Bilder zum Anschauungs-Unterricht fur die Jugend

Esslingen and München: Verlag von J. F. Schreiber. Hardcover. Front board: pictorial paper pastedown. Cloth spine. Near Fine. An exceptionally clean and bright copy of this juvenile audience plate book depicting geography and domestic and work life. N.d., circa 1870s. Small folio. 32 by 21.5 cm. [5], 7, [1] pp followed by 30 double-sided hand-colored plates. Each plate measures 32 by 40 cm. The plates depict the home, rural and urban, the city, the farm, a vineyard, tools, a church interior, a city market, a winter skating scene, a mountain landscape, a railroad station, a forest, etc. The point was to educate children about the features of all these places and spaces, and incidentally impart the vocabulary -- the many nouns -- associated with them. Nowadays the plates are simply wonderfully decorative, with their bright chromolithography and evocation of a lost world. And the great Meggendorfer was responsible for three of the plates! Light wear to the cover. One of the plates has a minor closed tear by its fold. But as we indicated, an unusually appealing copy.