Abbildung der vorzüglichen Eisenwaaren.
Munich, Lithographische Kunstanstalt bei der Feiertagsschule 1822-1828-1831-1837.
Four volumes bound in three. Oblong folio (I-II: 251 x 386 mm., III: 251 x 388 mm. and IV: 256 x 394 mm.). Title, [2]p., XXII plates; title, [7], [1 blank]p., XXXVII plates; title, [2]p., XXIV plates; title, [2]p., XXIII plates. Together, FOUR LITHOGRAPHIC TITLE-PAGES AND ONE HUNDRED AND SIX LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES INCLUDING ONE FOLDING, double-column letterpress index in each catalog.
Uniform contemporary patterned red paper over boards with a gilt outer frame (spines and corners slightly chipped, front cover of one volume smudged), gilt spine titles, all edges gilt on two volumes and yellow edges on the third.
COMPLETE SET OF THE FIRST PATTERN BOOKS ISSUED BY THE ROYAL BAVARIAN IRONWORKS. THEY SHOW THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE CAST IRON PRODUCTS IN NEARLY NINE HUNDRED MEASURED FIGURES, door hinges to massive machinery and tiny gears to public monuments. Issued over seventeen years, these catalogs were printed at the first lithography school, the Lithographische Kunstanstalt, established in Munich in 1804 by Alois Senefelder and Hermann Joseph Mitterer.
The first catalog (1822) necessarily offers stock items, irons for clothing and hats, pots and pans, dozens of ovens and stoves, roofing, clock weights, interior and exterior railings, funerary ornament, militaria and doorknobs. The contents and range of the subsequent volumes reflect the success of the enterprise. The vast majority of these products are realized private, ecclesiastical and municipal commissions for theaters, schools, palaces, cemeteries, churches, insane asylums, etc. The plates present furniture and wall decorations, industrial equipment like cranes, waterwheels, pulleys, along with blacksmithing, iron mongering and agricultural tools, waffle makers, plumbing supplies, furnaces and distillation vessels for chemists and pharmacists, bridges, balconies and friezes. Many illustrations have both side and top view.
Every commissioned piece is listed with its purpose, location and the name of the patron — fountains at Hohenschwangau Castle designed by Domenico Quaglio, a furnace for the Royal Mint, candelabra for Munich’s National Theater, the steam engine powering the blast furnace at Bergen and another pumping water at Brunnthal, windows for the Turn und Taxis’ Regensburg residence…. The illustrations were designed and executed by draftsmen, architects, builders, a painter and a scientific instrument maker. I have located two other complete sets (both in Munich): only two odd volumes are held by American libraries (Huntington, 1828; Met, 1831). In original condition (two dozen plates with scattered light foxing, two plates and one leaf of letterpress slightly browned).
¶Polytechnischer Verein, Allgemeiner Anzeiger für Bayern mit besonderer Beziehung auf Künste, Handel und Gewerbe VIII (1822) 99; Engelmann, Bibliotheca Mechanico-Technologica 1; see Winkler’s Die Frühzeit der deutschen Lithographie 187, 192, 298, 604, 643, 784, 882 & 922; no volume in the Berlin Katalog, UCBA or RIBA Early Printed Books 1478-1840.
Price: $13,500.00