Digital Gallery News


Find out about new features, site enhancements, new items, and other noteworthy developments.


December 2007 Curator's Choice: Charting North America: Maps from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection and Others

Over 1,000 maps of North America focusing on the Middle Atlantic region, from the earliest printed portrayals to the close of the 19th century, are presented from The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division's holdings. This nautical chart (Digital ID: 481134 ) from Samuel Thornton's The sea-atlas : containing an hydrographical description of most of the sea-coasts of the known parts of the world (1702-1707) depicts Long Island and parts of "New England, New York" and "east New Iarsey."

12.06.2007


October/November 2007 Curator's Choice: 500 Years of Italian Dance: Treasures from the Cia Fornaroli Collection

Sofia Fuoco nella Tarantella. Digital ID: 1515952 Hundreds of images in this month's featured collection, including designs, lithographs and ephemera, illustrate the rich history of Italian dance. This digital presentation is based on "500 Years of Italian Dance: Treasures from the Cia Fornaroli Collection," an exhibition presented October 2006 - January 2007, at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. This color lithograph (Digital ID: 1515952) by Niccolo Sanesi (1818-1889) depicts Sofia Fuoco (1830-1916), costumed as a peasant.

10.09.2007


September 2007 Curator's Choice: "America's National Game:" The Albert G. Spalding Collection of Early Baseball Photographs

Dan Casey, Charlie Bastian and trainer. Digital ID: 55688 The Albert G. Spalding Collection includes photographs, prints, drawings, caricatures, and printed illustrations related to baseball and other sports gathered by the early baseball player and sporting-goods tycoon A. G. Spalding. This collection includes 19th-century studio portraits of players and teams of the day, rare images, photographs, and original drawings. This image (Digital ID: 55688) is of Dan Casey, Charlie Bastian and a trainer.

09.04.2007


August 2007 Curator's Choice: Early Landscape Photography of the American West

Charles L. Weed (1824-1903). The Valley, From the Mariposa Trail (1860s). Digital ID: 435071 This month's collection features many of the earliest and most important historical photographs representing the exploration of the American west. The locations and photographers include mammoth views of Yosemite Valley by Carleton E. Watkins and Charles L. Weed, the route of the Union Pacific Railroad through the Rocky Mountains by A.J. Russell, and others. This image (Digital ID: 435071), entitled "The Valley, From The Mariposa Trail," is from Charles L. Weed's Yosemite views (1864).

08.08.2007


NYPL Digital Gallery in Family Tree Magazine's "101 Best Web Sites" for 2007

101 Best Web Sites - 2007 Family Tree Magazine has recently named Digital Gallery as one of the 101 Best Web Sites for 2007, under the "History Havens" category.

More from Family Tree Magazine:

...for our eighth annual 101 Best Web Sites, we've decided to revisit our "classic" compilation and present not the best new sites or the best undiscovered sites or what have you, but the best of the Web - period. The sites listed here represent our picks for the 101 most valuable spots to spend your genealogical time online. Read more.

07.19.2007


July 2007 Curator's Choice: Theatre Productions and Players, 1920s-1957: Vandamm Studio Photographs

Clifton Webb and Tamara Geva. Digital ID: 1148371 The thousands of items in this month's featured collection are a sampling of an archive of more than 75,000 images of theatrical personalities and productions in the Billy Rose Theatre Collection. The Vandamm archive documents three decades of theatrical history in New York. Hallmarks of the Vandamms' collective work are the beautiful compositions they achieved and the flattering images they created. This image (Digital ID: 1148371) of Clifton Webb and Tamara Geva is from the New York production of "Three's a Crowd" at the Selwyn Theatre in 1930.

07.10.2007


June 2007 Curator's Choice: Classic Illustrated Zoologies and Related Works, 1550-1900

Surmulet, Mullus Surmuletus. Digital ID: 429318 Among the riches of The Research Libraries is an enormous collection of pre-1920 illustrated zoologies from Europe and the Americas. Not generally well known, these impressive holdings are comparable to those in specialized natural history libraries. This month's featured collection contains several thousand images from illustrated books from the 16th century to the early 20th depicting the fish, birds, and animals of the world. This image (Digital ID: 429318) of a striped red mullet is from The natural history of British fishes ... an extensive selection of accurately finished coloured plates (1802-1808) by E. (Edward) Donovan.

06.04.2007


May 2007 Curator's Choice: Changing New York: Photographs by Berenice Abbott, 1935-1938

Blossom Restaurant, 103 Bowery, Manhattan, October 03, 1935. Digital ID: 482799 American master photographer Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) is probably best known for Changing New York, her 1935-1938 Federal Art Project documentation of the city's rapidly changing built environment. This featured collection contains hundreds of black and white photographs from her work. In 1939, Berenice Abbott wrote that Changing New York had been intended "to preserve for the future an accurate and faithful chronicle in photographs of the changing aspect of the world's greatest metropolis, ... a synthesis which shows the sky-scraper in relation to the less colossal edifices which preceded it, ... to produce an expressive result in which moving details must coincide with balance of design and significance of subject." This image (Digital ID: 482799), taken October 03, 1935, is of the Blossom Restaurant at 103 Bowery, Manhattan.

05.02.2007


April 2007 Curator's Choice: The Middle East in Early Prints and Photographs

Sphinx at Gizeh. Digital ID: 82626 This month's collection features several thousand prints and photographs contained in works from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century, including classics of illustrated travel and regional archaeology, as well as the Library's earliest works of photography in the Middle East region. These selections offer resources for exploring Western impressions of the Middle East in that era through the lens of practitioners of the new medium of photography. This 19th-century image taken by Félix Bonfils, Sphinx at Gizeh (Digital ID: 82626), is from Views of Egypt, Palestine and Syria.

04.03.2007


March 2007 Curator's Choice:  Dress and Fashion: Design and Manufacture

Brocade shoe; red and white satin shoe; shoe belonging to Rosa Anderson, a fair maid of Perth...  Digital ID: 105978 Several rare and unusual published resources of interest to students of western dress and fashion from the 19th to the early 20th-century. Includes historical surveys as well as manufacturers' booklets and sample swatch catalogs. This image (Digital ID: 105978) is from Ladies' dress shoes of the nineteenth century (published 1900).

03.05.2007