THE FIRST DANISH WORK ON NATIONAL COSTUMES
RIETER, JACOB og JOHANNES SENN.
Danske Nationale Klædedragter - Dänische National Kleidertrachten.
(København, ca. 1805-08).
4to. Near contemporary (ca. 1850) full brown calf with richly gilt spine and blindstamped border to boards. Spine worn and capitals lacking a bit of leather. Front hinge cracked, strengthened from verso. Internally very nice and fresh with only occasional brownspotting. With the book-plate of John Arden to inside of front board. Bound with the original wrappers for the fourth and ninth series. The front wrapper for the ninth has the title written in English in contemporary hand to the top right (slightly cropped), in ink that seems identical to the "9" denoting the series number. 57 (out of in all 72 published) engraved an excellently hand-coloured plates of costumes, one present in two copies (plate nr. 67). All plates with Danish and German text in the plate. Apart from two leaves that are slightly smaller, the leaves measure 25,5x19 cm. The print surface on all measures 20,5 x 14 cm.
An unusually large collection of 57 of the rare plates that constitute the first Danish work on national costumes. The work is of the utmost scarcity, with only one known complete copy in public institutions (Danish University Library - the copy in the Royal Library is also incomplete). The title is known solely from the wrappers that each series of six plates was issued with. These wrappers are also exceedingly scarce and almost never present. Our copy contains two of them. As always, the issue number has been added in hand. Rieter and Senn were both born and educated in Switzerland and both arrived in Copenhagen in 1804. They studied costumes on Sealand, the West Sea Islands, and Holsten. The series of costumes is divided into two sections, the first depicting those of Copenhagen (along with Amager) and Sealand, the other that of Southern Jutland, including Holsten and the North Friesian Islands. Rieter left Copenhagen already in 1805, and Senn was left to complete the publication. It is assumed that Senn did most of the drawings. Only very few complete copies of the work are known to exist, only one in public collections. Colas states that “I do not know the exact number of plates to have been published in this collection, which is very rare. The copy of Lipperheide contains 56 plates, and that of the University of Copenhagen has 72.” (Own translation from French). Lipperheide 1045 (56 plates); Bibl. Danica II: 1080 (incomplete); Colas: 2557; Krohn: 873-944.
Order-nr.: 60296
DKK 80.000,00