visit Works by Georg Bartish

Works by Georg Bartish

[Image]  Ophtalmodouleia

Georg Bartisch (c. 1535 - 1606)

Folio-leaf: 295 x 195 mm. Leaves: (28), 274, (8). Title printed in red and
black within a fine woodcut border with the arms of Saxony and Dresden and
that of Georg Bartisch (a cock), dedication to the Elector of Saxony with
his arms, arms of the City of Dresden, portrait of Bartisch at the age of
43, and 88 full-page woodcuts, two of which show the brain and the eye with
overlay flaps; at the end the device of Matthias Stvckel. The woodcuts,
incl. title-border, arms, portrait, are all coloured by hand. Probably bound
by Jacob Krause in Dresden in full brown calf, gilt, with large arabesque
corner pieces and oval centre-piece, gilt gauffered edges. Engraved
book-plate in folio size by Aegidius Sadeler: Peter Vok Orsini of Rosen berg
(1539 - 1611). A magnificent copy of one of the most fascinating woodcut
books of the sixteenth century with all the remarkable full-page woodcuts
delicately and brightly coloured by hand. For good reason it may be assumed
to be a presentation copy for the wealthiest and most powerful nobleman in
Bohemia, Peter Vok of Rosen berg, noted for his love of splendour and the
proprietor of one of the most famous libraries ever formed north of the
Alps. His book-plate, here in its folio version (one of the largest we know
of), adorns the entire inside front cover. Bartisch's Augendienst, printed
at his own expense, is dedicated to Augustus I of Saxony (1526 - 1586), who
employed Bartisch as court oculist. The Elector's own copy is still
preserved in the State Library of Dresden. Like Peter Vok's copy its
woodcuts are all coloured and it is bound by Jacob Krause, the greatest
German bookbinder of the Renaissance, who from 1566 to 1585 made a great
number of gilt or blind-tooled bindings for the Elector, but also a few to
foreign rulers. It may have come quite naturally even to Peter Vok to order
or to be presented with an equally extravagant copy of such a splendid book
as that of Bartisch's Augendienst. The binding in its oriental style and
gilt and gauffered edges corresponds to those Krause and his school in
Dresden made for the Elector of Saxony.