John Gottfried Watenbach calligraphy book

Content Description

This collection features a 13" X 8" oblong folio book housing calligraphic samples completed by Johann Gottfried Watenbach, a German student, in 1748. The book contains sixty-five unnumbered leaves, written on rectos only, in pen and ink, pencil, watercolor, and gouache containing a title leaf, with the author's name and colored figures. The book begins with seven sheets dedicated to alphabet sampling, followed by forty-nine pages of highly ornamented calligraphic Biblical quotations or prayers in German, of which thirty-six leaves with the illustrations colored in watercolor or gouache, and thirteen uncolored or with only touches of color, eight leaves with drawings and no text (some unfinished). Bound with 47 blank leaves, and at the end, a nine-page text in Dutch in a different 18th-century hand (datable to 1772). Watermark: key within a crowned shield flanked by the letters H.B. Prophets, saints, and angels are depicted alongside German captioning, while hunters, traders, musicians, preachers, and soldiers are shown within the city and countryside, engaged with everyday life. Several ancient philosophers and exotic birds and plants are included in the young student's drawings. Quotations are presented in the Latin script style, translated to German from the Lutheran Bible.

Acquisition Type

Purchase

Provenance

Purchased from Musinsky Rare Books. May 2023.

Language of Description

English

Restrictions Apply

No