Lot 77 | MAXIMILIAN I (1459-1519) -- Images de saints et saintes issus de la famille de l'Empereur Maximilien I... d'aprŠs les dessins de Hans Burgmaier. Edited by Adam Bartsch. Vienna: widow of Alberti for F.X. St”ckl, 1799.
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2o (419 x 297mm). 119 woodcuts after Beck, formerly attributed to Burgkmaier. (Title and letterpress spotted, a few heavy spots on plate 40, most other plates lightly spotted, plate 88 with soil mark at upper margin.) 19th-century yellow boards, red speckled edges (lacking most of spine, covers worn at extremities). Provenance : captions, naming the saints, pencilled in. 'BECK'S MOST ORIGINAL AND IMPORTANT WORK' (Dodgson II, p. 132). The woodcuts were based on a literary work by Jacob Mennel (1470-1526), written as part of an intended F쳌rstliche Chronik or Geburtspiegel, a general account of Maximilian's ancestry. The Emperor's death led Mennel to publish it separately as Seel unnd heiligen Buch Keiser Maximilians Altfordern (Freiburg, 1522). Apart from the earliest proofs, there have been four editions of the woodcuts, two appearing in the 16th century (1522 and 1551) but containing only 89 woodcuts, while this is the first of two modern editions cited by Hollstein. With the exception of St. George, by Springinklee, which has no place in the series, the 119 cuts are all from the original blocks, still preserved at Vienna (of 123 blocks, three were too badly damaged to be used in the 1799 edition, and two blocks were lost). Bartsch was right in attributing the whole work to a single artist, though this subsequently proved to be Leonhard Beck (d. 1542) rather than Burgkmaier. The woodcutters are the group who worked at Augsburg in the Emperor's service under the direction of Jost de Negker. Brunet I, 1404; Dodgson II p. 126/9 & p. 131/56-142; Hollstein II, Beck /12; Graesse I, 576; Lipperheide Oc4.
