iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You may want to look out for inscribed copies, there are a quite a few of them in circulation

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Total solar eclipse of May 12, 1706: static-prod.lib.princeton.edu/versailles/i...

A Dutch etching showing a fainted King Louis XIV beneath the solar eclipse of 1706, surrounded by his advisors and mistresses (with text in Dutch and French)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

This handcolored copy, a bit browned and dampstained, fetched 2200 euros today in Brussels (off an estimate of 150-200). www.book-auction-morel.com/lot/175454/3...

Estienne VOUILLEMONT - Le jeu de la sphere ou de l[']univers selon Tyco Brahe. Paris, l'auteur, 1661; Ibid, A. de Fer, 1671. Copper engraving, 38 x 52.6 cm.

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Monet to Manet: "I need money!" This 1874 letter just sold for €200K. www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/...

The beginning of a handwritten letter from Claude Monet and his wife Camille to Edouard Manet: "Argenteuil 13 mai 74. Mon cher Manet. Je me décide à suivre votre conseil s'il en est temps encore, j'ai besoin d'argent mais comme quinze-cents francs sont en somme peu de chose voici ce que je vous prie de proposer de ma part à Monsieur Faure."

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

"When I Don't Sleep, I Dream" - Wifredo Lam retrospective at MoMA through April 11. Reviewed by Holland Cotter in the New York Times (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/a...

“La Jungla (The Jungle),” 1942-43. A crowd of figures jammed against a solid wall composed of stalks of sugar cane, with faces resembling Picassoid versions of African masks.Credit...Succession Wifredo Lam, Adagp, Paris/ARS, NY; via The Museum of Modern Art, New York

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

"The David Bowie Center in London is a new home for the singer's 90,000-item archive. It holds the key to his dramatic reinventions." (New York Times gift link): www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

When writing lyrics, for instance, Bowie sometimes used a cutup technique, jotting phrases down on paper, snipping them into fragments and then rearranging them.

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

In 1991, Lubin Baugin and his paintings were featured in the movie "All the Mornings of the World." Today, a previously unknown still life signed Baugin was sold in Vichy to a telephone bidder for the hammer price of 440,000 euros. www.interencheres.com/art-decorati...

Lubin BAUGIN (Pithiviers 1610 - Paris 1663). "Nature morte aux financiers, au verre de vin et à la miche de pain". Panneau de chêne, deux planches, non parqueté 46,5 x 60 cm. Signé en bas à droite BAVGIN.

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

A gift from Allan Pasco! The I-J and V-U seems strange for 1776. A Dutch cataloger made good use of the slash (WorldCat):

excerpt from a catalog record on WorldCat showing a lengthy collation formula

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

If you're now into decalcomania too, here's what's missing: opendata2.uni-halle.de/explore?bits...

Printer's mark of Johannes Herwagen on the title page of AESOPI PHRYGIS FABVLAE GRAECE ET LATINE, Basel 1544

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

A correction concerning the age of Dame Helen Mirren in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung @faznet.bsky.social

Korrektur: Die große Schauspielerin Helen Mirren ist am vergangenen Samstag nicht, wie wir zum Tag behaupteten, siebzig Jahre alt geworden, sondern achtzig. Wir konnten uns das unter dem Eindruck ihrer jüngsten Auftritte nicht vorstellen und bedauern den Fehler. F.A.Z. (Last Saturday the great actress Helen Mirren did not turn, as we stated on that day, seventy but eighty. We could not envision this under the impression of her latest performances and regret the mistake.)

Part of an article about Helen Mirren "on her seventieth birthday" published on July 26, 2025, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Même question pour Deshoulières (l'autre autrice au programme de l'agrégation des lettres 2026) - "Madame" chez Classiques Garnier, "Antoinette" chez Gallimard. Il faudrait "Antoinette Du Ligier de la Garde, dame Deshoulières".

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Another Bluesky milestone - my first fake follower (with AI-generated photos?)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

An update (and apology) from WeTransfer wetransfer.com/blog/story/w...

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Louis XIII, undated autograph letter to his sister Chrestienne de France (sold at auction in Paris, Pierre Bergé & Associés, April 17, 2025)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Fermesses appear pretty often in French 17th-century correspondences between friends or lovers (in lieu of signatures) - one example here: www.ader-paris.fr/lot/20569/43...?

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

Art market scams, episode 847: When you believe your painting was bought by Lady Gaga and then see it come up for auction at Christie's (New York Times gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/a...

“Happy Valley,” by Emma Webster. Credit: via the artist

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

The Fondation Catherine Gide has donated its André Gide archive (manuscripts, photographs, printed books) to the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern: www.news.admin.ch/fr/newnsb/En...

André Gide and his daughter Catherine Gide (Ascona, 1947) — © Photo : Richard Heyd

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Worth making an appointment: prints and drawings consultation room at the Louvre (New York Times gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/t...

Photo of the prints and drawings consultation room at the Louvre in Paris, France

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Pierre Nora obituary in the New York Times (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/b...

Front cover of volume 1 of "Les lieux de mémoire" edited by Pierre Nora

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Alfred Kubin, "Work," ca. 1901-3. Estimate 18K euros, hammer price 44K (today at Galerie Bassenge in Berlin).

Drawing of a bull trying to push a big metal globe up a steep mountain with a human face

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

New acquisition for the Château de Versailles: portrait of the young Louis XIV with his mother Anna of Austria by Charles and Henri Beaubrun. Estimated 150-200K euros, hammered to an Internet bidder at 380K, then "preempted" by the French state (today at Osenat auction house).

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

The latest news from the hot discipline of papal genealogy - how Salvatore Riggitano became John Prevost. Content warning: the story involves a French woman, scandalous adultery, and the teaching of romance languages. www.discordgenealogy.com/research-fin...

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

"Gentlemen, this book is cheap at £5. A hundred years hence you will sell it for ten times that amount." (The Book-Lover's Almanac for the year 1893, with illustrations by Henriot)

Illustration of a 19th-century rare book auction with the caption: At Sotheby's, London. "Gentlemen, this book is cheap at £5. A hundred years hence you will sell it for ten times that amount."

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Currently every day feels like attending another sequel of "Ubu Roi" (with the doors locked). Back in 1896 one actually had to buy a ticket like this one to attend the premiere of Jarry's prescient farce - sold at auction today for 3400 euros, off an estimate of 80 euros.

An original ticket for the first performance of Alfred Jarry's comedy "Ubu Roi", made out to M. Perrot (Victor Perrot, 1865-1963)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Gatsby at 100: The Author and His Creation. Digital exhibition at Princeton University Library (including the original artwork for the dust jacket) dpul.princeton.edu/gatsby100

“Celestial Eyes,” a gouache by painter and graphic designer Francis Cugat, created for the dust jacket of the first edition of The Great Gatsby (Princeton University Library)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Notebook from the wine cellar of a Bavarian abbey, ca. 1500, with parchments on the left and wax tablets on the right - estimated 2800-3200 euros, sold for 77,000 euros: www.neumeister.com/en/artwork-s...

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Sold at auction today in Paris for 32,000 euros (estimated 400-600 euros)

Catalog record of an anonymous drawing, "Flemish or Italian school around 1600", view of Santa Maria della Febbre, pen and brown ink

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Reminded of this letter from Wheler to Spon (March 1677) findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/C095...

photo showing first page and address panel of a handwritten letter from George Wheler to Jacob Spon

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Inflation is picking up again for rare book imports (three descriptions of the same copy, 2023-2025)

three dealer's descriptions of a book from the library of Madame de Pompadour (Lodovico Domenichi, Facetie, motti, et burle, Venice 1599)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Conversation with former UMich and Columbia president Lee Bollinger: www.chronicle.com/article/were...

Bollinger: We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. It’s been coming and coming, and not everybody is prepared to read it that way. The characters regarded as people to emulate, like Orban and Putin and so on, all indicate that the strategy is to create an illiberal democracy or an authoritarian democracy or a strongman democracy. That’s what we’re experiencing. Our problem in part is a failure of imagination. We cannot get ourselves to see how this is going to unfold in its most frightening versions. You neutralize the branches of government; you neutralize the media; you neutralize universities, and you’re on your way.

We’re beginning to see the effects on universities. It’s very, very frightening.

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

#OTD in 1715: death of Antoine Galland - antiquary, orientalist, traveler, and translator of The Thousand and One Nights

Frontispiece and title page of the first English edition of "Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories Told By The Sultaness of the Indies..." (London, 1706)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Ten years ago today, "Versailles on Paper" opened in Princeton's Firestone Library - the exhibition website is still live and functional! #OTD static-prod.lib.princeton.edu/versailles/w...

Landing page for the exhibition website Versailles on Paper (Princeton University Library, 2015)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Happy Birthday Montesquieu! (Frontispiece from Le Temple de Gnide, Paris: Le Mire, 1772)

Engraving by Noël Le Mire after Charles Eisen, with the medallion of Montesquieu at center, surrounded by four allegorical figures: the Genius of Literature, Love, Justice, Nature

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Jean Paulhan, Petit Livre... à déchirer (Alès: PAB, 1949) - "little book... to be torn up," 90x70 mm; 1 of 66 copies printed

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

L'histoire des Pays-Bas en estampes, portraits et livres, Volume 3, no. 380

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Michelle Obama wore it on the Ellen Show (ah, the good old days)

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

Newly acquired by the Met: A Book Peddler, ca. 1670-1690 by an anonymous painter. The pamphlets for sale "have been identified as Gallo di Mona Fiore, a satirical song dating from the Middle Ages, and Pirramo e Tisbe, the tragic love story originating in Ovid" -see: www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 11/11/2023

Annie Ernaux - By the Book (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/b...

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Volker Schröder @marphurius.bsky.social · 06/11/2023

His latest populist slogan is "Integrationsgrenze" but the Bierdeckel may come back at some point.

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