Book Plates Part 6

Hans Troschel's work as a book-plate engraver is ill.u.s.trated by the book-plate of yet another Nuremberg man--John William Kress of Kressenstain, dated in 1619. In this we are shown a shield set in an oval wreath of leaf-work. The helmet which surmounts it displays some elaborate work; finely-cut mantling extends itself from this on the right side and on the left; and above is a cornet, which encircles the crest. The whole is enclosed in a circle of leaves and berries, somewhat similar to that just described in speaking of Sibmacher's work; but outside this, at each of the four corners of the plate, are small shields surmounted by helmets and crests, and containing the arms of the four families from which he immediately descended, their names being given. Nestling amongst the mantling on the left side of the design is a distinct shield, on which are depicted the arms of Susanna Koler, wife of the owner of the book-plate.

Wolffgang Kilian (born 1581, died 1662) was an Augsburg man, and the book-plate which bears his signature and the date, 1635, is that of an Augsburg church dignitary--Sebastian Myller, suffragan-bishop of Adramytteum, and Canon of Augsburg. In its ornamentation it bears some resemblance to an English Jacobean book-plate. Above the shield is the head of a cherub, on which the episcopal mitre is made to rest in a somewhat comical manner; the cherub's wings protrude over the top of, and into, the shield. The inscription is contained in an oval band; outside this is an oval leaf-wreath, and outside this again an indented frame. Wolffgang was a younger brother of the more noted Lucas Kilian.

Both brothers studied at Venice, and were pupils of their stepfather, Dominick Custos, who was himself a designer of book-plates.

Of Giles Sadeler's work--the Count of Rosenberg's book-plate--I shall speak directly (pp. 130, 131). An example of his nephew's engraving is afforded by the book-plate of Ferdinand von Hagenau, dated in 1646.

In later times--the eighteenth century--other distinguished German artists 'stooped' to book-plate engraving. Amongst them was Daniel Nicholas Chodowiecki (the son of a Dantzig drug merchant), born in 1726.

Chodowiecki is best known as a book-ill.u.s.trator, in which his great knowledge of costume--at a period when the point was little studied--stood him in good stead. His book-plates are probably few; only four or five are known. One of the most elaborate in design is that of a German doctor of medicine, dated in 1792, nine years before the artist's death.

In this example much of the sensational style of the generality of his work manifests itself. 'The book-plate,' says Lord De Tabley, 'in its motive reminds us much of those allegoric framed certificates of membership which various sick clubs and benefit societies accord to their members at the present day. In the foreground, aesculapius is pushing out a skeleton draped in a long white sheet, with a scythe across its shoulder. The G.o.d is st.u.r.dily applying his serpent-twined staff to the somewhat too solid back of the terrible phantom. Behind, beneath a kind of pavilion, lies a sick person in bed; his hands are upraised in silent thankfulness as he watches the prowess of the healing deity.' The book-plate was engraved for Dr. C. S. Schintz. Besides this, Chodowiecki engraved, about 1770, a book-plate for himself, and, about ten years later, one for the French seminary at Berlin.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The book-plate of Dr. Schintz calls to mind a somewhat earlier German example, engraved by Boetius from a design by Wernerin (whose signature appears on some varieties of the plate), about the middle of the last century. It is figured opposite, and is perhaps the most gloomy book-plate that it ever entered into the mind of man to conceive. A skeleton sits upon a coffin, or a coffin-shaped tomb, holding in his right hand a pair of scales, and in his left a scythe; in the lighter balance of the scales is a scroll, bearing the inscription, 'Dan. v. 25, _Mene Tekel_'; in the background we see monuments, Lombardy poplars or cypress-trees, and a distant landscape. This uninviting picture is contained in a frame, inscribed, in a medallion above, 'E Bibliotheca Woogiana,' and below, _Nominor a libra: libratus ne levis unquam Inveniar, praesta pondere, Christe, tuo_,--a motto in which the owner makes a play upon the derivation of his name from _wage_, the German for a weight or balance, and asks the bestowal of divine weight on the day of soul-weighing.

As compared with German book-plates, those of other countries are sadly deficient in artistic composition. The former, particularly examples of the seventeenth century, are ornate and well designed.

Take, for instance, the really magnificent book-plate of Peter Vok, Ursinus, Count of Rosenberg, dated '1609.' It is engraved on copper, and measures 10 inches by 6. In a central circular medallion, 3-2/3 inches in diameter, is depicted the owner, arrayed in armour, and seated on a richly caparisoned war-horse, plumed, and going at full speed across a landscape of hillocks. On his breastplate is an escutcheon bearing his arms; a knight's sword is in his hand. Round the margin of the medallion runs a wreath of roses. Platforms come out on either side of the medallion, and on each of these there stands a figure about 5 inches in height; the one on the left is a female symbolical form, clad in flowing drapery, and holding in one hand the cup of the Eucharist, and in the other a cross. A somewhat similar figure stands on the right, holding in her hand a tablet, inscribed _Verb.u.m Domini manet in eternum_.

The medallion rests upon two bears--an allusion, of course, to the family name of the owner, _Ursinus_--crouching between the two female figures described. The face of the altar-like platform below is divided into one central and two lateral compartments, of which the side ones project forward. On the right lateral slab is an escutcheon, charged simply with the Rosenberg rose; whilst on the left we see the family arms, as on the breastplate, but surmounted with an ermine-faced crown.

On the central slab is a skull resting on two shin-bones.

Reaching across the upper portion of the design is an oblong tablet, with indented sh.e.l.ly scroll-work edges, and a background border of large full-blown roses, with th.o.r.n.y stems. With the inscription, which is appropriately pompous, I need not trouble the reader; but I have thought it worth while to give here (following Lord De Tabley's example, and using sometimes his words) a very full verbal picture of this truly magnificent book-plate, in order that the pitch of elaboration to which a German book-plate can be carried may be understood. Suffice it to add that this work of art was engraved by Giles Sadeler, the Antwerp-born engraver, who, after studying in Italy, was invited by the Emperor Rudolph II. to enter his service at Prague; in short, to become what he styles himself in his signature to this book-plate--'Engraver to His Imperial Majesty.'

Less elaborate, yet very beautifully engraved, are the book-plates used in the Electoral Library of the Dukes of Bavaria at Munich. On one, dated in 1618, the largest variety of which is 7 inches high and 5-1/2 broad, we have the arms of the Duchy enclosed by the collar of the Golden Fleece. Winged Caryatides support the Electoral crown, whilst below is an arabesqued platform, on which is the inscription: _Ex Bibliotheca Serenissimorum Utriusque Bavariae Duc.u.m_, 1618. A smaller variety of this plate is figured opposite. Some twenty years later, a still larger and more ornate book-plate (10 7 inches) was designed for use in the same library. Here the arms are in an oval frame, surrounded by the Golden Fleece; on the right and left are inverted cornucopiae, and the crown is held aloft by four cherubs. All the book-plates of this library exist in a great variety of design, and nearly all the varieties are found in different sizes.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

These examples are typical of many other German book-plates; the conception of the design is excellent, and its working out is equally good. In later times, the work on book-plates perhaps deteriorated, because it fell, to a large extent, into inferior hands. Yet Germany can show several very creditable examples in the eighteenth century.

Some of those which give the view of a library interior are decidedly pleasing; they appear soon after the commencement of the century. The libraries represented have usually one or more mythological inmates; but, in one instance, the owner is in possession, and is seen hard at work amongst his volumes.

In concluding this chapter, it may be noted that examples of name-tickets are found in Germany as in other countries. Perhaps the earliest is one (first noticed, I believe, by Mr. Weale) in a copy at the Bodleian Library of a German Psalter printed at Augsburg in 1498.

This reads, 'Sum Magistri Georgii Mayrii Monacencis' [_i.e._ of Munich], with the motto, 'Melius est pro veritate pati supplicium, quam pro adulatione consequi beneficium.' The same inscription has been written in ink on the t.i.tle-page, with the added date 1513, and afterwards--no doubt a few years later when the label was printed and placed in the book--crossed through.

The most complete work on German book-plates that has yet made its appearance is Herr Warnecke's _Die Deutschen Bucherzeichen_, Berlin, 1890; but a work properly cla.s.sifying the different styles of German book-plates, and affixing to these styles covering dates, has yet to be written.

CHAPTER VII

THE BOOK-PLATES OF FRANCE AND OTHER COUNTRIES

FRANCE, so far as a generally descriptive account of her book-plates is concerned, is certainly more fortunate than her neighbour Germany.

French book-plates received attention, in the shape of a capital work upon them, before those of any other country were similarly honoured. M.

Poulet Mala.s.sis's _Les Ex libris Francais_ made its first appearance in 1874, and bears evident testimony to the fact that the author had for many years previously made an attentive study of his native book-plates.

Since the appearance of M. Poulet Mala.s.sis's work, book-plate collecting in France, as well as in other countries, has been vigorously carried on, and earlier examples of dated French book-plates than those then known have come to light. The most ancient of these is one dated 1574 (the same year, it will be noted, as that of the plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon), but it is simply typographical, having no kind of design whatever. It reads: 'Ex bibliotheca Caroli Albosii E. Eduensis. Ex labore quies.' No Armorial book-plate bearing an engraved date appears in France until thirty-seven years later, when we, at last, meet with that of Alexandre Bouchart, Vicomte de Blosseville, engraved by Leonard Gaultier, and, in the copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale, dated 1611. A variety of this book-plate, undated, unsigned, and probably not by the same hand, exists in the collection of Sir Wollaston Franks. The field in the Bouchart arms is gules, though the lines shown in the engraving of the undated plate would, according to the present system, represent it as azure (see remarks on this point at p. 22). After the Bouchart book-plate, we have, in 1613, that of Melchior de la Vallee, Canon of Nancy, given by M. Poulet Mala.s.sis as dated in 1611, and then, in 1644, a roughly-executed anonymous book-plate signed 'Raigniauld Riomi, 1644.'

The arms are untinctured, and leaflike mantling falling from the helmet surrounds the shield; there is no crest. Raigniauld--or, as the modern spelling of the name is, Regnault--is not a known engraver. Riomi is an old-fashioned town of Auvergne.

Other French book-plates of the seventeenth century, both dated and undated, exist; but France is undeniably behind Germany both in the number of her early book-plates and in their beauty; for instance, we do not in France find those numerous book-plates of ecclesiastical corporations which so much swell the list of early German examples. The subject of French ecclesiastical book-plates has, indeed, received special treatment from Father Ingold, himself a French ecclesiastic; and he is compelled to admit that such book-plates are not numerous and not ancient. The old way seems to have been for the monastic official in charge of the convent library to inscribe each volume with some appropriate inscription. These are in themselves interesting; but book-plate lovers must regret the existence of the fashion. The earliest French ecclesiastical book-plates belong to the middle of the eighteenth century, and, like the 1574 example already noticed, they are mere typographical labels, possessing little more artistic merit than is usually displayed in a post-mark.

With regard, however, to the book-plates of ecclesiastical individuals, the case is different; some of them engraved during the seventeenth century are ambitious and interesting. A particularly quaint example is found in the book-plate which an Annecy engraver, named Sinton, executed for Charles de Sales, the energetic labourer in the cause of religion, brother of St. Francis de Sales, and his successor in the Bishopric of Annecy. Lord De Tabley thus describes the book-plate:--'The family arms are shown in a shield, which appears very gigantic, in a frame of heavy curves, which is set in the centre of a huge sideboard-like monumental structure. On the top ledges of this, two full-grown, long-skirted angels, seated right and left, uphold the episcopal hat (with its usual knotted ropes and ta.s.sels) in air above the escutcheon.

'At the base of the structure, to the right, appears a figure of St.

Francis de Sales, seated, holding an olive branch in one hand, while beneath his other arm is a profuse cl.u.s.ter of fruit. To the left, also seated, is a portrait of St. Jane Frances De Chantal, holding a palm-branch, also with fruit beneath her other arm. Each portrait is realistic, and not in the least flattered. Between them is a medallion bearing the crossed papal keys.'

The probable date of this very curious book-plate is 1642. It appears earlier, but this may be accounted for by the fact that the work is provincial. Students will do well to remember that provincially executed book-plates, English or foreign, are often misleading in this respect.

There is a somewhat elaborate book-plate, engraved in several sizes, and dated in 1692, which introduces the cardinal's hat, mitre, and crozier, and which was prepared to place in the books given by Dr. Peter Daniel Huet to the Paris Jesuits. Huet is himself an interesting figure in French literature. In 1670 he was made tutor to the Dauphin, and whilst so employed he a.s.sisted in bringing out the sixty-two volumes of cla.s.sics, specially prepared for his pupil, known as the _Delphin_ edition. He became Bishop of Avranches in 1689, but ten years after resigned his see in order to devote the remainder of his life to literature, which he did, completing amongst other voluminous works a defence of the doctrine of Christianity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF CHARLES DE SALES.]

It is from their possessors that French book-plates derive their chief interest; and these possessors are for the most part persons who lived at a late date. Amongst the few early celebrities is the soldier-poet of France, Francis de Malherbe, of whom it has been said that he was as lax in morals as he was rigid in his zeal for the purity of his native language. His book-plate is figured at p. 25, and is interesting as showing that no reliance can be placed on lines, apparently expressing the colour of the shield in early Armorial book-plates (see pp. 21-22).

He died in 1628. The books containing this very pleasing book-plate pa.s.sed after De Malherbe's death to Vincent de Boyer, in whose family they remained till the Revolution; after that they were dispersed.

Coming to later times, we find a charming book-plate, engraved by Le Grand for the unfortunate Countess Dubarry. Her books were well chosen and well bound, but they were few in number; hence her book-plate is rare, but it may be seen in the library at Versailles, where most of her books are preserved. Though she could not read, she seems to have felt in duty bound to follow 'La Pompadour' in getting together a library to amuse her royal master.

From the book-plate of the countess--a woman who, after aiding in the general degradation of the French court, was willing to risk her life for those whose downfall she had in a measure a.s.sisted in bringing about--we may appropriately turn to that of Cardinal Maury; the inscription on which reads: _Bibliotheque particuliere de son Eminence Mgr. le Cardinal Maury_. This book-plate calls to mind a famous figure in the French Revolution,--a fervent preacher, the spokesman of his fellow-clergy before those who were but little inclined to listen to argument; the calm-minded man, who would turn round and give a witty retort to a cry raised by the mob which followed through the streets of Paris, clamouring for his blood.

The mention of these names leads one naturally to speak generally of book-plates engraved about the time of the French Revolution,--a period which is immortalised in a singular manner on French book-plates. M.

Poulet Mala.s.sis remarks that many a n.o.ble library owner took good care to alter his book-plate in those troublesome times, and to replace the coronet which had surmounted the family escutcheon by the Phrygian cap of liberty. For instance, the Viscount de Borbon-Busset in 1793 changed his Armorial book-plate to a simple inscription--in which he calls himself 'Citoyen Francois'--surrounded by a leafy garland. The same fashion is exemplified even in clerical examples. Father le Mercier in his first book-plate displays the coronet which he either was, or at least considered himself to be, ent.i.tled to bear; but between 1789 and 1792 we find a second example of his book-plate, with a simple decorative finish to the top of the design in lieu of the coronet. At that time there was in France, as Mr. Walter Hamilton puts it, 'an awkward fashion of putting heads accustomed to coronets under the falling knife of the guillotine.'

As far as the cla.s.sifying of the leading styles in French book-plates goes, M. Poulet Mala.s.sis does not really help us much; and we cannot but hope that ere long some enterprising French collector will undertake the task. There is certainly, as M. Poulet Mala.s.sis observes, a resemblance--as the reader will see by turning back to the ill.u.s.tration of De Malherbe's book-plate--between the style of the first French book-plates and that of the first English; and it is noteworthy that the style disappeared in both countries much at the same time. Again, French book-plates of 1720-1730 bear distinct traces of what we have called 'Jacobean' work in speaking of English examples.

The French _Rococo_ book-plate is really a.n.a.logous to our 'Chippendale.'

There is, however, a greater variety both of subject and treatment in each French style than one finds in England.

Allegory is, as I stated in Chapter iv., more frequent and more wild in French book-plates than in those of England. The follies of his own countrymen in this respect are fully recognised by M. Poulet Mala.s.sis, who, in most amusing style, deals with some of the more p.r.o.nounced examples; as for instance the rollicking allegory displayed in the book-plate of M. Henault, President of the French Academy. The date of this remarkable production may be fixed at 1750; it is designed by Boucher and engraved by Count de Caylus, and we see that Minerva has honoured M. le President by placing his family arms upon her shield.

Very wonderful, too, is the book-plate of the Abbe de Gricourt, whose arms are borne heavenwards by a vast company of angels. This example, which is approximately of the same date as the last, is the work of the Abbe's brother, A. T. Ceys, who was himself an ecclesiastic. Often the allegory displayed has allusion to the owner's business or his tastes, as on that of M. Gueullette, a French novelist and dramatist of the first half of the last century, the popularity of whose writings, although those writings are numerous, has not outlived him. This book-plate is the work of H. Becat, and is inscribed after the Pirckheimer manner, 'Ex libris Thomae Gueullette et Amicorum.' The family arms are supported by an Italian harlequin, a Chinese mandarin, a Cyclops holding an infant, and a Tartar. Now the presence of these strange inhabitants of a book-plate is accounted for thus. Gueullette wrote farces for the Paris stage, and he also wrote 'Contes Tartares'

and 'Les Aventures du Mandarin Fum Hoam.' Below the shield water pours from a satyr's mouth into a basin containing a mermaid, and above soars Cupid in clouds, bearing aloft a scroll and motto. This, says 'W. H.' in the _Ex Libris Journal_, is probably one of the earliest book-plates on which appear allegoric allusions to its owner's tastes and literary labours.

The _Typical_ or _Personal_ book-plate is also found in France in that of the Chevalier de Fleurieu, described by Mr. Egerton Castle. During the _ancien regime_ he was a naval officer, who, whilst still low in the service, was intrusted with the testing of various new marine appliances. On the book-plate we get the bird's-eye view of an island, on which are strewn the said marine appliances, and behind them stands the Chevalier's coat of arms.

A recent writer on French book-plates, M. Henri Bouchot, goes so far as to think a book-plate may be of service as exhibiting a man's character.

It may be so with regard to Frenchmen and French book-plates, but if this principle of argument be applied to English book-plates, all I can say is, that the possessors of English book-plates in the closing years of the seventeenth century and the opening years of the eighteenth must have been singularly alike in their personal characteristics!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The 'Library Interior' book-plate is found in France as early as 1718, in an anonymous book-plate described by Mr. Walter Hamilton in the _Book Worm_ for May 1892. It shows us, in the background of a library, two men working a printing-press. In the foreground are five little winged cupids at play with books and mathematical instruments, whilst a female figure, representing peace and plenty, appears seated on what Mr.

Hamilton conjectures to be a Pegasus. The engraving is by Bernard Picart, an eminent engraver, who, though a Frenchman by birth, settled at Amsterdam in 1710 (he died in 1733) and was evidently much influenced by the then prevailing style in Dutch art. He executed another very beautiful 'Library Interior' plate (figured opposite) for Amadeus Lulin, a Savoyard. Here we have the interior of a French library of the period, with a curved roof. At the end of the room is a window and beneath this a Louis XV. table. In the foreground the same cupids 'play with books,' which, by the way, they are treating exceedingly badly.

Caryatides at the sides form a frame for the plate. On the breast of one is a sun; the other holds a heart. A globe surmounts each. The arms are shown in the centre of the design at the top.

Other examples of French book-plates of this kind are found quite late in the century, and any one who feels specially interested in the subject of these, and indeed of 'Library Interior' book-plates as a whole, will do well to study Sir Arthur Vicars's valuable treatise and lists in the pages of the _Ex Libris Journal_.

About the book-plates of countries other than Germany and France there is not very much to be said. Sweden has given us an insight into its native book-plates.[9] Herr Carlander tells us that the earliest date on a Swedish book-plate is 1595, which occurs on that belonging to Thure Bielke, a senator who, having mixed himself up in political strife, lost his head by a stroke of the executioner's axe five years later. Senator Bielke was evidently far in advance of his fellow-countrymen as regards such matters; for no other dated Swedish book-plate occurs for a considerable number of years. In the eighteenth century, however, Swedish book-plates became much more numerous, and some of the more prominent native engravers appear to have worked upon them, producing a few singularly fine examples in the _Rococo_ style; library interiors also appear occasionally on Swedish book-plates. One of the most interesting late examples of book-plates of this country is that of King Charles XIII. On this we have the royal arms of Sweden, surmounted by the collar and cross of the order of the Seraphim, and the king's motto, 'Folkets wal mint hogsta lag'--'The people's weal my highest law.' I imagine that this book-plate may be placed at the close of the last century. Charles died in 1818.

Swiss book-plates are numerous and early. The first dated example occurs in 1607. Their general style is not pleasing, since it presents a stiffness and awkwardness in the arrangement of the decoration. Italian book-plates, again, possess few remarkable features. Perhaps their leading characteristic is the extreme coldness of their engravers'