Suzanne Karr Schmidt
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drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Suzanne Karr Schmidt
@drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
7.3K followers 4.2K following 2.7K 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
Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · Nov 23
Some Rare Bookish News!

Man and dog find 16th c. German books on the Chicago sidewalk; I (eventually) find their rightful owner! www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/22/c...
Me in a blue dress and a large wooden chain necklace looking at two rare books
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Look Out for Insane Foliage!

Hand-painted incunable borders and a little bit of book guts for a treat at #NewberryLibrary. (Inc. 1286; 109.5; 7250)

#Illuminated #BindingWaste
Front gutter with manuscript binding waste and a very green plant border. Initial B with a gold background and bulbous plants, some pink. Initial S with gold dotted flowers on left.
November 25, 2025 at 3:13 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
PLEASE KEEP YOUR ARMS AND LEGS INSIDE THE RIDE AT ALL TIMES

Laces maker with a central cord at the Passementerie Mill, Chicago!
November 24, 2025 at 3:03 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Saw some amazing things at the Passementerie Mill and the Weaving Mill this Open House Weekend!

#Textiles #FiberArts
Weaving Mill Loom, making pink green and yellow striped cloth on massive setup. Passamenterie Mill setup with bespoke, wavy cords feeding into a loom. Gorgeous openwork trim, red and gold. My foot with a red sneaker and purple laces next to the machine that made them!
November 24, 2025 at 2:58 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Bookish and messy as charged! And we do have a resident potter... 😁
jowolff.bsky.social Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 2d
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
November 24, 2025 at 4:45 AM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Always wanted to work in museums, especially when "artist" wasn't realistic, and "Cave Art Historian" was too niche! And after a summer internship there, I figured the National Gallery of Art had the Dutch Baroque covered! So German Renaissance and an unhealthy fixation with Albrecht Dürer it was...
recursecenter.bsky.social Recurse Center @recursecenter.bsky.social · 14d
What’s the lore behind choosing your career path ?
November 24, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Reposted by Suzanne Karr Schmidt
sarahbc.bsky.social
telling my Baptist friends this is a Catholic Mass
vuc.bsky.social David✶🇬🇹 @vuc.bsky.social · 5d
He said "Amen" straight into the drop

Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible
November 22, 2025 at 4:28 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Good Boy!

19th c. bookplate of Carlo Bologna-Canossa in a 1488 Apuleius translation of Hermes Trismegistus. Dogs with bones were on the family crest all the way back! #exlibris
#BravoBuonoRagazzo

#NewberryLibrary (Inc. 7172) i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
Wooden book board with a small, round bookplate of the head of a dog with a bone in his mouth. Black and white, with a thin black border.
November 22, 2025 at 4:36 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Excuse Me, Do You Have A Moment To Talk About Our Lord and Me?
Woodcut of a blessing Jesus with a text border in German describing the accuracy of the depiction, and a reddish hand-colored robe.
November 21, 2025 at 1:45 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Clasp
Limp vellum bonding with nifty clasp.
November 20, 2025 at 10:08 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Book Guts AND Fabric Swatches?! 🥰

#ThingsInBooks #Textiles
1/2
Book spine reading (inside down) Ancient Common Place Book. Interior of spine showing bands of floral fabric, red and brown.
November 19, 2025 at 4:55 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
On Pins and Needles?

This Cat's about to ... Pounce!
15th c. book, with pricked or "pounced" details that go through the previous page. What's going on here?
Hand drawn shield with flower, stripes, and pounced rampant cat. Back of previous page with pricked pattern.
November 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Who needs books anyway?
hetanshah.bsky.social Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 8d
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:40 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Finished a thing...
Back of an embroidery kit with very exuberant and messy stitching in many colors, somewhat organized in pie slices.
November 17, 2025 at 2:32 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
your last saved meme is your moral philosophy
Smug Stede Bonnet with an @RahneAlexander post quote saying "I'm at the "port authority" and I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone here knows the first thing about dessert wine"
November 17, 2025 at 5:16 AM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Achoo!
#PrintingOnFabric
drbibliomane.bsky.social Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · 9d
Look at this excellent handkerchief from 1769 at the V & A museum: a showcase for #18thc practices of remediation. Made to imitate a quodlibet/medley print, a genre that itself aims to simulate, in a trompe l'oeil idiom, a scatter of small printed papers.
Imagine blowing your nose on that!
#scraps
Red and white printed square handkerchief, designed to make you think you are looking at an untidy heap of printed papers: a playing card, a receipt, portrait engravings, a play, sheet music, positioned every which way.
November 16, 2025 at 9:48 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
I'm not very musical, so I appreciate a hand...

#NewberryLibrary (Inc. 538)
i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...
#GregorianChants#woodcut
Guidonian hand woodcut with music on it. Left hand with a gold wedding ring, palm out, almost but not quite matching the size of the woodcut.
November 16, 2025 at 2:42 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Guess what we had for breakfast?

#paleography #NewberryLibrary #Advertising #Ephemera
Screenshot from a recent presentation at the Newberry of a advertising card for "Souvenir Post Card Shop" in Cleveland, c. 1900? The title is " an enquiring look" and it shows a closeup of a proto-Stewie Griffin with a red face, and question marks for eyes. An owner has written Merry Xas and "I want cinnamon roll? on it.
November 15, 2025 at 3:57 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Is Playtime in the Cards?

Amazing mail day! Not sure we can make epic swag like Becker Medical Library's anatomical tarot deck, but maybe a facsimile set of these early French beauties (Wing MS 373) at #NewberryLibrary reused as a library catalogue...
Also, new favorite shiny pirate shirt alert!
18th/19th c. French card stack with a jaunty knave of diamonds (labeled Hector) with a halberd on top. Gorgeous and shiny tarot cards from the Becker Medical Library in St Louis featuring their collection. Me in an OFMD themed T-shirt showing Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate in gold on black as a conjoined face card.
November 14, 2025 at 3:39 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
It me
Woodcut or metal point border with a happy looking fool creature with glasses and a headdress reading a book directly at the posterior of a more malevolent but seemingly attention-paying antlered hybrid human boar.
November 13, 2025 at 2:20 PM
drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
Oh, to be a Fly...
In a Choirbook?

#ThingsInBooks
Smashed but identifiable fly in a red and black printed 16th c. gradual service book with music. Full Gradual service book with music and fly.
November 12, 2025 at 3:45 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
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
Fancy Meeting You Here!
Music with Madonna and Child bound into book.
November 9, 2025 at 3:06 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
Going to the store, need a python?
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 PM