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Folio 25 depicting Book of Revelation 9:17-20 and Revelation 10:4 of blockbook edition Schreiber IV. [Western Germany: c. 1465].
Details
BLOCKBOOK, APOCALYPSE –
Folio 25 depicting Book of Revelation 9:17-20 and Revelation 10:4 of blockbook edition Schreiber IV. [Western Germany: c. 1465].
The blockbook Apocalypse, depicting in word and image the apocryphal life of St. John ‘in a sense was the first great comic book in western civilization’ (A. Stevenson, p.240). The present fine example is a single leaf, a half-sheet, with characteristic contemporary colouring, (Schreiber IV) of the Apocalypse. Leaf 25 depicts the ‘second woe’, the awakening of the angels by the river Euphrates to kill one-third of humanity (above) and an angel descended to John and the voices of seven thunders (below). Schreiber’s traditional classification of Apocalypse copies into 6 ‘editions’ has been more recently refined into 4, with Schreiber IV now considered the second xylographic edition (Bodl Inc. BB-2) and localised to western Germany, printed from recut blocks based on Schreiber editions I/II, localised to The Netherlands. Schreiber IV's closest iconographical and textual relations are with Wellcome MS 49, but there has been some discussion as to priority. About two dozen copies of this edition survive in various states of completeness, but even fragments are now of rare on the market.
Blockbooks are books produced entirely from woodblocks onto which text and image have been cut. A printed impression is made on one side only of a sheet of paper by rubbing it onto an inked woodblock. Independent of special equipment, blockbooks were long considered precursors of printing with moveable type but are now recognised as overlapping with the earliest typographic works in the 1450s-1470s. On paper evidence for grouping and dating, see Allan Stevenson, ‘The Problem of the Blockbooks’ in: the Gutenberg-Museum 1991 exhibition catalogue p. 244. Schreiber vol. 4, pp. 164-5, 196; Hind I, p. 222; F. de Marez Oyens, ‘Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis, Rosenwald Collection 23’, Vision of a Collector (Washington: 1991) pp. 57-58; S. Mertens and C. Schneider (eds.), Blockbücher des Mittelalters (Mainz 1991) pp. 59-118 and fig. V.28; G. Bing, ‘The Apocalypse Block-Books and their Manuscript Models’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), pp. 143-58; and cf. Bod. Inc BB-2.
Chancery folio (270 x 210mm). One leaf only: 2⁄9 (of 48: 1-316). Recto, upper half: the angels loosed from the river Euphrates kill the third part of men (Revelation 9:17-20); lower half: the mighty angel coming down from heaven, and the voices of the seven thunders (Revelation 10:4). Verso blank. Illustration and text xylographically impressed in pale brown ink from a single woodblock, coloured by a contemporary German hand in green, orange, yellow, brown, black and greys. This half of the sheet without watermark, chainlines variable at 39mm / 45mm (tiny hole, minor weakness at lower right corner, minor restoration at the left edge, small ink smudges on verso). Matted, framed and glazed. Provenance: early inscriptions in lower half of sheet – Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow (acquired from Ars Libri, 1983; sold Christie’s NY, 10 April 2013, lot 121).
Folio 25 depicting Book of Revelation 9:17-20 and Revelation 10:4 of blockbook edition Schreiber IV. [Western Germany: c. 1465].
The blockbook Apocalypse, depicting in word and image the apocryphal life of St. John ‘in a sense was the first great comic book in western civilization’ (A. Stevenson, p.240). The present fine example is a single leaf, a half-sheet, with characteristic contemporary colouring, (Schreiber IV) of the Apocalypse. Leaf 25 depicts the ‘second woe’, the awakening of the angels by the river Euphrates to kill one-third of humanity (above) and an angel descended to John and the voices of seven thunders (below). Schreiber’s traditional classification of Apocalypse copies into 6 ‘editions’ has been more recently refined into 4, with Schreiber IV now considered the second xylographic edition (Bodl Inc. BB-2) and localised to western Germany, printed from recut blocks based on Schreiber editions I/II, localised to The Netherlands. Schreiber IV's closest iconographical and textual relations are with Wellcome MS 49, but there has been some discussion as to priority. About two dozen copies of this edition survive in various states of completeness, but even fragments are now of rare on the market.
Blockbooks are books produced entirely from woodblocks onto which text and image have been cut. A printed impression is made on one side only of a sheet of paper by rubbing it onto an inked woodblock. Independent of special equipment, blockbooks were long considered precursors of printing with moveable type but are now recognised as overlapping with the earliest typographic works in the 1450s-1470s. On paper evidence for grouping and dating, see Allan Stevenson, ‘The Problem of the Blockbooks’ in: the Gutenberg-Museum 1991 exhibition catalogue p. 244. Schreiber vol. 4, pp. 164-5, 196; Hind I, p. 222; F. de Marez Oyens, ‘Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis, Rosenwald Collection 23’, Vision of a Collector (Washington: 1991) pp. 57-58; S. Mertens and C. Schneider (eds.), Blockbücher des Mittelalters (Mainz 1991) pp. 59-118 and fig. V.28; G. Bing, ‘The Apocalypse Block-Books and their Manuscript Models’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), pp. 143-58; and cf. Bod. Inc BB-2.
Chancery folio (270 x 210mm). One leaf only: 2⁄9 (of 48: 1-316). Recto, upper half: the angels loosed from the river Euphrates kill the third part of men (Revelation 9:17-20); lower half: the mighty angel coming down from heaven, and the voices of the seven thunders (Revelation 10:4). Verso blank. Illustration and text xylographically impressed in pale brown ink from a single woodblock, coloured by a contemporary German hand in green, orange, yellow, brown, black and greys. This half of the sheet without watermark, chainlines variable at 39mm / 45mm (tiny hole, minor weakness at lower right corner, minor restoration at the left edge, small ink smudges on verso). Matted, framed and glazed. Provenance: early inscriptions in lower half of sheet – Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow (acquired from Ars Libri, 1983; sold Christie’s NY, 10 April 2013, lot 121).
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts