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Rosi Crane

@rosicrane.bsky.social
256 followers 296 following 124 posts

Honorary curator history of science, Otago Museum 19C New Zealand natural history Tenor City Choir Dunedin Book sorter for the Regent Theatre annual book sale Appreciator of turn-of-the-century printmaking

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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
The advantage of loyalty cards, discovered I had enough saved with the local book dealers to splash out on a catalogue raisonne of Robert Gibbings wood engravings. That's me sorted for the afternoon!
1934 wood engraving of a gull (probably greater black-backed gull) with wings raised, and head down, guarding two eggs. Against a backdrop of strongly defined clouds. By Robert Gibbings from the book 'The Glory of Life' by Llewelyn Powys.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
@nicrawlencenz.bsky.social @adzebill.bsky.social you guys should get one of these!
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
A late Xmas present given to me by a book chum. A 1892 edition of Dante's Inferno illus by Gustave Dore. Here in the 7th circle of Hell - Canto XIV, lines 37-39. 'Unceasing was the play of wretched hands, Now this, now that way glanciing, to shae off The heat, still falling fresh.'
Original description: "Dante and his guide Virgil arrive in the 7th circle of hell.  A plain of dry and hot sand, 3 kinds of violence are punished: namely, against God, against Nature, and against ART; and those who have thus sinned are tormented by flakes of fire, which are eternally showering down upon them."
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
This Falkland Island Wolf arrived in Dunedin, NZ, in 1875, just a year before it went extinct in the wild. Tuhura Otago Museum's taxidermist, Edwinn Jennings mounted it. Our paper is part of a sample issue and is currently free www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3...
Taxidermy specimen of a Falkland Island Wolf, mounted on block of wood, in Tuhura Otago Museumx-ray images stitched together show leg bones, skull and mounting wires inside taxidermy specimen of Falkland Island Wolf, in Tuhura Otago Museum.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
This beauty gets in my face when I empty my mail-box. I make trips even though I know the postie doesn't deliver every day. There are bushes of this variety in flower all over Dunedin at present, bringing cheer.
Head of rhododendron flower
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Somehow fitting that the latest book in my collection brings the total to 3,000. Was the dreaming child me? Very likely, given the number of school reports that read "must learn to concentrate" and similar! #bookhistory
Cover of Penguin Archive edition of a short story by Danish author, Karen Blixen entitled "The Dreaming Child".
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Framed my latest #etching, bought at a local auction by Andrew F. Affleck (1874/7-1936), British etcher known for large-sized prints European townscapes, this is Dordrecht.
Etching of Dordrecht Cathedral, with river quayside foreground, and 3-4 storied houses in mid-distance.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Very honoured to be part of DSO Chorus! If you are in Dunedin on Saturday night 28 June, do not miss this premiere of the moving story of Mataataua Wharenui. The meeting house’s creation in Whakatāne, the loss of Ngāti Awa control over it, its travels, & return to AoNZ for the 1925 Exhibition.
Poster advertising Dunedin Symphony Orchestra concert Saturday 28 June. Features premiere of Dame Gillian Whitehead's Mataatua: A Journey in Music, and Brahms Piano Concerto no 2. 

The Journey of Mataatua (the house that came home) - an unstaged opera, features Rebecca Ryan (soprano) as the voice of the house, Tomairangi Henare as the voice of iwi, and Paul Whelan various Pakeha. Small DSO Chorus represent various voices throughout.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
Pleased to announce publication of my article on how the museum acquired its large critters in late-19C & still mostly on display in Animal Attic, everyone's fave gallery. Natural History Trading with Tūhura Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, c1860–1890s muse.jhu.edu/pub/426/arti...
Taxidermied birds on display in Animal Attic, Tuhura Otago Museum.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
sorry forgot tags! #taxidermy, #tuatara #NewZealand #Wildlife.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Bought at a local auction for a pittance, considering it's an excellent #etching of Toledo Bridge by Edward Millington Synge (1860-1913). An Irish #printmaker, his work featured in a National Gallery of Ireland exhibition 'Making Their Mark' in 2019. Wish I had a time machine. The catalogue is good.
Etching of Toldeo Bridge by Irishman Edward Millington Synge. Heat of a summer's afternoon gloriously evoked by lines and shadows of a slow-moving river under an arched bridge. Township with roofs and a bridge-tower guarding the entrance to Toledo. He was very much part of the early 20C etching revival.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Picked up a very neat copy of 'Glaucus:The Wonders of the Shore' by Rev Charles Kingsley for a song from local op-shop. Yes, the same Charles Kingsley of 'Water-Babies' fame. Naturalist, social reformer, Anglican priest and supporter of Darwin's ideas which he promoted as theologically orthodox.
Front cover of Glaucus: Wonders of the Shore, by Charles Kingsley, this 5th ed published 1873, by Macmillan.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
With a superabundance of Oamaru limestone, which has stood the test of time, the Oamaru War Memorial choice was marble (probably imported), curious. #urbangeology
Oamaru Town Hall made from Oamaru limestone its clock tower has steeply pitched copper roof. In front road a marble War Memorial on the central reservation, clearly modelled on London's Cenotaph. Both seen between a pair of Corinthian pillars from the first floor the Forrester Gallery also made of Oamaru Limetsone.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
A half-hearted decorative effort, seen in a waiting room, but my sentiments are not half-hearted, Season's Greetings.
Picture of a beach, with a fenced-off path between the dunes. Framed on the wall of a dentist's waiting room. A single strand of golden tinsel is fixed around the frame.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
Plenty of room for pudding -- this whale had 9 stomachs. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
rnz.co.nz
Dissection of 'rarest whale in the world' leads to new discoveries about the species
This was the first time a rare spade-toothed whale was dissected.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Utterly delightful find in local bookshop. V&A reprinted this small volume on High Street shops, illust Eric Ravillious. Originally published 1938 as an AtoZ of shops. Gill Saunders essay provides context of this lost pre-WWII world. #illustrators #bookhistory
Frontispiece of a butcher's shop. Title page of High Street illus by Eric Ravillious. Orignially published 1938, facsimile reprint published by V&A, 2012. Now Thames & Hudson reissue 2022
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Nice to see Parker & Haswell, publ 1897, still in use although much revised, of course! #bookhistory #HistSTM #textbooks
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Reposted by Rosi Crane
KnitMeAThneed @thneed.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Welcome to #WikiAdvent Calendar #Day1! Today's "window" is a proper NZ rabbithole. Let's go! 🧵 1st Dec marks the start of Advent, and also the beginning of #Whamageddon, which my kids take very seriously. Last year I heard Wham’s Last Christmas in the pharmacy on the 1st. Straight to Whamhalla!
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Front cover of December issue of ISIS, Journal history of science society, features eruption of Krakatoa. Lithography by Michael Prendergast Parker (1859-1934), younger brother of the man who is alive and living in my head - Thomas Jeffery Parker FRS (1850-1897). #HistSTM #ScientificIllustration
“View of Krakatoa during the Earlier Stage of the Eruption, from a Photograph taken on Sunday the 27th of May, 1883,” originally published in The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena: Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society, ed. G. J. Symons (London: Trübner and Co., 1888).

Lithography by William Prendergast Parker (1859-1934)
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Mood! My single peony flower did not survive the overnight thunder, lightning and downpour!
White peony flower lying on paving with bent stalk, looking wet and bedraggled :-(
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
"The creation of the world in [Paul] Nash’s Genesis is a jerky, frightening cataclysm — the miracle being not what God made, but that something was made at all. ... This artist lived in close proximity to the empty maw." Image: "Man and Woman" woodcut. 1924 publicdomainreview.org/collection/p...
publicdomainreview.org
“Light from the Darkness”: Paul Nash’s *Genesis* (1924)
Woodcuts inspired by the biblical Genesis, which depict the creation of the world as a jerky, frightening cataclysm.
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Reposted by Rosi Crane
Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 28/04/2024
Yall I saw the unofficial fish of bluesky. A 1000 pound mola mola just munching down on velella velella. Can't wait to get on a smaller boat and get some underwater shots of these perfect creatures this summer. 🦑
A mola mola slurping up a VelellaVelellaA mola mola mouth at the surfaceA mole moles mouth above the surface and you can see foam insideA mole mola above the surface and you can sorta see it's eye
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 01/11/2024
Escapism for a wet afternoon. Book order just arrived. Look at that absolute unit! @themerl.bsky.social Turns out to be a reprint from a special issue of 1950 quarterly, Image. #engraving #arthistory #BookHistory
Front cover of "English Wood-engraving 1900-1950" by Thomas Balston. Features a large dappled horse entitled 'The Percheron Horse' by C.F. Tunnicliffe, 1940.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 25/10/2024
Of course, this should have read, "even though it's not earth-shattering it *is* original research."
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 24/10/2024
I've been keeping my head down and busy recently. Must admit to a certain pride at seeing my name in print, even though it's not earth-shattering original research. Women I've grown to know a bit get an airing. ojs.victoria.ac.nz/jnzs/article... Open Access. #HistSTM #Museums
ojs.victoria.ac.nz
Women naturalists in Tūhura Otago Museum, Dunedin | The Journal of New Zealand Studies
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 03/03/2024
This is what documentary film-making was all about. Not a single shot out of place and all cut to the exact right length. Each shot moves the narrative onwards, with only minimal voice-over. Depicting a world long gone, of course.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 01/03/2024
After some ugly pruning (aka hacking) a couple or three years ago the not-my-tree at the end of my driveway has slowly revealed a face. It's an uncanny resemblance to Frederick Douglass the abolitionist IMHO.
Sawn end of a large branch of macrocarpaPortrait of Frederick Douglass (1817 -1895) American abolitionist
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 27/02/2024
er ... sorry that should read NEXT Friday & Saturday! I mean I know NZ is first to see the sun in the world but ooops that's just a tad ridiculous!
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 27/02/2024
This Friday & Saturday ... come with your cash to see what all our hard work sorting sorting throughout the year can produce. There are enough books for every imaginable bibliophile. Old & Quirky; History; Science; Religion; Hobbies; Gardening; Arts; Travel; Foreign Language; Travel; Sport; War.
Poster advertising the Regent Theatre Annual Book Sale: Friday 8 & Saturday 9 March, 10am - 10pm at the Edgar Centre.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 30/01/2024
Began rehearsing this puppy last night. After a month's summer recess pleased to say my ageing voice held up quite well. #choralmusic #classicalmusic #Bach
Front cover of J.S. Bach's St John Passion, vocal score
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 25/01/2024
Can't afford to collect the original engravings, but can collect the next best thing: books with illustrations. Robert Gibbings and Gwen Raverat were founder members of the Society of Wood Engravers, still going strong today (after a few years of doldrums in the 1970s).
Copies of: 'John Graham Convict' written and illustrated by Robert Gibbings, and 'A Sentimental Journey' by Laurence Sterne, illustrated by Gwen Raverat - in the short-lived Penguin Illustrated Classics edition published 1938.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 25/01/2024
An ordinary civic library maybe but Dunedin Public Library completes a large digitisation project on its mediaeval manuscripts. Donated by publisher AH Reed, a household name in early to mid 20C. odt.shorthandstories.com/medieval-man...
Three pages of mediaeval manuscripts, two outermost leaves highly decorated and central leaf text.
Right hand depicts The Visitation preceding Lauds in the Hours of the Virgin a Book of Hours from northern France (perhaps Rouen) dating from about 1480 to 1500. PHOTO: DUNEDIN PUBLIC LIBRARY
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 14/01/2024
The nice thing about Christmas in NZ -- it goes on forever, as another book turns up that I had ordered for myself. "A small mound of white feathers lies on a tussock grass made grey by a Highland winter. It is all the monument there will ever be to the life of a swan." Pics & words perfectly match
Front Cover of 'The Company of Swans' novella by Jim Crumley, with engravings by Harry Brockway. Mute swan featured.Engraving mute swan, standing shaking its wings. Opposite page 14.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 10/01/2024
Wild bunny enjoying Dunedin's drizzly evening. Slightly out of focus because of low-light levels. Where's the summer sun gone? We have had a single day of sunshine this year. Grumble, grumble, grumble - it's like winter (version II with day-length).
Rabbit on the grass sitting in front of a row of gravestones on a hillside. Dunedin's Northern Cemetery.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 06/01/2024
Honoured to be associated with this eminent bunch of scholars for the special issue Darwin Down Under: Australasian Perspectives on Darwin Studies, now complete with an excellent introduction by Ian Hesketh. www.sciencedirect.com/journal/stud...
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 01/01/2024
Curmudgeonly Bernard Sleigh in his book "Wood Engraving" published 1932, thinks "Miss Lane Foster would excel [at portraiture] were she to adopt a less coarse handling of the graver". Harumph!
"The Talkies" wood engraving by Marcia Lane Foster. a group of six crusty old men sitting on a bench chatting. Nearest one smoking a pipe with his arms folded.
From: Wood Engraving by Bernard Sleigh, Pitman & Sons, London 1932.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 01/01/2024
I am enjoying my Christmas present to myself! Clare Leighton's engravings recorded a life already passing when she first did them in the 1930s. "She [blackbird] is in a tangle of crab-apple tree in the hedge... so immovable that she might be carved in wood."
Front cover of Clare Leighton's Rural Life, an anthology, with an engraving of a farmworker using a scythe.Engraving of blackbird sitting on her nest
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 31/12/2023
Happy New Year!
New Year 2024, people in Octagon, Dunedin, watching a light-show projected on nearby buildings.
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 14/12/2023
Oh, it's so nice to re-connect with online chums after being patient for an invitation code to join this superior platform. Happy morning spent finding and following!
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Rosi Crane @rosicrane.bsky.social · 14/12/2023
Kia Ora blueskyers
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