Books and Manuscripts

A Fine Fore-Edge Painting of Philadelphia by the Preeminent Miss C.B. Currie

London: C. Gilpin, etc., 1849. "New Edition". 8vo. lx, 370, (1) (ad) pp. With a fine fore-edge painting of Second Street, North from Market Street, Philadelphia by Miss C.B. Currie, after the print by William Birch, and signed by Currie on the inserted limitation leaf at front (No. 96). Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and two folding maps. Full crimson straight-grain morocco, elaborately stamped in blind and in gilt; all edges gilt; gilt dentelles, by Riviere & Son for H. Sotheran & Co.; front blank loose but present; old cataloguing slip tipped onto front blank. Weber A12

A fine fore-edge painting of a view of Philadelphia by preeminent fore-edge painter C.B. Currie. Listed on the limitation leaf as "No. 96 of the Books with Fore-edge Paintings by Miss Currie," it is one of only 172 fore-edge paintings she is suspected to have executed in her lifetime. In Jeff Weber's An Annotated Dictionary of Fore-edge Painting Artists & Binders, No. 96 is listed as "unknown," but is found as A12 in his section "Currie Paintings with Numbers Unknown."

"The miniature painter 'Miss C.B. Currie' (b. December 12, 1849; d. April 2, 1940) was one of the most prominent fore-edge artists...A master of the art of miniature painting, she excelled as a copyist working for Henry Sotheran Booksellers, London. She became famous for her miniature paintings applied to two art forms. First on ivory, mounted on Rivière bindings and named by her employer as 'Cosway' bindings. Later she expanded her work into the art of painting on the fanned edge of a book--called a fore-edge painting. Most of these paintings were signed and numbered by the artist. Whereas fore-edge painting history is replete with unknown artists, Currie is a notable exception. Even today, many fore-edge artists remain anonymous. In the book world, the name Miss C.B. Currie is widely recognized, yet her personal life and real name remained guarded and unknown until now. It turns out her name was, in fact, partly a pseudonym. Though her work is highly prized, there is no known published biography. Her correct full name was recently discovered to be Caroline Billin Curry…The earliest year Currie fore-edge paintings appear in Sotheran catalogues is a 1913 supplemental leaf, and after that not until 1924...Since nineteen fore-edge paintings were made prior to 1924 and none of these appear in the Sotheran catalogues available to me from 1910-1923, it is unclear as to when the fore-edge painting effort really began. She may have made a few fore-edge paintings from ca. 1911 to 1914, and then discontinued until after the war. The number 172 was reached by 1931 and it seems unlikely that many more were done after that date…" (Weber, Jeff, An Annotated Dictionary of Fore-edge Painting Artists & Binders, 2010, p. 273)

Miss Currie's painting here is based on Philadelphia artist William Russell Birch's (1755-1834) engraving "Second Street North from Market Street & Christ Church. Philadelphia", from his Views of Philadelphia (1800).

A previous cataloguer's slip indicates that this book was once exhibited by George Clarence Johnson (1881-1965), a Philadelphia architect and associate of Horace Trumbauer--where, can only be surmised.