This week on ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’, a very fine glass-plate view of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown. This is an “other gate” on the university, the better known one being the Van Wickle Gates near Lovecraft’s last home at No. 66 and at which Lovecraft posed for photos.

No, it’s not a Library of Congress picture. This one came from spotting a stray eBay listing of a discarded print from some picture library. There was no watermark and it was a good scan at 1600px. I’ve here colourised, cleaned and enlarged x2.

I’d previously spotted that an ironwork Cthulhu-a-like was recorded in a 1965 book of b&w art-photographs of the Brown campus. This was located outside the John Carter Brown Library, but is not clearly seen on the above picture.

It formed part of the moulding at the foot of the lamp-posts outside the Library, and above we see one of what appears to have been three faces surrounding the base. The new colour picture now adds further context to this discovery. The lamp-posts can be seen, and these face(s) were not right down on the sidewalk/floor where they might be overlooked. Rather, they terminated in the elevated marble stair-posts and would thus have been visible to all who ascended the steps and then passed by. Including one Mr. H.P. Lovecraft.

Their elevation and original situation can also be seen here. That they were topped with ‘Moon’ globes might also have tickled Lovecraft’s fancy…