Sammelband Bilderbögen

Nürnberg: Trautner. Hardcover. Paper pastedown on slightly limp boards. Very Good. Early depiction of General Washington in Germany -- possibly the first such. N.d., circa late 1780s. (We can date these generally to the late 1780s because Frederick the Great's death in 1786 is noted but Joseph II is still presented as alive, but he died in early 1790.) Folio, 32 by 20 cm. 33 pages with mounted content, including 15 double paged plates measuring 32 by 38.5 cm or thereabouts. The sixteenth plate is double paged half the page height -- this plate was somewhat crudely cut, probably in half. In these plates there are about 345 separate images, or cells -- the cell count is not hard and fast, as there are instances in which two cells can be regarded as a single illustration or cell. The vast majority of the cells, or illustrations, relate to military men, and many of these are equestrian images, with the commander or officer mounted on horse. We also find rows of soldiers that can be viewed as if on parade, or alternatively, like cells in a movie. Military costume and regalia isn't the only subject, however. Two of the plates are devoted mostly to the hunt and shooting. In these hunters are shown holding up firearms to various prey. And one plate depicts biblical scenes or subjects. In these plates, brief captions can identify the subject. Thus we know that one of the pictures is of Washington, who certainly would have been an international celebrity in the late 1780s. The hand-coloring of the prints is a fairly crude stencil, and the palette of colors is not extensive. Dominating are blues, oranges, greens and golds. Not to be slighted is the first page in this album, which is an entirely different sort of artwork, and seemingly bears no relation to the rest of the contents. This page presents a depiction of Saint Catherine, with the saint and her executioner depicted in a printed oval set as a centerpiece, surrounded by foliate tracery intricately cut out like lacework. Surrounding all of this is a paper frame, all from the same sheet as far as we can discern. The paper, and the center oval, are mounted onto the album leaf, and thus the lacework given the whole thing some dimensionality. The coloring of this specimen of folk art is also richer and more refined than applies to the stenciling of the prints to follow. Scarce -- we could no other examples of Trautner's military prints, not to speak of collection of this size, on OCLC First Search or elsewhere. Condition: the cover has considerable wear, with some crinkling of the paper pastedown, some surface loss to the paper and soiling. Spine has a fair amount of paper pastedown loss. The first page, with the Saint Catherine artwork, has some loss to the tracery, but we would also assert that it is remarkable that so much of it has survived intact. The paper framing is considerable soiled, with some running of the coloring onto that paper and elsewhere in the artwork. The Trautner prints have light soiling, comprised of margin smudging and a light dampstain affecting a few of the prints, but overall these read as mostly clean. We noted that the last print is partial.