Musinsky Rare Books

[SUDERMANN, Daniel (1550-1631?)].

Schöne ausserlesene Figuren und hohe Lehren von der Begnadeten Liebhabenden Seele, Nemlich der Christlichen Kirchen und ihre[n] Gemahl Jesu Christo. [Strassburg]: Jacob van der Heyde[n] sculpsit, [ca. 1620-1625].

Bound with: 50 Schöne ausserlesene Sin[n]reiche Figuren auch Gleichnüssen Erklärüngen Gebettlein und hohe Lehr[en] ... Der II. theil. [Strassburg]: Gedruckt bey Jacob von der Heyde[n] Kupferstecher, [ca. 1618-1620].

[And with:] Schöne ausserlesene Sinnreiche Figuren auch Gleichnüss Erklärungen und hohe lehren ... Der III theil. [Strassburg]: Gedruckt bey Johann Erhard Wagner In verlegung Jacobs van der Heyden, [ca. 1620].

[And with:] XXXXX Schöner ausserlesener Sinreicher Figuren auch gleichnussen Erklarungen Gebetlein und hoherlehren ... Der IIII theil. [Strassburg]: Ins Kupfer gebracht und in druck geben [sic] durch Jacob van der Heyden, 1628.

4 parts in one, small folio (232 x 145 mm), separately foliated (see contents below), totaling 197 leaves (including four engraved titles), all printed on one side only, including 12 small mounted engravings (2 mounted on versos of printed leaves). All but five leaves entirely engraved, the exceptions being five letterpress leaves with engraved vignettes; all but three leaves (fols. 48-50 of part 1, unillustrated) comprising text and a vignette illustration at top, most engraved by Jacob van der Heyden, with his monogram or signature, a few by Johann Erhard Wagner, nearly all signed “D.S.” (the poet), printed from copperplates of various sizes. Most in fine, dark impressions. Interleaved, with 3 blank leaves at front and 33 at end.
Condition: Repaired marginal tear at foot of first leaf, fingersoiling to first few plates, occasional foxing, browning to plates 1-27 in part 2 and last dozen plates in part 4, 2 plates with small abrasions.
Binding: Eighteenth-century laced-case parchment over pasteboards, sewn on six thong sewing supports, manuscript title on spine (D.S. / Schöne / Figuren u[nd] Lehren / Theil 1-4. / Meyer Zeitbretrachtung [this last indication incorrect]), edges red-stained.
Provenance: The number fifty (L) added in manuscript at top of first title. Napoléon Fourgeaud-Lagrèze (1831-1876), lawyer, bibliophile, and bibliographer from Ribérac, Dordogne, author of L’Imprimerie en Périgord... 1498-1874 (Ribérac, 1875) and a few other works, engraved bookplate with motto “Res optimae res pessimae,” his(?) manuscript notes on front free endpaper.***

Over two-hundred mystical illustrated poems by the prolific Reformist poet Daniel Sudermann, who conceived of text and picture as inseparable. This is an unusually comprehensive collection of his picture-poems.

Born in Liège, Sudermann was the son of a goldsmith and painter, Lambert Zutman or Sudermann. Although baptized a Catholic, he attended a Calvinist school. He spent his early career as a “housemaster” or tutor for the children of noble families throughout Germany and the Netherlands. In 1585 his new position as vicar in Strassburg brought him into contact with the teachings of Caspar Schwenkfeld, whom he met in 1594. Sudermann became a collector and disseminator of the medieval mystical texts of Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Heinrich Seuse and others, while composing hundreds of his own hymns and songs, written in Knittelvers couplets, and disseminated in ephemeral illustrated sheets.

Sudermann envisioned his poems with pictures. To realize his visions he called on the services of the eminent Strassburg engraver and print publisher Jacob van der Heyden (1573-1645); a minority were engraved by Heyden’s lesser-known colleague Johann Erhard Wagner. Sudermann’s “close relationship with painting and the graphic arts of his time is responsible for the peculiar form in which he published his poems. For the most part, each poem is entirely engraved in copper and is accompanied by an illustration ... His attention is devoted entirely to the heavens, but he employs concrete ideas in order to describe symbolically transcendent concepts” (Faber du Faur, p. 27).

Generally, each leaf includes a title or caption at top, surmounting an emblematic illustration, below which is the corresponding poem or song by Sudermann, with at the foot (in most but not all cases) a citation from the Bible or from mystics like Tauler or Eckhart. In the margins of the poems Sudermann’s sources are indicated in very small calligraphic lettering. The engraved emblems are engagingly varied, dramatic mystical visions alternating with images of daily life, featuring distant landscapes or pastoral settings. The format of the plates is equally eclectic: the platemarks are of different sizes; in some the text is in one column, in others in two columns. Always finely engraved, mostly with elegant flourishes, the scripts come in a range of sizes, some tiny.

The bibliography of Sudermann’s publications is confusing. Sudermann composed hundreds of poems, essentially hymns, to be sung to known melodies. They circulated in manuscript and print, and most were sold individually, as is evident from a glance at the 162 entries of VD 17 (Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts). Collaborating mainly with van der Heyden, Sudermann produced a few collections of the poems, but it appears that no two copies are exactly alike. Already in 1864 the scholar Wackernagel had to concede defeat: “one must conclude that Sudermann decided the order and contents of the plates differently at different times, and that he produced various different editions of this collection” [that is, different editions of plates under the same titles, or the same titles with various alterations to the copperplates] (Wackernagel I, p. 713, transl.).

Comparison of this copy with the digitized copies of the University of Göttingen and the Getty (parts 2 and 3), and with descriptions of copies in the Faber du Faur catalogue, Landwehr, Praz, Wackernagel, and the Haus der Bücher Deutsche Literatur der Barockeit catalogue, confirms that no copies of any part are exactly identical; the differences range from re-engraved numbering to different selections of poem-plates. In this copy no series is complete, but the gaps are filled by other plates or letterpress sheets of Sudermann’s poems (some with re-engraved numbering, or numbers added in ink). The five letterpress leaves would have been distributed individually as “fliegende Blätter” or loose sheets.

Contents:
Part 1: Schöne ausserlesene Figuren und hohe Lehren.
50 leaves, all but one engraved, the last 3 unillustrated. Plates 10, 11, 22, 23, 26, and 27 of the original series are absent, and are replaced by different plates or leaves of Sudermann poems, numbered in manuscript 31, 32, 33-35, and 30. In this group “31” and “33” are unsigned but appear to be by van der Heyden; “32,” in narrower format and with an etched vignette, is signed at the foot by Johann Erhard Wagner; “34” is a calligram forming interlacing orbs and a cross; “35” contains text with a diagram of a clock face; and “30” is a letterpress sheet with an engraving by van der Heyden (see below).

Part 2: 50 Schöne ausserlesene sin[n]reiche Figuren ... II. theil.
49 leaves of which 2 letterpress. Many of the numbers were evidently altered in the plate (plate 40 is numbered “04”). Plate 9 is dated 1618. Without nos. 13, 18 and 19 of the series. Numbers 18 and 19 are replaced by 2 letterpress leaves with engraved vignettes, the first wider than the text block and neatly folded (short tear at top of fold), printed number 5 in right margin, the second numbered “29” in ink (both identified below). Except for the three missing plates, this copy matches the Göttingen copy, which also only has 49 plates (Faber du Faur calls for 50 plates). The Getty copy with this title is a nonce collection of plates. Some copies do not have the engraved numeral “50” at top or the mention Der II theil (both visibly added later).

Part 3: Schöne ausserlesene Sinnreiche Figuren ... Der III. Theil.
48 plates, numbered 1-16, 19-38, 43-44, and 10 small mounted plates, containing 57 separate poems and illustrations: plate 38 and the next two plates, with partly deleted numbers 43 and 44, each have four small scenes with short poems signed D. S. Ten small mounted plates follow; these have the same layout as the larger plates; most are signed D. S., one with van der Heyden’s monogram. Some of these are transcribed by Wackernagel (V: p. 655-656), from the copy that he examined in Berlin (that copy was lost in the war).

The sequence of plates matches neither the Getty nor the Göttingen digitized copies. A few are in the Getty copy, which contains 49 unnumbered plates. The Göttingen copy contains only 9 plates, of which only the first plate, showing a globe, appears in this copy. It also has a different wording of the imprint, and the III Theil appears in a different place on the title.

Part 4: XXXXX Schöner ausserlesener Sinreicher Figuren ... Der IIII. Theil.
50 leaves of which 2 letterpress. Without plates 14-15 and 38-39. Two small plates mounted on the versos of plates 13 and 16 (from the same series as the mounted plates in part 3). Replacing plates 38-39 are letterpress sheets with engravings (numbered 38 and 39 in ink). The 46 plates which are part of the series match the Göttingen copy (the only other recorded copy).

The letterpress sheets are as follows (in order of their appearance in the volume):
- Ein tröstliche Lehr vnd Exempel Dass der Sathan unser aller Ankläger welcher uns wegen unserer Sünde Tag vnd Nacht verklagt von Gott verworffen seye ...
First line of poem: “Man sagt ein schön tröstliche Lehr.” Imprint: Bay Jacob von der Heyden, s.d.
- Eine Lehr dass die Seel von aller Creaturen Anhang frey ... First line of poem: “Hör Mensch weil Gott sein Reichthumb gros.” No imprint. Cf. Jantz Collection 232 (one of 8 leaves).
- Ein Tröstliche Lehr im innerlichen Leyden ... 1st line of poem: “Ich schweb uber ein Abgrund hoch,” imprint: [Strassburg?] bey Jacob von der Heyden, [1620].
- Ein hohe Lehr durch sichtbarliche Gleichniss der Natürlichen Dingen zuverstehen gegeben ... First line of poem: “Wer haben will ein Kernen rein.” No imprint.
- Ein Lehr Exempelsweiss uns fürgestelt ... First line of poem: “Ein alte Schlang suchet von Art”. No imprint.
All but the second poem are from a set of 5 leaves: Wackernagel I: 712, 435; Landwehr 565.

With 206 poems on 197 leaves, all but 4 illustrated, this appears to be the most comprehensive collection of sudermann’s poems to come on the market in years. In comparison, a copy with 61 plates or poems was offered in 1963 by the Basel booksellers Haus der Bücher, who described it “one of the most extensive” known collections of Sudermann’s poems (it was one of the ten highest priced books in the catalogue of 1150 items).

American institutional copies of parts 1-3 are found at the Getty, Yale, and Univ. of Chicago; a copy at West Point appears to have all four parts, and one at Harvard, catalogued under the title Fünffzig schöner ausserlesener sinnreicher figuren, is described as having 90 plates. As noted above, contents of the volumes vary. The largest US collections of Sudermann poems are held by Yale (Faber du Faur collection) and Duke (Harold Jantz collection). The Jantz collection does not seem to include these titles, but some of the plates may appear under other titles in the holdings. Indiana University also has a collection of Sudermann’s plates, many of which, they note, appeared in the Schöne auszerlesene Sinnreiche Figuren.

VD 17 23:633884U (part 1), 23:633882D (part 2), 7:719406G (part 3), 7:720280S and 7:720279D (part 4); Faber du Faur, German Baroque Literature, p. 28, nos. 96-98 (parts 1-3); Landwehr, German Emblem Books 571, 572, 573, 570; Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, pp. 507-508; Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zu Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts 1: pp. 712-721 (nos. 436, 437, 442, and 447), see also 5: 546-7; Haus der Bücher, Deutsche Literatur der Barockzeit (Catalogue 707), 1009. Cf. Thieme Becker 17: 17-18 and 35: 38; Killy, Literatur-Lexikon 11: 280-81. Item #4299

Price: $9,500.00