Stambuch / Birthday Book of the Axentowicz Family

1884-1901, cover size: 27 x 21 cm.

A bibliophilic object of museum rank - an authentic album / Birthday Book belonging to the Axentowicz family. The Ruskin Birtday Book (originally "The Ruskin Birtday Book") is an elegantly published volume by John Ruskin in 1883, containing a yearly calendar inside. Each month is preceded by a card with a selection of thoughts and aphorisms, and then the days of the month are written out on several pages with space for friends to write in. The person making the entry should find his or her monthly and daily date of birth and put his or her signature, the year of birth and the year the entry was made underneath. There were as many as 180 autographs placed there between 1884 and 1901 in the Axentowiczes' stamper. The first entry belonged to John Ruskin himself, the originator of the Birthday Book, writer, art historian and critic.
The book was signed by the most prominent artists from Teodor Axentowicz's circle, including Jan Stanislawski, Stanislaw Witkiewicz (senior), Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (as a 15-year-old!) and Teodor Axentowicz himself, as well as many activists in Polish culture and science, such as Adam Ludwik Czartoryski (prince, patron of the arts), Edward Aleksander Raczynski (collector, founder of the Rogalin gallery), Tadeusz Żuk-Skarszewski (writer and columnist), Boleslaw Biskupski (curator of the Czartoryski Museum), Bronislaw Dembinski (historian), Marian Morawski (Jesuit, philosopher, theologian), Stanislaw Motty (social and political activist), Jozef Kallenbach (literary historian, publisher), Janina Stanislawska (painter's wife), Maria Balowa (Jacek Malczewski's most famous muse).
Among the entries there were also many autographs of notable figures from Great Britain - the Axentowiczes maintained close relations with family and friends from England, as Iza Giełgud Axentowiczowa grew up in London and often visited there. Among others, Edwin Bale (painter), Marie Stillman (painter and muse of the Pre-Raphaelites), Margaret Leonora Hooper (illustrator and designer), Howard Saunders (businessman and ornithologist), Alfred Daniell (lawyer and physicist), Edith Corbet (painter) and many members of the Giełgud family gave their autographs.