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Guide to the Louisa Wyatt Truscott Album
MS-0547  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Overview of the Collection
  • Biographical Information:
  • Administrative Information
  • Scope and Contents

  • Overview of the Collection

    Collection Title: Louisa Wyatt Truscott Album
    Dates: 1859-1865
    Identification: MS-0547
    Creator: Truscott, Louisa Wyatt, 1843-?
    Physical Description: 0.20 linear ft
    Language of Materials: English
    Repository: Special Collections & University Archives
    5500 Campanile Dr. MC 8050
    San Diego, CA, 92182-8050
    URL: http://library.sdsu.edu/scua
    Email: askscua@mail.sdsu.edu
    Phone: 619-594-6791

    Biographical Information:

    Louisa Wyatt Truscott was born in St. Saviour Southwark, London, England on February 23rd, 1843 to Mr. and Mrs. James Truscott. She was married in 1864 to Mr. James Timpson in London City, England.

    Administrative Information

    Accruals:

    9999-201

    Conditions Governing Use:

    These materials are in the public domain. However, the nature of historical archival and manuscript collections means that copyright status may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Copyright resides with the creators of materials contained in the collection or their heirs. Requests for permission to publish must be submitted to the Head of Special Collections, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access. Permissions is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder(s), which must also be obtained in order to publish. Materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials.

    Conditions Governing Access:

    The collection is open for research.

    Preferred Citation:

    Identification of item, folder title, box number, Louisa Wyatt Truscott Album, Special Collections and University Archives, Library and Information Access, San Diego State University.

    Related Materials:

    Artist's Sketchbook 1857

    Scope and Contents

    The Louisa Wyatt Truscott Album is a bound album comprised of various sketches. The inside cover holds a poem which begins “Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, stop for a minute and look at my Album so handsome and new / Be so kind as to write or to draw something in it / A verse or a figure a flower or a view…" She began collecting sketches for the album in 1859 according to the hand drawn title page. Although the album was started in 1859, several of the sketches date much earlier.
    The sketches collected in this album are from a variety of artists, some signed and dated, some captioned. The sketches are mostly done in pencil or ink, some are watercolor and some are sketched over gradient-colored paper making clever use of the blue-to-brown gradient to serve as sky and earth backgrounds.The style of these images range from portraits to still-life , cartoons to highly detailed drawings filled with thousands of cross hatches, as well as completed full-scene pieces to unfinished half-painted sketches.
    The subjects of these paintings and sketches are mainly people, either as portraits or of the subjects posed. A handful of paintings in the album are still-life flower arrangements and a number of the pencil-sketched landscape scenes are of ships sailing in a harbor or on the open ocean. The captions are primarily written in English, but a few are in French, Arabic, or Croatian.
    Although no painting boasts Louisa’s signature, a sampling of works are addressed to her in the form of whimsical paintings on doilies attached to pages of the album. One reads “A Louise Pour sa Fete” (To Louise, for your party), while another says “restous tou jours unies par l’amitie / To my friend Louisa” (Always united by Friendship). Also included in the album is an inscription first in Arabic, then translated to Romanized Arabic, then in English. The romanized transcription reads "Makarhsse el youin, hisbeerfel Kredra halla kebir!", translated to "Never mind to-day, wait for to morrow! The Lord is great!"