Monthly Archives: May 2014

A Binding by Thomas Krüger 1580

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Signed and dated: T.K. 1563. British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. ‘Modern impression’ print acquired by the British Museum in 1867, of panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder.
British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115
Front cover of Ex 5646.604.

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. Panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on front cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604.

From a description of an instance of the use of this panel on a binding at the British Library:

“Thomas Krüger, possibly the son of the binder Nikolaus Krüger of Wittenberg and himself a binder, started work not later than 1560. A number of his panels were signed, either with his full name or with his initials, and some were dated. … The large Melanchthon panel on this binding, dated 1563 and with Cranach’s device at the bottom, … [Ed.: note Cranach’s device: Cranach's.device.from.Weale1]… was copied from a woodcut by Cranach dated 1561,showing Melanchthon wearing the same fur-trimmed robe, neckcloth and shoes as on the panel, but with a closed instead of an open book in his right hand and a cap in his left. The face and hair are remarkably alike. The same woodcut served as example for the panels of other Wittenberg binders, such as those signed by Severin Rötter and Nikolaus Müller.” (- Mirjam M. Foot, “A Binding by Thomas Kruger, 1573. ” The Book Collector Vol 30, no. 2 (Summer 1981) p. 232-3. For image see the British Library Database of Bookbindings [link])

The back cover of this Leipzig, 1580 Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Book of Concord) is stamped in gold with a full length portrait of Martin Luther, a panel also made by Thomas Krüger. Surrounding both panels is a blind decorative roll composed of four portrait heads and three coats of arms. The roll is signed ‘H.B.,’viz., Heinrich Blume, also of Wittenberg. Further details and bibliography about these two panels and one decorative roll are available in the Einbanddatenbanken (EBDB). For Luther, see Zitiernummer EBDB p002949; for Melanchthon, Zitiernummer EBDB p002950 and for roll signed ‘H B’ with four heads and three coats of arms, see Zitiernummer EBDB r000351

❧ Larger images

Signed and dated: T.K. 1563. British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. ‘Modern impression’ print acquired by the British Museum in 1867, of panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder.
British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115

Front cover of Ex 5646.604.

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. Panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on front cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604.

Full length portrait of Martin Luther. Panel signed T.K., that is, Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on back cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604

Full length portrait of Martin Luther. Panel signed T.K., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on back cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604

Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s Advice to Bathers (1819)

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Frontispiece to The Art of Swimming(London: John Bailey, 1819). Call number: Ex 4244.361

Frontispiece to The Art of Swimming (London: John Bailey, [1819]). Call number: Ex 4244.361. ❧ Captions of vignettes: To Swim Backwards; To Carry the Left Leg in the Right Hand; On the Manner of Diving; To Float with the Face Towards the Sky; To Cut the Nails of Your Toes in the Water.

Call number Ex 4244 361

Titlepage of The Art of Swimming … and Advice to Bathers, by the Late Celebrated Dr. Benj. Franklin (London: John Bailey, [1819]) Call number: Ex 4244 361.

The “Cautions To Learners, and Advice to Bathers, by the Late Celebrated Dr. Benj. Franklin” are “a pastiche of pieces of two of the good Doctor’s letters, one to Oliver Neave written some time before 1769 and the other to Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg of March 1773”

These letters were available in published form during the 18th century: that to Neave, published in Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity. (4th edition, London, 1769), pp. 463-8; and that to Barbeu-Dubourg appeared in an English translation published in the Works of the late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (London, 1793, 1794, 1796, 1799; Dublin, 1793, Dundee, 1796, 1800) (per Edwin Wolf 2nd, Annual Report of the Library Company of Philadelphia for the Year 1980, p.47).

This pastische was first published as such in London by Ann Lemoine in 1798 (ESTC N64777, T216540, and N50903) and was reprinted many times thereafter.

The Princeton copy illustrated here is one such reprint. The date ‘1819’ was assigned by a bibliographer of the literature of swimming, Ralph Thomas, in his Swimming; With Lists of Books Published in English, German, French and Other European Languages [1904], p. 224.

Thomas also notes that this reprint has the ‘objectional interpolation’ – a moniker for nonsense advice thus explained by Thomas: “Unfortunately about 1812 some ignoramus in one of the catchpenny reprints after ‘Then plunge under it with your eyes open’ added ‘which must be kept open before going under, as you cannot open the eyelids for the weight of water above you.’ This nonsense, which at once stamps the writer, and all those who quote it, as ignorant of diving, because it is perfectly easy to open the eyes under water, has been copied from one publication to another, right down to the present day [1904]: nobody ever thinking of verifying the passage, but some of the later writers have refuted the idea.” (p. 188)

Full text of this Princeton copy is available at Hathi Trust.
See http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101050403599