuscripts, which he bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Nonjuring schism

Nonjuring schism

The Nonjuring schism refers to a split in the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland, following the deposition and exile of James II and VII in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. As a condition of office, clergy were required to swear allegiance to the ruling monarch; for various reasons, some refused to take the oath to his successors William III and II and Mary II. These individuals were referred to as Non-juring, from the Latin verb iūrō, or jūrō, meaning "to swear an oath".

Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the established Christian church in England. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its adherents are called Anglicans.

Antiquarian

Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifacts, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts. The essence of antiquarianism is a focus on the empirical evidence of the past, and is perhaps best encapsulated in the motto adopted by the 18th-century antiquary Sir Richard Colt Hoare, "We speak from facts, not theory."

Society of Antiquaries of London

Society of Antiquaries of London

The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, and is a registered charity.

Colony of Virginia

Colony of Virginia

The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583 and the Roanoke Colony by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 1580s.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Among the Committee of Five charged by the Second Continental Congress with authoring the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was the Declaration's primary author, writing it between June 11 and June 28, 1776 at a three-story residence at 700 Market Street in Philadelphia. Following the American Revolutionary War and prior to becoming the nation's third president in 1801, Jefferson was the first United States secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams.

List of College of William & Mary alumni

List of College of William & Mary alumni

The College of William & Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States, was founded in 1693 by a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II. It is a public research university and has more than 94,000 living alumni.

Source: "Bodleian Plate", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, December 14th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodleian_Plate.

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References
  1. ^ a b c "Illustration of Williamsburg buildings, flora and fauna (not titled)". The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  2. ^ a b c Erickson, Mark St. John (30 September 2018). "Bodleian Plate opened window on lost Williamsburg". Daily Press. Williamsburg, VA. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  3. ^ Lounsbury, Carl (2000). "Ornaments of Civic Aspiration: The Public Buildings of Williamsburg". In Robert P. Maccubbin (ed.). Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, 1699–1999. Williamsburg, VA. p. 30.
  4. ^ a b "The Bodleian Print". wm.edu. Williamsburg, VA: The College of William and Mary in Virginia. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  5. ^ Pelton, Tom. "Lined Seahorse". Save the Bay. Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  6. ^ Tashjian, David R.; Enright, Brian J. (1990). Richard Rawlinson: A Tercentenary Memorial. Western Michigan University.
  7. ^ Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson (1950). "The Restoring of Colonial Williamsburg". The North Carolina Historical Review. 27 (2): 218–232. JSTOR 23515749. Retrieved 24 July 2022.

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