Beschreibung
Bound broadsheets, overall 37.5 x 47.4 cm (14-3/4 x 18-5/8 in.), the sheets 36.5 x 46.2 cm (14-3/8 x 18-3/16 in.). 12 fascicules bound as one volume, complete, each part with blue-grey laid paper wrappers bound in (front wrappers printed in black cast type) and 6 etched plates on fine thick and soft cream laid paper, in all 72 etched plates by Dies, Reinhart and Mechau, 24 by each artist, each with engraved title in lower center plate margin and artist name and date below lower left corner of image (plates in 12th part with needle-scratched titles). Contemporary medium brown half calf over boards covered with marbled paper in Shell pattern of variegated browns (areas of wearing on rear cover), rebacked, preserving original endpapers and most of the worn original spine in six compartments with gilt bands, five with a centered gilt octahedral floral medallion, the second with red morocco gilt title piece, corners renewed, all edges trimmed, stained red and retaining traces of gilt, thick laid cream pastedown and free leaf front and rear. Some secondary text faded in first wrapper title, offsetting of text of some front wrappers onto blank rear wrappers (not affecting sheets), gall ink notation front free leaf recto upper right, "12.Kehle jedes zu G[raphischen] Blätter," soft ripple marks on sheets verso (more pronounced in first part, which has progressively diminishing vertical crinkles and soft creases upper outside corners), relatively few unobtrusive stains, brown spots and instances of foxing and creasing scattered generally in margins and on versos, overall in excellent condition, the sheets bright and clean frontally and the etched plates incisively printed. Provenance: Arthur & Charlotte Vershbow (bookplate and penciled collection number, front pastedown); their sale, Part Four, Christie's New York, October 28, 2013, lot 774. Vershbow reference notations (in pencil on front pastedown, verbatim): "Idylle, Klassizismus und Romantik / Wallraf-Richartz Museum - Köln - 1974 / which describes an edition with a French title page dated 1798 / Brunet II 703 - with French title page dated 1799." Other references: Griffiths, Antony, and Carey, Frances, German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe (London: British Museum Press, 1994), 123 ff. (ch. VII, "Italy"), 139-150 (Mechau, Dies, Reinhart), also citing Schmid, F. Carlo, Albert Christoph Dies, Jakob Wilhelm Mechau und Johann Christian Reinhart: "Mahlerische radirte Prospecte von Italien"… (Berlin: [s.n.], 1991) [dissertation]. The Prospecte, a highlight of German printmaking in the age of Goethe, was entirely the idea of Reinhart, the outstanding printmaker among the German artists in Rome. Reinhart recruited his collaborators Mechau and Dies, enticed the first subscribers, negotiated with the publisher and molded the project as the artists' own affair. The plates were original etched compositions incorporating new theories and approaches passed on from Jakob Philipp Hackert (see Griffiths and Carey, op. cit.). Frauenholz was one of the few dealers in Germany to handle the plates of the German artists in Italy before the French armies captured Rome in 1798, after which few except Reinhart remained there. The complete first edition set, as issued in the 12 parts with wrappers titled in German, is very rare. Three institutional holdings are known, at Göttingen, Erfurt and Weimar. Frauenholz also offered plates individually, and the British Museum and Harvard University, for example, hold assembled collections of all 72 plates individually without the wrappers. At the time of the Vershbow sale in 2013, American Book Prices Current indicated no complete first edition set sold at auction in at least 35 years. Less but still rare are the editions afterwards published as a single volume with the plates rearranged. See the Vershbow references supra. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum copy accords with Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf, Kippenberg Stiftung Gf 1, each having the French title page dated 1798. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers ABE-1670800101700
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