Illustrated Books and Book Objects
Michael Wolgemut (1434/37 - 1519), Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (?–1494), Hartmann Schedel: »Buch der Chroniken« Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1493, Leaf CCLXXII: ÈTraciaÇ (Thrace), woodcut, coloured, framing line: 23 x 22.5 cm, Inv. No. B 529 (Signatur: MB 245)
Pablo Picasso/Pierre Reverdy »Le Chant des Morts«, 1948, 125 colour lithographs, 42,5 x 32,5 cm, Inv.Nr. D 00/600, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2001
The collection of illustrated books provides insight into various facets of the history of the illustration of literature. It focuses on examples of the history of image printing in books, as well as on books concerned with the history of art, graphics techniques and art collections.
Among the few examples of incunabula, books printed before 1501, are a copy of the poetry of Francesco Petrarch from Venice and a coloured copy of the »Nuremberg Chronicle« by the humanist Hartmann Schedel. The volumes dating from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries include manuals for artists, editions of the »classics« of antiquity illustrated in woodcuts and etchings, and portrait works. The holdings also comprise miscellanies not conceived of as books. One such work is the collection of various graphics series bound as a pictorial encyclopaedia for Duke Ludwig Friedrich in 1600.
The inventory of eighteenth-century works is dominated by volumes on archaeology, architecture and art. The collection’s former focus on artists’ training in Stuttgart is still quite evident here. The quality of the prints is particularly remarkable in the »Galeriewerken« (gallery works), publications of large art collections with reproductive engravings. [ UG ]
The physician, humanist and book collector Hartmann Schedel of Nuremberg wrote the »Weltchronik« (known in English as the »Nuremberg Chronicle«) on the basis of older chronicles. It covers the history of the world from the story of creation to Schedel’s own time, broken down and arranged according to epochs and the succession of political rule.
The work comprises descriptions of lands, peoples, cities and historical events. The illustrations were produced in Nuremberg’s largest artist’s workshop by Dürer’s teacher Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Containing 1,809 images from 645 wood engraving blocks, the »Schedel'sche Weltchronik« is the single most richly illustrated work of the early days of book printing.
The copy in the collection of the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs is elaborately coloured with watercolours and in superb condition. The book is famous above all for its early and authentic views of towns.
The picture of »Thrace,« however, is pure invention; it was also used for Bavaria. Thrace is the south-easternmost region of the Balkan Peninsula (corresponding to territories of the present-day countries of Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey). The text tells about the land’s location and natural boundaries and names the antique authors who wrote about it. The picture thus at least offers visual equivalents to the rivers and mountain ranges described. [ HMK ]
Another highlight is the collection of French painters’ books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Delacroix to Matisse and Picasso, with its superb specimens specially bound for the collector Maurice Loncle.
The almanacs, magazines and publications of the early modern period in Germany form a special section. The collection continues to grow through the acquisition of artist books and book objects of the present. [ UG ]
Inventory Catalogue
Französische Maler illustrieren Bücher. Die illustrierten Bücher der 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts in der Graphischen Sammlung der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1965, von Christel und Gunther Thiem.
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