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38 (CHINESE SKETCH BOOK.) [Chinese handmade paper album, inscribed on cover:] No.1 Pencil sketches by Miss [?] Ahá of Mrs Bonney’s Boarding School for Chinese Girls. Canton (Guangzhou): 19 July 1864 Landscape octavo (170 × 280 mm). Original four-hole stab binding, pink wrappers, manuscript title and date to front cover in English and Chinese, folded leaves. Sketch map “Part of Michigan”, 23 pages of black and white sketches, some two to a page. Pencilled note on front wrapper: “Mrs Fred Ewing ?Beucie, Presented to her by the girls whose work it is when she was in China F.E.B.” Some light creasing, paper wrappers marked and chipped, closed tears to upper wrapper and some leaves professionally repaired, some leaves chipped at edges, scattered foxing not affecting images, fragile but generally in remarkably good condition. A conspicuous survival from 19th-century Canton, a handmade paper album, probably made at the Boarding School for Chinese Girls, containing sketches of buildings, landscapes, natural history and two portraits of western women, one of which is captioned in Chinese as “British Lady”. The school was established at Canton by Catherine Bonney, a de- vout Christian from a well-to-do family in Cherry Hill, Albany, New York. “Catherine Van Rensselaer was the youngest child of Solomon and Arriet Van Rensselaer, and the granddaughter of Philip and Maria, Cherry Hill’s original occupants. In 1856, Catherine married Reverend Samuel Bonney, and the couple travelled to China—to Canton and Macao—as missionaries. Under their sponsoring organ- isation, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Catherine served as a “help mate” to her husband—but against their will and independent of their support, she implement- ed an initiative of her own, opening a school for girls. Catherine Bon- ney’s papers and collections reveal a life of devotion to her faith and to her Chinese pupils, an experience of physical hardship and illness, and an attitude of sometimes critical fascination with Chinese cul- ture” (Historic Cherry Hill Association). £1,250 [131033]
37 CAVELL, Edith Louisa. Autograph letter signed by the nurse and war heroine, providing a professional reference for a former member of her staff in Belgium. Brussels: 8 January 1913 Octavo (178 × 114 mm). Single leaf, hand-written on one side in black ink, addressed from 149 rue de la Culture, the location of Cavell’s school and clin- ic. Creased from folding as usual, a single short nick to the top edge and top left corner torn obscuring the word “Copy”. Overall in very good condition. autograph letter signed “e. cavell, matron”, her retained file copy, dating from her time as the director of a nurses’ training school in Brussels, just two years before her controversial execution by a German firing squad for treason. In this succinct letter Cavell (1865–1915) provides a reference for one Miss Hardy, affirming that “she has nursed several cases for us to my satisfaction. The doctors and patients were also pleased with her work”. This is a particularly apt example of Cavell’s professional duties, as the recruitment and administrative care of nurses was her prime focus at the school, which she had joined in 1907. It was the first of its kind in Belgium, and one of the first in Europe, but at the time nursing in Belgium was seen as primarily a role for members of reli- gious orders. Cavell’s aim was to convince educated middle-class lay- women to consider it as a viable and respectable career, an objective which she achieved with great distinction. Her attentions were soon diverted to assisting in the escape of allied soldiers, and she worked with an organisation which provided soldiers with hiding places and false papers. Her efforts led to her arrest on 5 August 1915 and, de- spite the serious diplomatic efforts made to obtain a stay of execu- tion, she was shot on 12 October. “Initial shock at Cavell’s death was quickly succeeded by international protest, and to many she became, overnight, a heroine and martyr . . . She also undertook pioneering work in establishing the clinic and training school, and in shaping the profession of nursing in Belgium and neighbouring countries. But it was the timing of her death, the manner of it, the reaction to it, and the fact that she was a woman and a nurse that secured her lasting reputation as a heroine” ( ODNB ). American autograph collector and dealer Thomas F. Madigan considered Cavell’s letters to be some of the rarest autographs to acquire (as discussed in his book World Shadows of the Great: The Lure of Autograph Collecting , 1930) and they appear very infrequently in commerce; we can trace just one other appearance in the past 20 years, a lot of three letters at Heritage Auctions in 2008. £2,500 [127702]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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