Abraham Bosse (1602/1604–1676).

Radier-Büchlein / Handelt Von der Etzkunst / Nemlich: Wie man mit Scheidwasser in Kupffer etzen / das Wasser / wie auch den harten und weichen Etzgrund machen solle; Beneben Kurtzer Beschreibung / wie die Kupfferplatten abzudrucken; die Drucker-Presse zu machen / und was man sonsten darbey in acht zu nehmen hat […].

Includes:

Georg Andreas Böckler (ca. 1617–1687).

Appendix, das ist: Zugabe oder Anhang / Von der Herold-Mahl- und Reiß-Kunst; Worinnen begriffen / was man bey dem Kupfferstechen / oder der Reißkunst davon zu wissen vonnöthen hat. Sampt beygefügten Figuren / und Beschreibung unterschiedlicher Sinnbilder und deren Außlegungen.

And:

[Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (1607–1658)].

Kunstverständiger Discurs von der edlen Mahlerey.

Nuremberg: Christoph Gerhard for the widow and heirs of Paul Fürst, 1669.

8°. [11] leaves, 201 pp., [4] leaves. With an engraved frontispiece by Abraham Aubry, 18 full-page engraved plates—16 illustrating Bosse’s manual and two accompanying Böckler’s heraldic appendix—one etched text illustration and one full-page woodcut: 21 illustrations in all. Complete with the final Bericht an den Buchbinder, or directions to the binder, a leaf often lacking (see VD17).

Bound in a reused medieval parchment manuscript leaf from a Latin liturgical lectionary, written in two columns in Gothic textualis, with red rubrics and initials, probably dating from ca. 1275–1325. The preserved passages include Matthew 3:13–17, describing the Baptism of Christ, and Romans 12:6–16.

              Second edition of the first German translation of Abraham Bosse’s foundational manual of etching and copperplate printing, enlarged with the addition of Böckler’s Herold-Mahl- und Reiß-Kunst. Thus, this edition brings together Bosse’s practical manual, Böckler’s treatise on heraldic art, and the anonymous Kunstverständiger Discurs von der edlen Mahlerey, now attributed to Georg Philipp Harsdörffer.  

First published in French in Paris in 1645, Bosse’s manual provides detailed practical instructions for preparing copperplates, making hard and soft etching grounds, applying acid, handling etching needles and burins, printing the finished plates and constructing a copperplate press. Its clear technical explanations and influential illustrations established it as a standard manual that was repeatedly translated, expanded and reprinted into the eighteenth century.

The architect and engineer Georg Andreas Böckler produced the first German translation in 1652. This second German edition of 1669 was substantially enlarged by the addition of Böckler’s Herold-Mahl- und Reiß-Kunst, a separately titled appendix on heraldic painting and drawing. Its two engraved plates and accompanying text address the representation and interpretation of heraldic devices and their application in drawing and engraving.

The volume concludes with the anonymously published Kunstverständiger Discurs von der edlen Mahlerey, now attributed to the Nuremberg poet and polymath Georg Philipp Harsdörffer. Already included in the German edition of 1652, this concise and systematic contribution to German art theory discusses such subjects as the definition and status of painting, genre, imitation, invention, rhetoric, historia, light and shadow, and the relationship between painting and poetry. Its full-page woodcut uses a candle and geometrically constructed rays to demonstrate the projection, length and overlapping intensity of cast shadows.

This is a particularly attractive copy, combining three complementary early texts on the practical, heraldic and theoretical aspects of graphic and pictorial art, preserved in a remarkable medieval manuscript binding.

Condition: Two old paper labels on the spine; binding slightly soiled; ties removed. Occasional minor worming in the upper corner, slightly affecting the frontispiece. Faded ownership inscription and stamp on the title-page, with the same faded stamp on the verso of the final leaf. Otherwise a very good, complete copy.

References: VD17 12:652368M; Graesse I, 501; Nagler II, 111; cf. Berlin Ornamentstichsammlung 4652. For the attribution and discussion of the final treatise, see Andreas Herz, “Der Hase des Zeuxis: Von Sandrart über Birken bis Harsdörffer. Harsdörffers unbekannter Discurs Von der edlen Mahlerey,” Daphnis 25 (1996), pp. 387–422; and Michael Thimann, ed., Kunstverständiger Discurs von der edlen Mahlerey (Heidelberg, 2008).