Johanna Sibylla Küsel-Kraus (ca. 1650–1717).

Aesop. Favole scelte / Außerlesene Fabeln / Fables choisies.

Augsburg, Johannes Jacob Lotter for Johann Ulrich Kraus, 1709.

4°. [IV], 106 pp. With 50 numbered plate leaves.

Modern blind tooled calf.

               A trilingual edition of Aesop's fables, with 92 etched illustrations on 48 plates. The full-page frontispiece is signed “Johaña Sib: Krausin eine gebohrne Küslin. Fecit.” (= Johanna Sibylla Küsel-Kraus). Although only this plate bears her signature, Johann Ulrich Kraus states in the foreword that the illustrations were executed by his wife, Johanna Sibylla. This explicit contemporary acknowledgement is particularly noteworthy, as female engravers rarely received such prominent recognition in early modern illustrated books.

However, many of the illustrations actually bear a monogram M, occasionally incorporating a P. This is unusual, as we have not encountered monograms on other prints securely attributable to Johanna Sibylla Küsel-Kraus. The marks therefore raise the possibility that some of these plates were executed by another member of the Küsel family workshop, perhaps her sisters Maria Philippina (MP) or Maria Magdalena (MM). If so, these monograms may offer a rare glimpse into the internal organisation of the Küsel-Kraus workshop and the division of labour among the women of the family. Johanna Sibylla's prominent acknowledgement in the foreword, contrasted with the appearance of these otherwise unexplained monograms, may hint at differing positions within the workshop hierarchy and at varying degrees of artistic responsibility, visibility, and recognition. Perhaps the matter will be resolved in the forthcoming New Hollstein volume, as this series is absent from the published old Hollstein volume on the Küsel family.

This 1709 edition is very rare, as it is not recorded in the German Short Title Catalogue (VD18). Compared with the first edition of 1707, the present volume contains altered numbering engraved into the plates, incorporating the first two plates into the numbering sequence and thus creating a second state of the series.

This book is a typical and substantial illustrated production from the mature period of the Küsel-Kraus workshop, documenting Johanna Sibylla Kraus’s central role within one of the most prolific engraving and publishing enterprises of Baroque Augsburg. Such commercially ambitious didactic publications formed the backbone of the business. The illustrations unite emblematic imagery with scenes of everyday life and contemporary occupational types, including farmers, hunters, vintners, bird-catchers, fishermen, cooks, physicians, and fortune-tellers.

Condition: Spine slightly discoloured. Contents browned, thumbed and spotted in places, with in the margins some wear and losses (partly repaired). Marginal loss to plate leaf 5, small tear in foot of plate 28.

Reference: for the 1707 edition see VD 18 10854568; Praz p. 331; Brüggemann I, 6 (under Aesop). Fabula docet 66 (French edition). Not in Hollstein; Timm-Bodemann.