first edition Cloth folder
1908 · Stuttgart
by Pazaurek, Gustav E.
Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann, 1908. First Limited Edition. Cloth folder. Near Fine. No. 165 of 400 copies. Oblong, 26.5 by 33.5 cm. Booklet, running 25 pages, and 50 separate or loose plates, each with a number of images of Biedermeier cards, especially those with movable parts, and other ephemera from that period. One plate with color chromolithographic images; otherwise, the plates are in black and white. This is the indispensable and go-to source still for Biedermeier cards. Biedermeier relates to a period of general stability in Europe between Napoleon's defeat in 1815 and the Revolution of 1848 and specifically pertains to the Teutonic world (the German-speaking areas) where the upper bourgeois was culturally ascendant and superceding Royal and aristocratic patronage as the engine of high cultural development. The Biedermeier cards were a rage, with their intricate, clever mechanisms and pretty hand-colored imagery. Light wear to the outer folio folder. Generally clean.
(Inventory #: 005296)