Egenolff, Christian. Modelbüch aller art nehewercks und stickens : Mit ettlichen neuen künstlichen vormals verhaltenen stucken und staplen, als, venedigische stern und gewirck, off der laden und nach der sal, die welisch, weis arbeit, glattstich, creutzstitch, stickwerk, u.

Folger bibliographic ID: 353940
Folger call number: 270160
Folger holdings ID: 502284
Accession Number: 270160

Edition

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General notes

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Item information about Folger 270160

From dealer's description: "Title printed in red and black, with large woodcut initial M, woodcut headpiece, and woodcut illustration after Hans Sebald Beham, showing four seated women at work in a garden, weaving, embroidering, and spinning, and a standing man; no text, TWO HUNDRED SIXTEEN WOODBLOCKS OF NEEDLEWORK DESIGNS, about 22 blocks including more than one design. Very minor and discreet marginal repairs in first and last leaves, otherwise in fine condition. 18th-century marbled endpapers preserved as wrappers, bound in modern burgundy morocco gilt, by Asper of Geneva. A superb sixteenth-century pattern book for lace and needlework, of the utmost rarity, and in fine condition. The 63 pages of designs, comprising geometric, arabesque, floral, figural, classical, and orientalizing imagery, run the gamut of popular sixteenth-century ornament. Many of the woodcuts are white-on-black. Except for two religious images at the end, the motifs are secular. Several are of Middle Eastern origin. One block, on fol. C2r, shows a gothic alphabet. Two circular interlace designs recall Durer's copies of Milanese roundels, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Much of this edition copies designs from Heinrich Quentell's Cologne 1541 edition. Christoph Egenolff and his heirs were notorious imitators or plagiarizers of other publishers' successes, and their many editions of popular herbals, pattern books, and other illustrated books often reached a wider public than the books they were imitating. The Egenolff firm's signature characteristic, in all of their textile pattern books, was a helter-skelter but enchanting juxtaposition of widely varying popular designs, well exemplified here. In the case of pattern books, however, a publishing free-for-all was already well under way in Europe. The earliest known printed textile pattern book was printed by Johann Schonsperger circa 1523. Within a few years the genre had mushroomed. Rather than borrowing blocks, printers and publishers simply had them cut anew, with the result that, "in certain cases, at least five fairly similar blocks must have been in use across Europe at about the same time, alongside other iterations of the same, or similar, patterns. Over time. .. the web of exchange would become increasingly entangled, making it very difficult to establish where the patterns had originated, and it is therefore easy to understand why, to someone like William Ivins, the pattern books represented a bibliographic nightmare" (Speelberg, p. 22). Lotz lists nine Egenolff pattern books; this edition was the third to borrow from Quentell's 1541 edition, which in turn owed much to the books of Narcissus Renner. The title cut by Hans Sebald Beham had appeared in two earlier Egenolff editions, of ca. 1550 and 1564, according to Lotz. It was also used in Gulferrich's Modelbuch of 1553. The remarkable condition of this copy shows that it was never used. "As Metropolitan Museum curator Janet S. Byrne fittingly wrote, the pattern books 'are apt to be incomplete and in poor condition because their sixteenth- century owners tore out pages, pasted or nailed them to workroom walls, fingered, folded, cut, scribbled on them, chalked and pricked them for transfer'" (Speelberg, p. 23, citing Byrne, 'Patterns by Master f,' Metropolitan Museum Journal 14 [1979], p. 106). Speelberg's spectacular recent exhibit at the Met reproduced a print depicting the several ways that designs from embroidery books could be transferred: they were often literally torn apart, and it is almost a miracle that any copies have survived at all. I locate one other copy of this edition, at the Bibliotheque nationale de France." Ordered from Nina Musinsky Rare Books, D 9186, 2018-03-22, email quote

Extended title: Modelbüch aller art nehewercks und stickens : Mit ettlichen neuen künstlichen vormals verhaltenen stucken und staplen, als, venedigische stern und gewirck, off der laden und nach der sal, die welisch, weis arbeit, glattstich, creutzstitch, stickwerk, u. / bei Christian Egenolff

Embroidery Weaving Needlework Germany

author: Egenolff, Christian, 1502-1555
associated with: Beham, Hans Sebald, 1500-1550