Bible German Binding (2 results)

Full Period Calf. Condition: Very Good Plus. Book measures 16 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches. Collation, 815 pages. Bound in original publishers leather backed wooden boards, raised bands, one leather,metal clasps, and five square decorative metal studs on each board, full marble edges, coloured endpapers. Calf has some very minor wear, hinge joints rubbed, but boards very firm, lacking one metal clasp. A very nice period binding. Internally, pages very clean throughout. A very nice clean copy, in a very unusual attractive binding. F Size: Folio - over 12" - 15" tall.

Fourth Edition. 430 x 315 mm. (16 3/4 x 12 1/4"). Two volumes. Translated into German by Dr. Joseph Franz Allioli. PUBLISHER'S SPLENDID RED CLOTH VERY ELABORATELY STAMPED IN GILT AND BLIND, covers with bevelled edges, thick and thin gilt-rule border enclosing ornate blind-stamped frame, large central oval containing a lobed gilt frame with gilt lettering inside, spine divided into blind-stamped panels by decorative and plain gilt rules, two large panels with gilt lettering and volume number, original cloth hinges, white moiré paper endpapers, all edges gilt. IN THE ORIGINAL PRINTED GRAY DUST JACKETS (jacket of second volume with small, very expert repairs at bottom) and the original black cardboard clamshell boxes (solidly reinforced with black tape). WITH 230 DRAMATIC PLATES BY GUSTAVE DORÉ. Volume I with four leaves for recording family members, marriages, births, and deaths, each with a decorative frame, all unused. Malan, "Doré," p. 85. Isolated spots of minor foxing (due to paper content), one cover of the (very rarely seen) dust jackets with red offsetting from the frame on the cover, but AN UNSURPASSABLE COPY--clean, fresh, and bright internally, the bindings and jackets IN SPARKLING CONDITION. This is a time-capsule copy of perhaps the most popular illustrated Bible ever issued, and one of the very few Bibles which has always been known by the name of its illustrator. According to his biographer, the artist was excited by the "almost endless series of intensely dramatic events" he would get to portray; the results, originally created for the 1866 Grand Bible of Tours, are so evocative that the critic Bouchot called them "the terror of frail readers." Doré (1832-83) makes remarkable use of light, shadow, and composition to convey the full range of splendor, horror, pathos, and ecstasy contained in the Scriptures. Because he was so prolific (it is estimated that he made more than 100,000 designs in his lifetime), Doré inevitably had his detractors, but Ray says simply that he was "one of the greatest of all illustrators." Taine says that "every imagination appeared languid in comparison with his. For energy, force, superabundance, originality, sparkle, and gloomy grandeur, I know of only one equal to his--that of Tintoretto." The Doré Bible was translated into at least 24 languages; ours is the German version by Catholic theologian Joseph Franz Allioli (1793-1873). According to Malan, "The Roman Catholic Church has never diminished its praise of these illustrations." And these illustrations endured in many Catholic and Protestant Bibles, especially during the last third of the 19th century, but actually until the present. The Bible was such a cultural phenomenon that Mark Twain even mentioned it in "Tom Sawyer" as a motivating prize for students to learn Scripture. The Bible's success prompted Doré to reinterpret his illustrations in huge paintings that were displayed at Doré Gallery in London. Malan says that the exhibition "was considered the greatest collection of religious paintings in the world." The boxes that were issued with our set have clearly weathered some blows over the years, but they did their job perfectly, as the volumes they protected hardly seem to have been opened in their lifetime, and their dust jackets (even considering the minor repair) are also in a breathtaking state of preservation.