Monumental calligraphic drawing on display at museum

One of the largest 19th-century calligraphic drawings known was unveiled recently at the Genesee Country Village and Museum in Mumford.

The drawing, which measures about 8 feet by 3 feet, depicts a lion pulling a chariot. The charioteer has just fired an arrow into a leopard in a tree. Four sheets of paper were joined to provide the canvas for the drawing.

"It is a fantastic piece," says museum curator Dan Barber.

William O. Place of Alfred created it in 1858 when he was 18. The drawing was donated to the museum by Robert W. Place of Pittsford, great-grandson of the artist, and was recently repaired and framed.

The donor underwrote the cost of restoration, which was performed by Dan Clement of Ithaca.

Little is known about the artist, who served in and lost a brother during the Civil War. "There are no family stories, I'm sad to say," says Place. "It was just rolled up in the attic for over 100 years."

Barber says that oak gall ink was used in the drawing along with small accents of bright red and blue inks. Oak gall ink, which was common in the 19th century, is made from crushed oak galls (small growths formed on oak leaves and twigs around larva of the gall wasp) and ferrous sulphate. The resulting ink slowly turns from a pale brown to black.

"Why not learn to write?" the artist asks in fancy lettering at the bottom of the work. An alphabet is also included in another area.

The drawing has been hung in the 1855 Romulus Seminary, a select girls academy, in the historic village. "It's an appropriate setting because students certainly would have been doing calligraphy here," says Barber.

Genesee Country Village and Museum is one of the nation's largest living history museums, with 67 historic structures from all around New York. Its 19th-century village is filled with costumed villagers going about the essential tasks and trades that bring 1800s American to life.