Suzanne Karr Schmidt
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drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Suzanne Karr Schmidt
@drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
7.2K followers 4.2K following 2.6K posts
Curator of (very old) curious books, prints on fabric, functional ephemera (newberry.org), Director of a pop-up book society (movablebooksociety.org). History of art, science, decorative food, pirates. Where's your WHIMSY? Mostly Chicago. She/her
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drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
One of these three was NOT published in Hungary, guess which... 🧐
3/?
Three prayer cards with Hungarian text.
November 11, 2025 at 7:23 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
One of the owners went to Lourdes! (Or had someone send them mail from there...)
2/?
Open book with stamp in it, surrounded by prayer cards. Reddish Lourdes landscape stamp from "La Belle France", sideways, in book gutter next to image of St Anthony with the Christ Child.
November 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
What's For Lunch? This Delicious German-Hungarian Medley!

It's chock-full of Prayer and First Communion Cards from Munich, some inscribed by owners in Lippa (Hungary) in 1916 and one printed in Esztergom! The book itself is from Budapest. #NewAcq #NewberryLibrary
1/?
Prayer book, closed. Pile of prayer cards in the book. Hand holding the prayer book in Hungarian open, surrounded by 13 lacy and die cut cards, most in German, three also in Hungarian.
November 11, 2025 at 6:01 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Lending Library?

Names with dates from 1545 to 1578 pepper the title page marking this 1494 devotional book's circulation among friends. Maybe the owners expected it back within a year? One notes that it has 365 days!
#NewberryLibrary (Inc. 464.5)
i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
Crucifixion doodle opposite red printed title of a meditational work loaned to various friends in the mid 16th c.
November 10, 2025 at 5:58 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
At least he's got a friend in
Open book showing mystery man left and a head of Jesus at right under a pen and ink crest from 1578, presumably the artist.
November 10, 2025 at 5:27 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
HAD to put the bookplate there, didn't you...
Front board of a 15th c. book with a c. 1578 doodle of a man (?) in a tunic with a large, later woodcut crest bookplate on top of it that appears to have been slightly peeled away!
November 10, 2025 at 5:16 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Music to my Eyes

I'd never seen this anonymous woodcut in a 1491 book at #NewberryLibrary (Inc. 571) or the music it is part of anywhere previously... has anyone else? Beautiful addition in any case!
i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
#BookWaste
Madonna woodcut with the music, right side up, with several different parts including Discant, Alto and Bass. Closeup of woodcut image.
November 9, 2025 at 4:18 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Fancy Meeting You Here!
Music with Madonna and Child bound into book.
November 9, 2025 at 3:06 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
It shows up twice!! Wonderful visual motif, especially considering how limited the anatomical information in them actually is... Btw, you probably already know, but Yale Medical Historical library is featuring them in an exhibition through January 21... library.medicine.yale.edu/historical/c...
Gertrude van Wagenen: Anatomy of a Collector.
November 8, 2025 at 2:45 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Ivory does not Bleed, Victor,
Flesh does!

Perhaps my favorite part of Frankenstein was this medical teaching moment! Thanks for playing with one of these extraordinary eighteenth-century interactive anatomy dolls @realgdt.bsky.social! (The anachronistic Struwwelpeter reading was a close second.)
Charles Dance as Victor Frankenstein's father looming over him while studies an interactive ivory anatomical manikin. Closeup of the ivory model in the young Victor's hand. Even the lacy pillow is accurate! Example of an actual articulated anatomy manikin in ivory from Yale Medical Historical library.
November 8, 2025 at 2:37 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Found some...
In-process OFMD embroidery with a green tuft at the top of the printed garlic bulb. Kit from @thesearethekids! In-process OFMD embroidery with a green tuft at the top of the fuzzy white garlic bulb. Kit from @thesearethekids! In-process OFMD embroidery with a green tuft at the top of the printed garlic bulb. Kit from @thesearethekids!
November 8, 2025 at 1:08 AM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Snake in an OFMD themed in-progress embroidery kit from @thesearethekids
November 8, 2025 at 12:50 AM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Voilà!
Much used phone case back in teal, with a vertically applied"Snake Snack" sticker from Yue Crafter...
November 8, 2025 at 12:47 AM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Portrait of the Author?

This doodle inside the front cover of a 1491 edition of a book by esteemed Greek literature scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (1350-1415). What do you think,are the hat and nose a match? 🤔

#NewberryLibrary (Inc. 7132) i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
Profile doodle of a face looking to the right, with a cap or headband and a long nose. Paolo Uccello drawing of Byzantine humanist Manuel Chrysoloras, c 1408, at the Louvre.
November 7, 2025 at 3:05 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
T is for Turd?

Yep! Did I mention this is a Protestant publication?
There were many, many scatological digs at the Catholic clergy around this time! Not sure I've seen it in an initial though!
😁💩
Yellow monk and turd. Green monk and turd.
November 6, 2025 at 4:29 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Usually there are fighters or dolphins, but this one's got a tonsured monk in the background! What's the pendulous decoration near his mouth though?
3/?
Monk in deep yellow at the bottom of the Z initial... But what's that near his moth?
November 6, 2025 at 3:22 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Let's take a closer look at that Z, shall we? Here's another one, with different colors...
2/?
Letter Z with yellow background red Z and a monk!
November 6, 2025 at 3:14 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
S-U-Z-A...

Still playing with my new favorite hand-colored 16th c. book at #NewberryLibrary! (Kirchen Postilla, 1553.) Was trying to spell out my name in its wacky initials, as one does, and noticed something...
1/?
Ornate S in yellow on red. Ornate U or V in pink with ornate background and male figures. Yellow Z on green with a monk in the backdrop?! Dolphin decoration in yellow behind a red A.
November 6, 2025 at 3:04 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Not the kind of cut-and-paste debate I'd expect in a book of Church Postils (biblical commentaries)... Yes, that's a hole cut through the first page of text on the right!
Kirchen Postilla, title, with woodcut showing Saxon Elector John Frederick (I or II) and Luther kneeling below a rather bloody Christ on the Cross. Hole in the first main page of text on the verso of the censorship of the G initial. Four lines of text are interrupted!
November 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
The Emperor's New Clothes?

An early reader of this 1553 book of Lutheran sermons ripped out this G initial... But he missed a spot! The uncensored ruler reappears in all his unclothed glory at the very end!

#NewberryLibrary (Case folio C 43 .528) i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
Letterpress page in 16th c. German with an uneven oval of orange paste paper covering up a hole where the contents of the G initial (starting the word Gnad, or Grace) used to be. Another (or the same?) helpful reader has written a large G above in ink to explain what's missing. Letterpress page from the end of the book for the 27th Sunday sermon. The G initial starts the word Gleich (the same) here. The letter G is in reddish. The figure of a crowned ruler sits nudely (but not violently) on a throne. His crown is colored yellow with the floral decorated backdrop. The ground is green, but the throne and figure are flesh colored. The figure is clearly an adult male from the seemingly objectionable frontal view.
November 5, 2025 at 1:51 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
"Ariel" 94, Published by the Junior Class.
Ariel U Vermont yearbook of 1894, with photos of dorms and graphic title.
November 4, 2025 at 3:52 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
What's the oLDest book on this #NewberryLibrary shelf?

Apparently, an 1894 University of Vermont yearbook with an attitude! #LibraryofCongress #Classification #oLD #shelfie
Book spines reading "Folio oLD..." Last page of the 1894 U Vermont yearbook, with a student bending over with 94 written in white on his backside. Text reads "Looking Backward from the Very End."
November 4, 2025 at 3:43 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Multi-Map Monday

#NewberryLibrary (Inc. 4385)
Both Pomponius Mela Cosmography, published by Ratdolt in 1482 Venice.
The hand colored, annotated copy on the left arrived in 2023 as part of Art and Jan Holzheimer's amazing collection! i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
Two copies of the same 15th c. book, with different margins and distinctly different levels of hand coloring of the world map, shown here as upright woodcuts.
November 3, 2025 at 3:27 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
The full collection presentation spread! Might be time to feature some of these on here again... 🤔
More popup books including the mini Newberry!
November 2, 2025 at 5:32 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
From the back...
Another view of the Native American village from the back in grisaille.
November 2, 2025 at 5:14 PM