Browse Similar Items
SOME GERMAN WOODCUTS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1897 [but 1898]). 295 x 216 mm. (11 1/2 x 8 1/2"). xi, [i] pp., 23 leaves (printed on recto only), 24-36 pp. ONE OF 225 COPIES on paper (and eight on vellum).
Original holland-backed blue paper boards, untrimmed edges. WITH 35 REPRODUCTIONS OF WOODCUTS printed on 23 leaves, one six-line woodcut initial. Printed in red and black in Golden type. Front pastedown with bookplate of Mary S. Collins and bookplate of the Library of Philadelphia College of Art with typed notation of Gift from Lucinda C. Collins in memory of her mother Dorothea Schmedtgen Collins and ink stamp of the Rare Book Collection; verso of title page with ink stamp of Rare Book Collection. Peterson A-49; Sparling 49; Tomkinson, p. 121; Ransom, p. 331, no. 49. A hint of soiling to covers, and the fragile binding with the usual wear: corners with small losses of paper, spine ends and joints a bit frayed, but everything solid and otherwise as it should be. Remarkably bright, fresh, and clean internally.
Issued in large format during the final year of the Kelmscott Press' operation, this compilation contains 35 reproductions of German woodcuts from books that were in the library of William Morris. Edited by the Kelmscott Press secretary, Sir Sydney Cockerell, this publication actually began some years earlier, in October, 1892, when Morris requested that Cockerell catalogue his library of manuscripts and incunabula. According to Peterson, Morris' plan was to produce "a heavily illustrated catalogue of his library, with descriptions by Cockerell and additional notes by himself." Morris died before the project could come to fruition, so Cockerell "decided to combine the illustrations of woodcuts that had already been prepared . . . with portions of an article by Morris, 'On the Artistic Qualities of the Woodcut Books of Ulm and Augsburg in the Fifteenth Century.'" The result, Peterson notes, "sold briskly before publication." Cockerell wrote to Leighton in November 1897, "There has been a great rush on the German woodcuts & they were all sold out last week . . . . A good many people have been left out in the cold, as orders keep coming in! I suppose it is the announcement that the Press is closing that has made people so eager.'" One of the most distinguished persons in the world of books during his lifetime, Cockerell (1867-1962) took it upon himself to become archivist of the Kelmscott Press, and he was Morris' literary executor and supervised the Press after Morris was gone. In 1908 he became the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, an appointment that lasted 29 years and that transformed the once dreary gallery into one that became world famous. Our copy was once in the library of Mary Schell Collins (1864-1948), who shared the bibliophilic interests of her husband, Philadelphia collector and publisher Philip Collins. Mrs. Collins was the daughter of artist and critic Frederick Schell, and a benefactor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; she would no doubt have been pleased that her family donated this book to the library at the Philadelphia College of Art. As with other Kelmscott books in holland-backed boards, the binding here is excellent without being fine; the interior of the book, however, could hardly be more beautiful. (ST20688)
Price: $6,000.00