[BINDING] - PLAUTO (250-184 a.C) - Comoediae XX superstites. Wittenberg: apud Zachariam Schurerum, 1612.   Plautus' 20 comedies are gathered here in an elegant finely blindstamped pigskin binding dated just a few years after printing. The endpapers are decorated with fascinating romantic-style drawings dating back to the 19th century and made with ink, watercolours and pastels: the endpaper depict two family coats of arms with the motto "Vita breve, ars longa. Ex leonum domo"; on the recto of the guard leaf, the portrait of Talia, muse of the Theater, has been executed in a rich chiaroscuro signed "Emil Steiner 1881"; finally, on the verso of the leaf, a text in a cartouche reports the life of the curator: "Friedrich Taubmann geb. 1516. Zu monseich in Franker besuchte die Schule von Culmbach, daim Pensionazin der von Markgraf Friedrich Georg Von Brandenburg in Heilbranngestitetem. Studinte zu Wittenburg var Professor der Humanitaet. 1595 ?. 24 maerz 1613". These drawings could be attributed to the Berlin sculptor Emil Steiner (1848-1900), trained at the Berlin Academy of Arts and active between 1870 and 1893, the year in which, following numerous professional disappointments, he was hospitalized in the psychiatric hospital of Dalldorf. One of his notebooks of drawings is now kept in the Prinzhorn Collection (T. Röske).   4to (240 x 180mm). Printer's device on title page, woodcut headpieces and initials (lacking leaves from a3 to 2)(4 and 4u1, restorations on the reinforced title page that do not touch the text, small restorations on the margins of the first gathering, restorations on the lower corner of the leaves 2T2, 4G4 and in the upper margin of u3 and u4, restoration and traces of adhesive tape on paper 4G1 without loss of text, tear on paper 4b2 without loss of text, browned). Contemporary blindstamped pigskin dated 1618 bearing the initials I-H-L-M, manuscript title barely visible on the spine, elaborate drawings on the anterior endpapers (joints broken and restored, many defects). Provenance: few contemporary annotations and underlinings in red and black ink.

Estimate € 150 - 250

Sold € 240