Born in Boston 1862 December 23, Carl Schraubstadter and his brothers, William and Oswald, founded the Inland Type Foundry, St. Louis, MO in 1892. Their father, Carl Schraubstadter, had owned the Central Type Foundry, which began as the St. Louis branch of the Boston Type Foundry. Schraubstadter served as Secretary and Manager of Inland Type Foundry until his retirement in 1908.
His passport applications dated 1902, 1909, 1917, and 1921 indicate his frequent trips overseas. The 1909 June 8 Hawaiian Gazette records his return from Asia. His 1917 application lists his residence as Kyoto, Japan and his intention to travel throughout Japan, China, and the South Sea Islands. An auction held in 1921 at the American Art Gallery (NY) featured over 1,000 Japanese prints collected by Schraubstadter. He left for France 1921 November traveling throughout Europe for his antiquary business. 1923 June found him living in Berlin. He died in New York City on 1947 February 19. His Care and Repair of Japanese Prints was published in 1948.
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Carl Schraubstadter Catalogue of Hiroshige Prints typescript, Rhode Island School of Design Archives.
Carl Schraubstadter's Catalogue of Hiroshige Prints typescript, 1936, contains a catalogue raisonné in three volumes. Volume one and two contain ten short chapters (see arrangement) and one chapter comprised of Section 1, listing print titles in alphabetical order under series titles or as single prints, and Section 2, which lists prints under the print style (Byobu, Diptychs, Ebankire, Ehon, etc.). Volume 3 contains two sets of photostats, positive and negative, of publishers' marks and seals. Though copied in 1936, the typescript does not provide a date for when Schraubstadter wrote the catalogue.
The typescript includes handwritten notes by RISD Museum of Art Curator Miriam A. Banks. "Copied in 1936 at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art. References in text are photostats of seals and marks kept with museum copy. This is one of two copies of an important catalogue of Hiroshige prints. It is still unpublished and we are the only institution, so far as I know, that possesses a copy. It covers the complete Hiroshige opus insofar as Oriental scholarship is cognizant of the present time. I have the other copy in my personal possession as guardian for the museum archives(!) since it was made through my own solicitation and persuasion. Miss Banks note."
Banks may have been inspired to obtain the typescript by a recent gift to the Museum of Art. Mrs. Abby A. Rockefeller, Jr. gave the museum nearly 700 color Japanese prints of birds and flowers in 1934. The museum held sixteen exhibitions between 1935-1942 featuring the prints.
The catalogue has eleven chapters:
Received from the RISD Museum of Art, Department of Asian Art.
The RISD Library received the transcript 1940 May 23, accession #14392. The typescript was transferred back to the Museum of Art at some point and then returned to the Library's Technical Services Department in 2008, which forwarded the typescript to the Archives.