Details
[LACE PATTERN BOOK] Nüw Modelbuch allerley gattungen Däntelschnür so diser zyt in hoch Tütschlanden geng und brüchig sind...erstmals in truck verfergket durch R. M. [Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, ca. 1561.]
4° (184 x 137mm). Gothic letter, with large woodcut, attributed to Josef Murer, on title, showing an interior with two women making lace, and 164 woodcuts of lace patterns, mostly white on black and of varying size, on 39 pp. (Occasional light thumbing, title with faint damp-stain at upper right.) Gilt-tooled burgundy morocco by Asper, Geneva (signed), early 18th-century South German floral-blocked gilt paper wrappers bound in.
A FINE COPY OF THE ONLY EDITION OF 'ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE AND MOST IMPORTANT PATTERN-BOOKS FOR THE HISTORY OF LACE-MAKING'(Lotz), the only German pattern-book exclusively for pillow-lace (as well as the first by a woman). The authoress, who in the title and preface only gives her initials R.M., explains that the art of making pillow-lace had been introduced into her country 25 years previously, in 1536, by merchants from Venice (thus giving an approximate date for the book); she herself had taught in Zurich for 12 years, and says that her book is intended especially for her 'lieben leertöchteren'. She emphasises the cheapness of making and cleaning lace (as opposed to clothes adorned with gold and silk). Lotz notes the book's originality (for instance in its use of white on black) and its independence from earlier lace books, and remarks that its patterns were not copied in later books. Lotz 23 (plates 47-48); Leeman Van Elck, Zürcherische Buchillustration, p.70; Brunet, Suppl., I, 367 ('très rare').
4° (184 x 137mm). Gothic letter, with large woodcut, attributed to Josef Murer, on title, showing an interior with two women making lace, and 164 woodcuts of lace patterns, mostly white on black and of varying size, on 39 pp. (Occasional light thumbing, title with faint damp-stain at upper right.) Gilt-tooled burgundy morocco by Asper, Geneva (signed), early 18th-century South German floral-blocked gilt paper wrappers bound in.
A FINE COPY OF THE ONLY EDITION OF 'ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE AND MOST IMPORTANT PATTERN-BOOKS FOR THE HISTORY OF LACE-MAKING'(Lotz), the only German pattern-book exclusively for pillow-lace (as well as the first by a woman). The authoress, who in the title and preface only gives her initials R.M., explains that the art of making pillow-lace had been introduced into her country 25 years previously, in 1536, by merchants from Venice (thus giving an approximate date for the book); she herself had taught in Zurich for 12 years, and says that her book is intended especially for her 'lieben leertöchteren'. She emphasises the cheapness of making and cleaning lace (as opposed to clothes adorned with gold and silk). Lotz notes the book's originality (for instance in its use of white on black) and its independence from earlier lace books, and remarks that its patterns were not copied in later books. Lotz 23 (plates 47-48); Leeman Van Elck, Zürcherische Buchillustration, p.70; Brunet, Suppl., I, 367 ('très rare').