The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBookplatesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: BookplatesAuthor: Edward AlmackRelease date: December 6, 2019 [eBook #60858]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif, deaurider and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKPLATES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: BookplatesAuthor: Edward AlmackRelease date: December 6, 2019 [eBook #60858]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif, deaurider and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)
Title: Bookplates
Author: Edward Almack
Author: Edward Almack
Release date: December 6, 2019 [eBook #60858]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif, deaurider and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKPLATES ***
L I T T L E B O O K S O N A R TGENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORTB O O K P L A T E S
LITTLE BOOKS ON ARTDemy 16mo. 2s. 6d. net.
(see page11)
(see page11)
(see page11)
BYEDWARD ALMACK, F.S.A.WITH FORTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONSMETHUEN & CO.36 ESSEX STREET W.C.LONDON1904
remarks—Various modes of engraving—Styles in bookplates.
OF course some people have exaggerated the importance of bookplates, and on the other hand some have affected to ignore them. Now the simple fact is that bookplates belong to books, and anything that has to do with books will assuredly charm cultivated minds until time shall be no more. If this essential point were oftener remembered, the exaggerations of both sides would be avoided.
In Germany, a country where bookplates very early found a home, the wordbibliothekzeichen, or library label, is used. Germans also use the nameex libris, and in France the Latin expressionex librisis the only term in use. Naturally the owner’s name in the genitive case is alwaysunderstood. In France manuscript inscriptions of ownership are very fittingly included asex libris.
It is too late to change now; but, at all events, whether included or not under any special word, manuscript inscriptions in books by their owners will always be a very interesting study.
What, as explained above, are in France included underex libris, were known long before the days of printing, as personal inscriptions with or without the delineation of armorial bearings are often to be found forming part of the text of books in manuscript. In fact the various relationships of wealthy patron, learned scribe, and skilled illuminator, gave much scope for these.
To come to what may be said to be known everywhere asex libris, is to treat of those wonderful days when the earliest printed books were still a novelty. Directly several people or institutions each had copies of a certain printed book, each copy being a duplicate of the other, a wish arose to distinguish ownership.
Before treating further of bookplates, it will be well to clearly point out the different kinds of blocks or plates. The woodcut block, knownin some manner to the Chinese 400 years before, was first cut in Europe early in the fifteenth century. The St. Christopher engraved in Germany in 1423, is probably the earliest. The piece of wood to be engraved was cut longwise with the grain, as a plank is cut to-day. A thin piece of some soft wood, such as pear, apple, or lime, was chosen, the design drawn upon it, and then with a knife the engraver cut away to a certain depth everything except the drawn design.
In modern times—about 1785—a revolution took place in wood engraving, when Bewick began to engrave on a piece of wood cut endwise, and with a graver instead of a knife. Bewick chose some very hard wood, usually box. This manner has been continued to this day; and sometimes to distinguish the old art from the new, as the one is so different from the other, the former is called a woodcut and the latter wood-engraving.
Next as to etchings. To produce an etching a copper plate is covered with wax, then with an etching-needle the design is drawn through the wax to the copper. Acid is then applied, which, of course, only eats out the copper where the design has been etched.
Now as to copper-plate line engravings. Theengraver first traces on the plate the outline of his design, and then with the triangular-pointed graver he furrows out the lines, inclining his graver deeper or shallower according as he wishes to produce varying effects. Copper-plate engraving has been practised ever since early in the fifteenth century. About 1820 engraving on steel came into vogue. More impressions can be taken from a steel than from a copper plate; but steel is more difficult to engrave upon. By a new process, however, a copper plate can now be strengthened with a steel film.
Mezzotint engraving is an art by itself, and of great interest to English readers, because of the many charming mezzotint engravings after England’s great portrait-painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds; and also by reason of Prince Rupert, the brave cavalier’s, close connection with the art. He has often been said to have invented mezzotint; but the first credit for this is now given to another gallant soldier, Ludwig von Siegen, who engraved a plate in 1642, and kept his discovery a profound secret until, in 1654, he found himself in Brussels with Prince Rupert. The two kindred spirits meeting, the secret was soon unfolded. Rupert became as eager in another field as if he were leading a cavalry charge, and in four years’ time appeared his splendid mezzotint engraving, The Executioner of John the Baptist. As the object of this book is not to give a serious treatise on elaborate methods of engraving, it will best express mezzotint to state that it is in general terms produced by the opposite process from a line engraving, A very smooth copper-plate surface is, as it were, engraved all over. Then the design is wrought on this by a scraping process.
A kind of stipple or dotted engraving was known early in the sixteenth century; but what is really famous as stipple and dotted engraving, only came into vogue in the eighteenth century. The copper plate was first covered with wax, and a dotted outline of the subject pricked through the wax with an etching-needle. Then the shadows were filled in, and finally acid used, as with an etching, Francesco Bartolozzi’s is probably the name best known in this connection, though in masterly ability, William Ryland, who was hanged for forgery, far surpassed him.
In aquatint engraving, the plate to be engraved is covered with a solution made of resin and spirits of wine; this process produces a surface more or less open to the action of acids when applied. In the hands of a skilfulmanipulator, a fine engraving results from this “more or less” condition.
Here, in beginning to record the succeeding styles ofex libris, let us refer to the varieties which have prevailed at different times amongst Deutschland bookplates. In the first place careful note must be made regarding six coloured drawings of the fourteenth century which Herr Warnecke includes as bookplates, in his splendid work—Die Deutschen Bücherzeichen. Now if once it be admitted that something inscribed in a book as in fact a necessary integral part of that book, is a bookplate, then it becomes impracticable to draw a distinguishing line.
Next, if like the old preachers, we divided the description into three headings, firstly, secondly, and thirdly, we should on this subject record: firstly, Germanex librisare armorial; secondly, they are armorial; thirdly, they are armorial. Especially in the earlier plates, the crest is always in its proper place over a helmet, and the helmet over the shield of arms. It would be well if with just an artistic frame to enclose the whole the bookplate stopped there; but alas, there is only too often besides a multitude of fantastic accessories, which give a confusing instead of a pleasing impression.Coming down towards the seventeenth century, you are sometimes favoured (?) with a fantastic maze of the quarterings and emblems of the owner’s relatives to the fortieth generation.
Predominant in the seventeenth century is what is known as the Baroque style, with designs of endless curves and contortions, drawn in a very heavy manner.
Some of the plates which are most pleasing, are those where the arms are surrounded by light wreaths of leaves and flowers.
Reaching the eighteenth century, the Rococo or Shell style, begun in France, becomes common in German bookplates. Late in the century there are, too, some curious and pleasing allegorical plates.
Of early nineteenth-century Germanex libris, perhaps the less said the better; but a few are good and all help in making history, so that it is interesting to know that the famous author and collector, Karl Emich Count zu Leiningen-Westerburg, had between seven hundred and eight hundred specimens.
Since then, with the union of Germany, has come, as all the world knows, an artistic and literary development inex libris, as well as in other branches of art. All this, and a million other points about German bookplates, areadmirably told in the late Karl Emich Count zu Leiningen-Westerburg’s book, translated into English for theex librisseries.
In the styles of French bookplates, the more or less simple armorial is most often met in the earlier examples, although one of the best known—that of Charles Ailleboust, Bishop of Autun, had nothing armorial about it.
Heraldry, of course, took an early and masterful hold of the French aristocracy, although even in France, in quite early years, it was found necessary to fix fearful fines and penalties for people assuming insignia to which they had no lawful claim.
Up to about 1650, the almost rectangular shield prevailed in French bookplates; but soon after this, oval shields predominate, and not seldom capped by coronets to which the owners had no title. There is often at the base of the shield a solid plinth, usually bearing the chief inscription.
Then in the latter half of the eighteenth century comes the Rococo or Shell style of bookplate. At the same time, too, there are of course Field-Marshals’ex libris, defended by guns, and Lord High Admirals’ bookplates reclining amongst anchors.
In 1790 the French Assembly passed a decreeannulling the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier; also doing away with all armorial bearings.
In regard to the styles of English bookplates we cannot do better than, for the most part, to refer to the learning of Mr. W. J. Hardy—a man steeped to the finger-tips in ancient lore.
Up to about 1720, “Simple Armorial” is the best brief record. The shield is surmounted by a helmet, on which are the wreath and crest. From the helmet is outspread mantling, more or less voluminous. In earlier examples this terminates generally in tassels, before reaching the base of the shield. In later examples its heavy folds descend quite to the base, and often ascend from the helmet to the level of the top of the crest. Below is a scroll for the motto, and below that, the owner’s name. Next we come to what is known as the Jacobean style, but to which the much more fitting name of “Queen Anne and early Georgian” should be given. The style includes mainly an ornamental frame, suggestive of carved work, resting as often as not upon some kind of conventional support; the ornamentation of both frame and support being of the interior architectural order, making frequentuse of fish scales and trellis or diaper patterns for the decoration of plain surface.
Next we find the Rococo style introduced from across the Channel, and this before long time, merging into the well-known Chippendale style, so closely associated with English bookplates. After this, in English bookplates comes the festoon, or wreath-and-ribbon style, in which certainly many charmingex libriswere engraved. As Mr. Egerton Castle points out, one of the surest ways of knowing this later Georgian style is by the spade shape of the shields, and altogether a manner which calls up memories of designers and architects such as Sir W. Chambers, Adams, Wedgwood, or Sheraton.
Very early plates—Albert Dürer—Other German artists—Early English.
THE bookplate here given as a frontispiece, may be the oldest in the world. At all events, it remains to this day a fifteenth-century bookplate in a fifteenth-century book. The work is a Latin treatise on logic, in a German hand. Mr. W. H. J. Weale has very kindly looked at the book, and writes: “The binding is German, I think Bavarian; but although the same stamps, or rather, to be accurate, some of them, occur on several bookbindings I have copied, I have never been able to locate them. The S. Benedict with the book, and glass with the serpent issuing from it, is evidently German; the arms have nothing to do with the Saint, or the order, nor are they the arms of an abbey, but no doubt those of a layman to whom the book belonged.”[A]
Now to come to the real or almost personalstory of engraved bookplates orex libris, as we may call them indifferently. First we will talk of the oldest, and then gradually come down to our own time. Germany was the fatherland of bookplates, and it is of great interest to remember that it was, too, the fatherland of printing and of wood-engraving.
The earliest known engraved bookplate is that of Hildebrand Brandenburg, a monk of the Carthusian Monastery at Buxheim, near Memmingen, to which he was evidently in the habit of presenting books. The woodcut shows an angel holding a shield on which are displayed the arms of the Brandenburg family, a black ox with a ring passed through its nose.
The late Karl Emich Count zu Leiningen-Westerburg, the great authority on Germanex libris, suggests that either Biberach or Ulm was the birthplace of this bookplate, and in or about the year 1470, which is a year before Albert Dürer was born.
Another bookplate, also armorial, of about the same date, and found in a book given to this same monastery at Buxheim, is that of Wilhelm von Zell. Lastly, there has as yet been found one other which is grouped with these two, as of about the same date. It represents a hedgehog with a flower in its mouth,on grass strewn with flowers. It was engraved for Hans Igler. Igel means a hedgehog, and at the head of theex librisis cut the inscription: “Hanns Igler das dich ein Igel Küs.”
After this there may be mentioned the following six plates before we turn over the leaf of a new century. The inscribed armorialex librisof Thomas Wolphius, Pontificii Juris Doctor, and that of RupprechtMuntzinger, a block of South German origin, and ascribed by some to the hand of M. Wohlgemuth. Two anonymous plates, both armorial, and in saying anonymous it must not be supposed that the owner was not well known in his day, and probably long afterwards. One represents the head of a bull caboshed, with a sickle issuing from it. The other, the fleur-de-lis, is on a shield, and for crest, the half figure of a man with a battle-axe. Then two bookplates, the body of which has been engraved and space left for one or another person to use them.
Passing now into the sixteenth century, and still keeping to chronology as our main guide, we can turn at once to Albrecht Dürer as a designer ofex libris, and we now move on to safer ground, as we begin to find dates, and then soon names or monograms of engravers.
Albrecht Dürer, the second son of AlbrechtDürer, goldsmith, was born in the good city of Nuremberg on the 21st May, 1471.
Like Benvenuto Cellini, born some thirty years later, young Albrecht Dürer’s first experience of handiwork was in the goldsmith’s craft; but with a difference, as Benvenuto Cellini learned the goldsmith’s art against his father’s will. On St. Andrew’s Day, 1486, young Albrecht had the joy of inducing his father to apprentice him for three years to Michel Wohlgemut. This step, important in the young artist’s life, is especially important in our consideration, as, with the aid of Anton Koburger, the princely printer, who was Albrecht Dürer’s godfather, Michel Wohlgemut founded the great Nuremberg school of wood-engraving. From 1490 to 1494 Dürer was on his travels, and spent some while in Venice, where he was again in 1505 to 1507. On the 14th July, 1494, after his home-coming from his first wanderings, he was married to Agnes, the daughter of Hans Frey. For the rest, this is not the place for a history of his works. His noble life was closed on the 6th of April, 1528, and thus before he had reached the age at which many artists have done their best work; but what vast treasures he had wrought within those fifty-seven years!
The following fiveex librishave been, on good authority, distinctly ascribed to Albrecht Dürer’s art: two varieties of a woodcut made for Willibald Pirckheimer, of Nuremberg, one with and one without the well-known motto “Sibi et Amicis.” This is a fine armorial plate with helmet, and arms of himself and his wife. One of threeex librisused by Johann Stab, a learned mathematician and poet, a friend of Albrecht Dürer. This is an armorial plate, and is distinguished by having a laurel wreath; but no inscription. In the Albertina Museum at Vienna is Dürer’s original drawing in violet ink for the armorial woodcut bookplate of his friend Lazarus Spengler, Recorder of Nuremberg. The armorial woodcutex librisof Johann Tscherte, exhibiting a satyr and dogs. Tschert, in Bohemian, means a satyr or devil.
Besides the foregoing, there exist several sketches by Dürer which can hardly have been intended for anything but bookplates; and also, before passing from Dürer, the large bookplate for Dr. Hector Pömer, the last Prior of the Abbey of St. Laurence in Nuremberg, must be mentioned. In itself a beautiful work of art, it bears a date, 1525, and the wood-engraver’s initials, “R. A.” The drawing is worthy of thehand of Dürer himself, and “R. A.” probably cut the block in Dürer’s studio, from the great master’s own design. On the chief shield are the arms of the monastery, the gridiron of St. Laurence quartering the arms of Pomer. By the shield, stands St. Laurence holding in one hand a gridiron, and in the other the martyr’s palm. The motto: “To the pure all things are pure,” is given, as was Dürer’s wont, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. At the bottom of all is the owner’s name, “D. Hector Pomer Praepos S. Lavr.”
Before quite leaving Dürer, the earliest dated German bookplate should be named, as some think that he had a hand in it, especially as it was for a friend of his, Hieronymus Ebner von Eschenbach, born in Nuremberg on the 5th of January, 1477, educated at Ingolstadt, and afterwards in the household of the Emperor Maximilian, he became a learned lawyer and judge. He was a friend and ally of Martin Luther, and engaged in a cultivated correspondence with many of the leaders of that age.
Following the start given by Albrecht Dürer, Nuremberg continued to be the home of bookplate engraving; but very soon copper-plate engraving took the place of woodcuts.