Celebrating the Super Bowl with Super Bowls

Pages 304–5 of Salvador Dalí's Les dîners de Gala. Paris: Draeger, 1973. All photos by the author

«On Sunday, February 7, the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos will face off in Super Bowl 50, the yearly National Football League championship game that has grown to become a near-national holiday. The Super Bowl is more than just a celebration of athletic achievement—it's also the most watched television broadcast of the year. Many viewers watch for the advertising, and its halftime show is perhaps the most prominent performance slot in our mass-media universe.»

Here in Watson Library we present our own version of the event: Super Bowls, which focuses on books from our collection that reference the atmosphere and (visual) excitement surrounding the big game, as well as some pretty spectacular bowls, soup tureens, and culinary presentations.

Zeppelin and neighborhood pop-up from Hundertfach: Bericht einer Betrachtung. Berlin, 1971

It's important to start out with an aerial view of the stadium to get a feel for the setting, which Watson provides with this pop-up Zeppelin inside the 1971 book Hundertfach: Bericht einer Betrachtung, published to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the German printing and design firm Elsnerdruck.

Sterling Silver Punch Bowl, from page 139 of the catalogue Reed & Barton Company: Silversmiths, Jewelers, Diamond Merchants [Catalogue no. 38, 1913–14]. New York: Reed & Barton, 1913

Let's kick off the main event—Super Bowls!—with some glorious examples from Reed & Barton, a silver manufacturer founded in 1824. The punch bowl above, presented to the battleship Minnesota by its namesake state in 1909 and designed and made in my home state of Massachusetts, also serves to pay tribute to two of this year's NFL playoff teams that did not qualify for the "real" Super Bowl: the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots.

Punch Bowls and Ladle, from page 249 of Reed & Barton, Artistic Workers in Silver & Gold Plate: [Illustrated Catalogue, 1885]. [Taunton, Mass.]: Reed & Barton, 1884

Any decent Super Bowl party should include drinks for the guests, and at Watson we'll serve from one of these elaborate gold-lined vessels from Reed & Barton. I particularly like the hammered set, as it includes goblets, so we won't have to drink from the ladle.

Now it's time for the halftime show! This couture edition of Visionaire, issue 58, entitled "Spirit: A Tribute to Lee Alexander McQueen," is a music box that plays a Lady Gaga song when its embroidered Italian leather box is opened.

The opening of "Spirit: A Tribute to Lee Alexander McQueen," Visionaire no. 58, couture edition. New York: Visionaire Publ., 2010. Irene Lewisohn Costume Institute Library

Kanko zusetsu: tōki no bu. [観古圖說: 陶器之部]. Tōkyō: Ninagawa Noritane, Meiji 9–13 [1876–1880]

Japanese ceramics won the coin toss and elected to receive the kickoff to begin the second half, so we can draw your attention to this wonderful history of Japanese ceramic arts. This page of Kanko zusetsu displays two tea bowls alongside the names the artist and the collector. A bottom view of the bowl is provided so the reader can examine the maker's mark, and the captions provide the bowl's diameter, height, and thickness.

Owari ceramics. Plate XLVII from La céramique japonaise. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1877–1880

These flower pots from Japan's Owari Province were featured in a section of the 1875 publication Keramic Art of Japan by George Ashdown Audsley and James Lord Bowles, originally published in Liverpool. The publisher-printer of this later French edition was Firmin-Didot, a company highlighted in a previous In Circulation post.

Pages 276–277 of Salvador Dalí's book Les dîners de Gala. Paris: Draeger, 1973

The score is tied, so we're going to overtime with Salvador Dalí and dessert. Dalí published a cookbook in 1973 that included fantastic drawings, photography, and recipes—many of which are not as surrealist as you might think, including this one for Champagne sorbet served in blue glass-stemmed bowls. Touchdown! Watson Library wins!