![BIBLIA PAUPERUM. BLOCKBOOK. Single leaf (Schreiber xyl. edition III), folio 12 [m], representing the Transfiguration. [Low Countries or perhaps Germany: c. 1460-1463, printed c. 1460-70].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2016/CKS/2016_CKS_12141_0097_000(biblia_pauperum_blockbook_single_leaf_folio_12_m_representing_the_tran095207).jpg?w=1)
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BIBLIA PAUPERUM. BLOCKBOOK. Single leaf (Schreiber xyl. edition III), folio 12 [m], representing the Transfiguration. [Low Countries or perhaps Germany: c. 1460-1463, printed c. 1460-70].
A leaf from a blockbook Biblia Pauperum. Owing to the simple technology used to produce them, blockbooks – consisting entirely of woodcuts, printed by rubbing the sheet against an inked block – were long thought to predate Gutenberg, but no blockbook edition can be dated earlier than 1460.
Folio (270 x 194mm). Xylograph, printed on one side only in grey water-based ink, coloured by a contemporary hand in green, yellow, red-brown, grey and black, German paper with horn watermark, similar to Piccard Abt. III (a few small wormholes, left side reinforced on verso, shaved at top with loss of part of the top line on left side and all of top line on the right, shaved at right side touching edge of letters and frame). Modern wrapper. Provenance: [Wiblingen, Benedictines. -- Kremsmünster, Benedictines. -- Munich, Karl & Faber Booksellers, catalogue 65 (1936) no. 8, before the copy was broken up – Kornfeld, Bern, 21 June 1979].
This anonymous medieval picture-text was given the title Biblia Pauperum in the 18th century by Karl Heinrich von Heinecken. It was not actually composed for the poor, but for the devout literate enough to know their scriptures and follow these complex verse captions, prophecies and typological lessons. It presents a series of central scenes from the New Testament, flanked by Old Testament prefigurations, with portraits of the Prophets and David placed above and below. The work was current in Western Europe since before 1300.
While the original blocks of the first Biblia Pauperum edition were undoubtedly cut in the Netherlands or Flanders, it is not certain that the blocks of the present edition, which were copied from Schreiber ed. I, and thus indirectly from IV, can be given the same origin with equal confidence. The paper stock of this impression and the colouring point to Germany. Eight other leaves from the same copy are known: 4 are in the Otto Schäfer Foundation, Schweinfurt, and others were sold by Antiquariat Wölfle and Kornfeld & Klipstein in the 1970s. Schreiber IV, p.4-5 and 14-17; Hind I, p.236 and 241.
A leaf from a blockbook Biblia Pauperum. Owing to the simple technology used to produce them, blockbooks – consisting entirely of woodcuts, printed by rubbing the sheet against an inked block – were long thought to predate Gutenberg, but no blockbook edition can be dated earlier than 1460.
Folio (270 x 194mm). Xylograph, printed on one side only in grey water-based ink, coloured by a contemporary hand in green, yellow, red-brown, grey and black, German paper with horn watermark, similar to Piccard Abt. III (a few small wormholes, left side reinforced on verso, shaved at top with loss of part of the top line on left side and all of top line on the right, shaved at right side touching edge of letters and frame). Modern wrapper. Provenance: [Wiblingen, Benedictines. -- Kremsmünster, Benedictines. -- Munich, Karl & Faber Booksellers, catalogue 65 (1936) no. 8, before the copy was broken up – Kornfeld, Bern, 21 June 1979].
This anonymous medieval picture-text was given the title Biblia Pauperum in the 18th century by Karl Heinrich von Heinecken. It was not actually composed for the poor, but for the devout literate enough to know their scriptures and follow these complex verse captions, prophecies and typological lessons. It presents a series of central scenes from the New Testament, flanked by Old Testament prefigurations, with portraits of the Prophets and David placed above and below. The work was current in Western Europe since before 1300.
While the original blocks of the first Biblia Pauperum edition were undoubtedly cut in the Netherlands or Flanders, it is not certain that the blocks of the present edition, which were copied from Schreiber ed. I, and thus indirectly from IV, can be given the same origin with equal confidence. The paper stock of this impression and the colouring point to Germany. Eight other leaves from the same copy are known: 4 are in the Otto Schäfer Foundation, Schweinfurt, and others were sold by Antiquariat Wölfle and Kornfeld & Klipstein in the 1970s. Schreiber IV, p.4-5 and 14-17; Hind I, p.236 and 241.
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