#bookplate
K. J. Obratil bookplate. Artist: Alfred Liebing.
A woman leans on a large book while standing on on oversized man’s head. Vines encircle all.
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One way to measure the popularity of a given text is to count the number of times it’s been published. For example, the immense popularity of The Imitation of Christ, which went through 78 editions in the 15th century, has been said to trail only the popularity of the bible itself as a devotional text. Compare these to 15 editions of Dante’s Divine Comedy in the 15th century and one can begin to appreciate just how popular Christian devotional literature once was. As it happens, MSU has one of just eight known copies of a rare 1495 editionofThe Imitation of Christ.
Not far behind the popularity of The Imitation of Christ, with at least 65 editions appearing in the 15th century, is the Meditations on the Life of Christ. MSU is very fortunate to have recently acquired the first printed edition of the Meditations—the very first of those many editions to appear in the 15th century (pictured above). Published in 1468, this edition has the distinction of being the first dated book printed in the city of Augsburg—and this at a time when fewer than a dozen cities in all of Europe had the technology to print books. This first appearance in print is a fine complement to our medieval manuscript of the text, and it also claims the honor of being one of the three oldest printed books to reside in Michigan.
On the front paste-down of our Meditations, afloat in a sea of booksellers’ annotations, is the bookplate of Hieronymus Baumgartner (1498-1565), a powerful advocate of the Protestant Reformation. Baumgartner enrolled at the University of Wittenberg in 1518, the very town in which just a year earlier Martin Luther allegedly nailed his Ninety-five Theses to a church door. In Wittenberg, Baumgartner befriended prominent reformers Philipp Melanchthon, Georg Major, and Joachim Camerarius, and he later helped found the Melanchthon Gymnasium in his hometown of Nuremberg in 1526. Baumgartner was an accomplished statesman, to be sure, but we’re particularly pleased because his bookplate, as far as we can tell, is the oldest bookplate in MSU’s collection.
~Pat
This Provenance Project guest post was written by Patrick Olson, Rare Books Librarian at Michigan State University Special Collections.
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This interesting modern bookplate is just a liiiiittle too big for its book. The right third of the plate is not pasted down, and instead has been folded over so that the book can be closed.
Maybe this owner should have invested in smaller bookplates, but this is a pretty ingenious solution. Has anyone seen a similar example?
http://catalog.lib.msu.edu/record=b1544257~S39a
~Andrew
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This book plate of Dr. A. Frank was designed by Richard Scholz. Richard Scholz was a German illustrator best known for children’s books including Hansel and Gretel. He lived from 1860 to 1939.
Dr. A. Frank is Dr. Adolph Frank (1834-1916), a German-Jew chemist, engineer, and businessman. He is best known for having discovered uses of potash ( a mixture of potassium hydroxide and potassium carbonate left over in ashes) and creating the industry. He took up an apprenticeship as an apothecary in Osterburg while in school. From 1855-1857 he studied pharmacy, natural sciences and technology at university in Berlin. In 1862 he received his doctorate in chemistry from the university in Gottingen.
His work in the fertilizer field led to the use of the fertilizer discovered by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas. Along with Nikodem Caro, he developed the Frank-Caro process of extracting calcium cyanamide in 1899, which was the foundation of the nitrogen and calcium cyanamide fertilizer industry.
The brown coloring of bottles, which is to protect the content of the bottle from the effects of light, can also be attributed to him. He was awarded the John Scott Medal by our Philadelphia neighbors, the Franklin Institute, in 1893.
The book that the plate is in is Taschenbuch der Flora Deutschlands; nach dem Linnéischen Systeme geordnet, 1847. It is about the flora of Germany arranged according to the Linnaeus system.
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Bookplate etching by William Bell Scott for Poems Dramatic and Lyrical, by John Byrne Warren, published in 1893. The artwork was designed and engraved by Scott as a gift to the author.
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Bookplate with the motto, ‘Fert in omnia rutubam et tristitiam terribilis amor’, made by Raphaël Kirchner for Georges Goury.
1905
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Bookplate design that will ship with the Lackadaisy Essentials art book!
Just had a bunch of these printed for the KS backers. I made some extra for Patrons too.
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Lackadaisy is on Patreon - there’s extra stuff!
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Snacking on last night’s late-night on-the-house Old-Fashioned doughnut from the LES Pies ‘N’ Thighs with snickerdoodle coffee, ready to start my @bklynlibrary copy of Moira Weigel’s Labor of Love, which:
“…offers a fresh feminist perspective on how we came to date the ways we do. This isn’t a guide to “getting the guy.” There are no ridiculous “rules” to follow. Instead, Weigel helps us understand how looking for love shapes who we are—and hopefully leads us closer to the happy ending that dating promises.“
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Bookplate for Oliver Wendell Holmes
Per ampliora ad altiora
The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,–
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,–
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
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Gun violence–17th century bookplate
Bookplate found to the front of an 1806 Madrid imprint which illustrates a miracle performed by Our Virgin de los Remedios. On June 29, 1639 a man was shot by another pistol-wielding fellow and the Saint saved his life. The deed is illustrated and described to the bottom of the bookplate. Not an ordinary Ex Libris!
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