Lucas Cranach’s Borders for Maximilian’s Prayer Book

des aelteren lucas 5

Johann Georg Zeller, editor. Des älteren Lucas Müllers genannt Cranach Handzeichnungen. Ein Nachtrag zu Albrecht Dürers christlich mythologischen Handzeichnungen (München: Zeller’schen Kunst-Magazin, 1818). Color lithographs. Graphic Arts collection GAX 2014- in process

There are many 21st-century digital and 20th-century off-set reproductions of the the Book of Hours of the Emperor Maximilian the First, decorated by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Lucas Cranach (1472-1553), and other artists, which was printed in 1513 by Johannes Schoensperger at Augsburg.

Early attempts at reproducing this exquisite work were rare, even at the time they were published. The Graphic Arts Collection just acquired the first and only edition of the reproductions–in the newly invented medium of lithography–of the marginal drawings by Lucas Cranach in Maximilian’s Prayer Book. Note in particular the very early use of multi-color lithographic printing.

des aelteren lucas 1
des aelteren lucas 2
des aelteren lucas 4

Graphic Arts also holds a copy of the 1808, Albrecht Dürers christlich-mythologische Handzeichnungen (GAX Oversize 2007-0749Q), and Rudolph Ackermann’s 1817 Albert Durers Designs of the Prayer Book (Oversize 2007-0027F).
des aelteren lucas 3