And even more so if it is about a
serialized story
You recollect that and how in 2010 niemeyer’s followed Dresden’s question
“ What is BEAUTIFUL ? ”
as the theme of the big special exhibition of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum at the Lingnerplatz on his stage , his way , and proposed for the epilog per January AHA his answer to the question Wolfgang Klein raised in the exhibition catalog for what Rilke might have meant by his statement For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.
And how niemeyer’s answered it with Platen’s word He whose eyes have looked on beauty is at the mercy of death already and illustrated it with ridinger’s Omnia mihi subdita. Yet called, as hopeful outlook, rather, as certainty, Reagan and Goethe to the stand and also did not disregard popular wisdom whose
“ but life goes on ”
is just as banal as true.
And here then shall be enacted as promised continuation by
whether old year ,
whether new year ,
forever rolls …
Der Venuswagen
( The Chariot of Venus )
A Collection
of Erotic Private Editions
WITH ORIGINAL PRINTS
Published
as
PRIVATE EDITIONS
OF THE
GURLITT PRESS
by
Alfred Richard Meyer
( Munkepunke )
First Series
9 Volumes
( for each following month one .
All published , naturally )
Berlin 1919/1920
First and final number of copies
740
( 700 for the hoi polloi
&
40 for the upper crust )
That’s all quite nice indeed .
Yet not for niemeyer’s way of seeing themselves .
Below Roman No. I and such they just won’t do .
So ? ?
Of course ! ! Certainly legendary ! !
Doctor Heinrich Stinnes‘
obligatory Number I ! !
In ruby red morocco
with volume by volume the paw-like ownership note ! !
Within niemeyer’s red series . Now then .
« Art is genius ,
and the genius has by no means at all
feel bound to the society , the community .
An art which ‘goes to the people’
makes the necessities (to be added here , of the district attorney)
of the masses , the little man ,
the Philistinism
its own
falls into misery »
Thomas Mann
Prince of the No. I
The wire-stitched 33-sheet prospectus “in a wrapper of the looks of a toilet soap package … as foretaste of what is to be expected” (Horst Stobbe) of the same year front-running to the prelude of the Venuswagen here no more present than the 14-page private edition (Memorandum concerning Confiscation of the ‘Venuswagen’) by Alfred Weise from 1922. The latter, because the series came hot off the press into the Cologne suburb domicile of the industrial heir, the former, because this giant among the collectors of modern prints & book illustration from about Goya – Lugt mentions about 200,000 sheet – could be certain of his No. I. Which publisher would have dared to forego to come up to
this absolute need of this absolute character
the more naturally as by the acceptance in this noble collection seeing his publication and therefore himself ennobled. Gurlitt, Pope of Art of his time, numbered in the present case just matter-of-factly
“ This copy of the luxury edition bears the No. I ”,
with only the I entered in writing. Elsewhere it was done differently, too. Imprimée spécialement pour M. le docteur Stinnes was in addition to the I the imprint of a volume traded here just at the beginning in 1959. It was my first Stinnes. And an early pride into the bargain. And unchanged fresh the fascination about this grandeur of a collector, indeed, towards collecting provenances in general for their barely limited living on far beyond the temporalness of individual and collection, ready for intimate dialogue with one of them, granting insight not least into the most inside.
So then here, too. Volume by volume on the fly-leaf the collector’s written ownership note with source of purchase & price in deep black ink.
What a hand has wielded it !
Imperial stroke the weekly Die Zeit called them, hitting the bull’s eye, on January 5, 1950 on occasion of another one of the sales of the estate running since 1932 (Zeit online). And further
“ One recognized his temper also by the stroke, which a mighty claw had affixed on the passepartouts or even on the sheets themselves. For no graphical sheet came into the house … of which would not have been taken possession by this, almost manic manner. ”
So it seems indeed. And finds its equivalent in the red collection stamp together with 1/40 in the margin lower left
of each
of the
73 plate prints
Apropos possessory entry the writer of the Zeit, otherwise hitting the gist of the matter excellently, proves to be a bibliophile ignoramus yet when he groans:
“ Not with the pencil for instance, which a deleting eraser could have removed easily ( sic ! ) , but with deep black ink and imperial stroke, or even with an impertinent indelible pencil, which engraves itself with voluptuousness into the skin of the noblest Japan paper. A tattoo which mocks all removal arts of the most experienced restorer. ”
Only a Jacobin ever would get – and with certainty – the idea to force such an autograph, such a property trophy of the bluest blue under the guillotine of an eraser! What a sacrilege! What a gaffe! Where yet
“ … this sturdy taking into possession
probably (corresponded) with the hard hand of the brother Hugo Stinnes, which grasped at the blocks of shares of German industrial companies ? Was the strive for completeness, the propertied command of a wide field,
the character trait
which linked the otherwise so different brothers to each other ? ”
He was one of the Lannas , the Gutmanns , the Davidsohns , the Thyssens as the in the old world
“ first collector(s) of world culture
who come from an industrial world
… (and have) nothing (yet) in common with any of the earlier (princely) breeds of collectors ” (Lothar Brieger, Das Kunstsammeln, 3rd ed., 1920, pages 10 ff.). And continuing, as if he considers Heinrich Stinnes as the prototype plain and simple, “ He is , though he may not always like to hear it ,
not imaginable without the dealer ,
just for the reason that actually the dealer was the only human being with whom he got on well … (And) hand in hand with the dealer’s cultivation went (at the same time) the development of a better museum system.“ And summing up
“ For indeed those collectors, whom we may address as the fathers of our today again blossoming collecting, have
lived nothing , loved nothing and enjoyed nothing but works of art .”
Heinrich Stinnes (1867-1932) was one of these grandees. Pure as hardly any one else. A principal , as brother Hugo on his field. But, lo and behold, his survived the times better. We bow in awe.
niemeyer’s is proud having not only got once more , from this provenance , from this parade of Is , a collecting highlight , but by this 9-volume edition costing the publisher 1000 Mark immorality fine at the same time
a historico-cultural torch
par excellence
which had the law’s moral feeling glow up
as if the young republic , still vividly remembering the horrors of the war , had nothing more urgent to do than to flare up because of a noble edition for a small circle of intellectual élite to deprive the
Freedom of Arts
of the juice . They are here again today . These excitednesses , this panic eagerness , to actually only pull things into the limelight which the republic should be able to bear .
There’s only one thing to do :
the opening up of the soul . Of the own , the collecting , the art-loving self .
“ The night is the most beautiful ”
the pianist Eduard Erdmann , book collector of degrees , once said to his head-waiter in the Weinhaus Wiesel in Cologne . Shades of Heinrich Stinnes .
Ruby red orig. morocco on 5 ribs
in quarto (30.7 x 25 cm) with blind tooled front cover vignette and equal line on both covers as well as, gilt tooled, on the back, as the titles, too, green moiré inner covers & fly-leaves as well as gilt head edge. Two edges untrimmed.
Literature
Das Graphische Jahr
Fritz Gurlitt
2nd edition , Berlin 1922 , pp. 73 f.
Hayn-Gotendorf
Bibliotheca Germanorum Erotica & Curiosa
vol. IX (1919)
Ed. by Paul Englisch
pages 600 f. & individual references with the titles
Bilderlexikon der Erotik
vol. II (1929), 868 f.
Paul Englisch I
Geschichte der erotischen Literatur
Berlin 1927
page 287, 3 & individual references with the titles
Paul Englisch II
Irrgarten der Erotik
Eine Sittengeschichte über das gesamte Gebiet
der Welt-Pornographie
Leipsic 1931
page 299 & individual references with the titles
L. Lang
Expressionistische Buchillustration
in Deutschland 1907-1927
Lucerne (1975) , 70 , 134 & 144
The serial title Der Venuswagen from Schiller’s poem of the same name
as volume 1 of the series, whose 40 luxury copies were printed on strong laid paper and bound in leather (as here) or vellum or also, as not noted in the imprint, in silk.
Serial as individual titles mostly in red & black. – Within the generous preliminary matters on page 3 each lithographed serial vignette – content of the first volumes later modified – as not especially repeated in the following. – Plates printed on the Gurlitt press. – Beside the moiré fly-leaf at the beginning 2 & at the end 1 additional fly-leaves. On each of the fly-leaves following the front moiré fly-leaf the autograph owner’s note of Dr. Stinnes with full name & purchase note in black ink. The reference to the plates on the titles numbered in writing as far as not stated otherwise in the following. – With exception of two not intended for this and one inadvertently overlooked
all prints as well as the imprint
are signed by the respective artist .
Irrespective of described and, on their own, indeed impairing imperfections in the preservation of two volumes an
excellent state of preservation & as a whole a feast for the eyes
which disguises said imperfections sovereignly awaits you. This copy is downright
a synthesis of the arts
ennobled unrepeatably by provenance & Roman I
“ All (still available) prints were confiscated ”
(Englisch I. – Details also with the titles)
“ The Venuswagen has loaded strong spices , juicy herbs from Occident and Orient . Artists of reputation provide the trimmings , Mr. Alfred Richard Meyer has the reins . Eroticism goes well – Eroticism goes better than ever . Heigh-ho this will be a ride … ”
(Horst Stobbe in Die Bücherstube, vol. I, issue 2, pp. 71 f., quoted from Hayn-Gotendorf, op. cit., p. 600).
The courts saw this , see above , differently .
Or just so . How one takes it .
90 years later also this is relative. The trip threshold of sensitivenesses followed the strength of the offered tobacco. However , niemeyer’s , unchanged die-hard in esteeming the truly sublime, will rather restrain himself with the following samples of artistic wealth of ideas than lure with the plenty and not tell at once what is to be discovered yet. Shortly , he sides with the
Ladies from the Kurfürstendamm , Berlin ,
in Günter Neumann’s immortal Insulaner cabaret
50 years ago
“ You really are too prudish , my dear .”
“ Oh no .
The artists shall and have to go with the muses .
But where are they going ?
… if Goethe wanted to be vulgar for once
he set three little dots … ”
100 years later yet
he would have asked Mr. Alfred Richard Meyer …
The Chariot of Venus
A Poem. 1781.
With 8 (7 [sic!] signed) color lithographs
(15 x 25 and [7] c. 26 x 21-21.5 cm resp.,
2 of which inscribed in the stone with
Venusfinger and Inquisitia resp.)
by
Lovis Corinth
(Tapiau 1858 – Zandvoort 1925)
33 pages, 1 sheet imprint, 2 extra end fly-leaves. – Text printed by von Otto von Holten, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN I
H.-G. IX, 528 f.; Englisch I, 217 f.; E. II, 254 f.; Simon, Schiller’s ‘Venuswagen’, Euphorion 20/3 (1914)
No copy
in the Corinth print collection Beckmann=Bremen
united in 297 lots
at Puppel (Hollstein & Puppel), Berlin 1941
Europa on the Bull remained inadvertently unsigned. – Ribs slightly rubbed just as one spot each at upper field and lower edge of the back as well as the upper right corner of the front cover.
“ If we leaf through Schiller’s works for the poem ‘The Chariot of Venus’ we will hardly find it. Schiller’s first verses have always been ostracized. The poet has suppressed them himself. Yet – just for the beginning of the great artistic creativeness they are extremely characteristic; their value is not to be looked for in literary curiosity only.
When in December 1780 Schiller was discharged from the military academy at Stuttgart he took residence at the widow’s of a captain, at Mrs. Luise Vischer’s, whom we have to assume as the famous ‘Laura’. About the same time when in 1781 the author of the ‘Robbers’ wrote his ‘Fantasy to Laura’ also the ‘Venuswagen’ must have been created … ‘In the fiery-spirited manner which is characteristic for Schiller’s early poems and without any restrain in the choice of the erotic expressions (it) turns against the social and clerical hypocrisy in sexual matters. It has not been included into most editions of Schiller’s poems’ ”
(Alfred Richard Meyer in present epilog).
The Tame Prelude
“ Youth , o take a vow ,
Engrave it with golden figures !
Flee the rosiest Charybdis
And you will be heroes .”
“ (Corinth’s) uncouth drawings (so here, too) … deal with the woman as the man’s demoniacal subduer … (and) never he represents the woman as tolerating the man’s caresses, but emphasizes with sturdy lines the woman’s powerful vitality at which the man’s activity only ignites … Corinth’s total creativeness cannot be comprehended without the brutality of his never gratified desire … He regards the godsend of lust rather as a torture for which he holds responsible the demon woman …
The illustration of the … ‘Venuswagen’ …
in which Schiller lets go against the voluptuous ‘harlot woman’
therefore was his particular cup of tea
and for once one can concur with the court’s opinion to order the confiscation of the pictures (following l. 12, 18, 20, 24) for the reason that the emphasis were too much on the sexual, the lust for sexual intercourse and the lasciviousness of man and woman too clearly marked in their faces (file no.: 2. b. J. 26/20 Superior Court II Berlin) ”
(Englisch II, pages 252-255).
E. Jouy = Victor Josephe Etienne
named for his native place de Jouy
Sappho
or
The Lesbians
(1799)
With title & 6 signed plate etchings
(c. 19.5 x 14.5 cm)
as well as charming initials
by
Otto Schoff
(Bremen 1888 – Berlin 1938)
From the French by Balduin Alexander Möllhausen
25 pages, 1 leaf imprint, 2 extra end fly-leaves. – Text printed by Otto von Holten, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN II
H.-G. IX, 309 f.; Englisch I, 287 & 425; E. II, 242 & 265-266
The green inner covers & fly-leaves with tidemark above. At front at most 4 cm deep and decreasingly coloring the following two white fly-leaves, Stinnes’ ownership note just as untouched by this as at the back the impeccable imprint page with Roman I & Schoff’s signature. At the back otherwise 11 cm deep and strongly coloring the two white end papers, yet the first of which affected on front only slightly anymore. Feebly green upper edge then on pages 9/10 & following etching, then more generally, partly virtually imperceptible feeble narrow brown stripe, the farthest upper edge occasionally also with a touch of green. – One cover tissue paper each defect lower right and lower edge resp. – Of the tidemarks on the binding basically worth mentioning just the slight little dark rim on the left half of the lower edge of the front cover, duly registered otherwise still front cover above & on three sides on the back cover. All in all yet no less, but also no more than a partial slip with immaculate freshness of all the rest.
After years of trade of war laying down arms in 1797 Jouy (1764-1848, librettist of, i. a., Rossini’s William Tell) turns to the light entertainment and becomes one of its best in his time.
“ Now, 1799, we are in the year of birth of his delicious erotic little book, the ‘Galerie des Femmes’, to whose seventh … painting ‘Sappho ou les Lesbiennes’ Charles Monselet devoted a longer chapter in his ‘Galanteries du XVIIIe Siècle’ published Paris 1862. Here in this country especially Ivan Bloch has referred to Jouy’s ‘Lesbians’ from the ‘enchanting Galerie des Femmes’ in his ‘Sexual Life of Our Time’ (10th – 12th ed., Berlin 1919, p. 767) as a
classic masterpiece of erotic literature
of the first French republic. It shall not be concealed that later Jouy was ashamed of
this most beautiful and most daring of his numerous works … ”
(Balduin Alexander Möllhausen in present epilog).
Confiscated then also still 120 years later in Germany “for the content and the etchings by Otto Schoff … A young dandy relates to his friend the tribade scene of three girls in truly classic form. The content is … strongly imbued with eroticism. Yet the lovely language makes the reader forget the adventurousness of the matter” (Englisch I, 287 & 425). And besides “The scandal … (only begins at all) when the police puts an end to it” (Karl Kraus, Sprüche und Widersprüche, Frankfort/Main, Suhrkamp, 1984, page 42). Here then indeed. For, so Englisch II, 265 f. :
“ The lovely portraits of girls he shows in erotic occupation have a lot of Fragonard’s gracious touch … His best known works are: 6 etchings for … ”, well, what supposed?
And so H.-G. qualified them
Initial at the start of the text erotic ,
after page 10 ( the above ) free , after page 12 erotic ,
after page 16 obscene , after page free ,
after page 20 erotic .
Numerous free initials
Fables
from
Indian Love Life
With 10 signed color lithographs
with additional monogram in the stone
(19.5-22 x 16-17.5 cm)
as well as pertinent large chapter initials
and figurative upper ledge & closing vignettes
by
Richard Janthur
(Zerbst 1883 – Berlin 1956)
47 pages, 1 leaf imprint. – Text printed by Spamersche Buchdruckerei Leipsic
DER VENUSWAGEN III
Continuously wavy from faint tidemark in the upper margin, first & final leaves somewhat more. Below mostly only less wavy and without tidemark, besides also not quite continuous. In the leather only little annoying trace at the upper edge of the covers. – One cover tissue paper in the lower right and lower margin defect. This all yet tolerable, disguised by the fine typography and … the strong vividness of the illustrations. Included even the initials.
Veneration the High Ganesa! – Three Mishaps by Own Fault – The Weaver as Vishnu – What a Single Dictum is worth – The Old Husband and the Young Wife – The Carpenter and His Unfaithful Wife – The Brahmin and His Adulterous Wife – How a Woman rewards Love – Woman’s Caprices – The Adulteress betrayed by Her Lover – Wondrous Healing of a Blind, Hunchback and a Three-breasted Princess .
“ In the following period, which began with a journey to Greece (1911), (Janthur) developed himself to an expressionist who achieved strong effects especially in the still-life. However , his talent as graphic artist (etcher and lithographer) had the most impressive consequences; he created illustrations which less accompany the text but have corresponding character. By a system of excited lineation which sticks only vaguely to the naturalistic model he knows to
acquire the inner suspense and psychic forces
of the respective poetry. In such quite personal form he has illustrated i. a. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ , ‘Gilgamesh’ ,
‘Panchatantra’
… Since 1911 he chiefly exhibited at the Berlin, later Free Secession and since 1919 with the ‘November Group’ at the Great Berlin Art Show ”
(Thieme-Becker XVIII [1925], 421).
The
Aldegrever Girl
A Novella
1911
With 8 signed & colored lithographs
by
Georg Walter Rössner
(Leipsic 1885 – ?)
(“ free , yet not erotic ” (H.-G. IX, 400 ;
19.5-22 x 13-19 cm)
and large opening initial
40 pages, 1 leaf imprint. – Text printed by Otto von Holten, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN IV
Preliminary matters in carmine & black. – Imprint correctly signed by the artist, not by the author as erroneously stated there.
Backed small margin tears, feeble brown stripe in the joint, in places minimally foxed. Minimal rubbing at the headcap and three small scratches on the front cover lower left.
Henry de Kock / Balduin A. Möllhausen
The Murder
in the Little Chestnut Wood
or
The Uneventful Wedding Night
With 6 signed color lithographs ,
of them the following one of the three confiscated ones ,
with additional signature in the stone
(18.5 x 15 cm)
as well as illustrated title
by
Franz Christophe
(Vienna 1875 – Berlin 1946)
52 pages, 1 leaf imprint. – Text printed by Otto von Holten, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN V
Hayn-Gotendorf IX, 326; Englisch I, 508; Englisch II, 252.
On the half-title sheet the title Henry de Kock / (The Story of Doctor Schultz). – Preliminary matters in green & black. – Without the collection-specific written specification of the number of plates in the title. – At the beginning minimal foxspots. – Minimal abrasions at headcap and three ribs at the back.
“ In lasciviousness Henry de Kock was not inferior to his namesake (Paul de Kock) … and also wrote some other free little story, for instance
in which the blood-curdling and erotic
came together to a strange unity ”
(Englisch I, 508).
Based on an authentic criminal case distressing the minds which originated near Mannheim 1784 and came to its striking point in Heidelberg ten years later.
“ Christophe … origins from a Berlin family of French refugiés … He has drawn for the Jugend , the Simplizissimus … the Lustige Blätter and other periodicals … 1911 he was represented with some pen-and-ink drawings on the International Art Show in Rome, too … By coloring he imparts to many of his sheets a particular charm.
Aubrey Beardsley’s influence is unmistakable in both his drawing and in many of the chosen subjects ”
(Thieme-Becker VI [1912], 549).
“ His drawings and etchings are vibrating with warm life , very sensuous , yet keep quite away from any speculation … He endeavors … to depict in particular the mightiest human emotion, love. And in this he succeeds technically quite brilliantly … Of his erotic works have to be mentioned … ” Well… ?
(Englisch II, 252).
Erotic Votive Plates
With 7 signed lithographs
with additional signature in the stone
(11.5-20 x 14-15.5 cm)
by
Willy Jaeckel
(Breslau 1888 – Berlin 1944)
32 pages, 1 leaf imprint. – Text printed by Printing Office Gustav Ascher, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN VI
Hayn-Gotendorf IX, 341 f.; Englisch I, 287.
Throughout in red & black. – Imprint correspondingly on heavy Dutch laid paper, not 1919 Zanders laid paper as stated by H.-G. – At the beginning only one fly-leaf, besides included in pagination. – One of the cover tissue papers with small tear-off and backed tear at the lower edge.
Vilshofen’s famous-notorious runaway Heinrich Lautensack who “ left his mother grieving ” (so Kristl in Bekenntnis zum sündigen Fleisch – H. Lautensack, in Börsenblatt für den Dt. Buchhandel, Frankfort edition, Antiquariats-Beilagen, 1975) with
Man and Woman – The Ugly Girl – Onan – Mary Magdalene – The Eunuch – Pan – The Blind Harper by the Rocks – Procreation – The Maid – Portrait created from Hair – Young Jewess – The Corset – Of the Gaiety of a Female Dancer at Night – The Canonization of the Hetaera – The Dream of the Jealous – Caspar Münich’s Love for Lola Schmitt .
So then likewise
“ confiscated … because of the lithographs by Willy Jäckel ”
(Englisch I, 287). The latter
“ Settled … in Berlin 1913, where he attracted attention already at his first appearance (at the Juryfreie Kunstschau 1913 and in a collective exhibition at the Salon Fritz Gurlitt the same year)
as a powerful and original master
… The pictures of the following years … demonstrate an intensive development … with ever stronger emphasis on the psychic expressive qualities of his ponderous human produce used in the meaning of a mystic natural symbolism … This impression is even intensified by the carnal-primeval character of J.’s man who (even) dressed does not deny the earthborn and earthbound. The coarse molding and the hard, harsh contour bestow upon the heavy, powerful-sensual blood of his man a force of the gesture and a degree of activity which also has the motionlessly depicted body seem literally charged with energy …
The intense inner urge … certainly was co-decisive for this downright passionate use of the graphic art which enabled him to elaborate his ideas by taking a big swing in the form of the cyclic structure. So were created … (among others)
the 7 lithographs for H. Lautensack: ‘Erotic Votive Plates’ ”
(Hans Vollmer in Thieme-Becker XVIII [1925], 324 f.).
(François-Marie Mayeur de Saint-Paul)
The Royal Orgy
or
The Austrian in Mood
An Opera
Published by a Life-guardsman
the Day of the Freedom of Press
1789
Set to Music by the Queen
With 6 signed plate lithographs
( “erotic and obscene”, H.-G.; 6.5-9 x 6-14.5 cm)
as well as 3 charming lithographed vignettes
by
Paul Scheurich
(New York 1883 – Brandenburg 1945)
For the first time translated into German by Engelbert Nern
and with his epilog
The Small Chambers
and the
Deer Park
38 pages, 1 leaf imprint, 2 end fly-leaves. – Text printed by Otto von Holten, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN VII
Barbier I, 323; Hayn-Gotendorf IX, 438
The author not researched by the publisher/translator. – Series vignette in orange, preliminary matters in orange & black. – All 6 plates with the collection stamp as custom, yet only five also with the written 1/40. – Partially faint shadow of a narrow tidemark at the lower edge, in the leaf of the imprint and the following white fly-leaf somewhat more. One of the cover tissue papers defect.
“ The preceding ‘Opéra Proverbe’ was published (anonymously and) without place 1789 under the exact title L’Autrichienne en goguette ou l’orgie royale … It is … an uncouth parody of those little musical plays Louis XV allegedly had played for him, and which in the people’s fantasy were much more shameless than certainly in reality. One finds the anecdotal of this little theater of voluptuousness in the book
‘ The Deer Park or the Seraglio of Louis XV.
A Gallery of Secret Memoirs of the Young Girls
who had been locked up in the same
to serve for the amusement of Louis XV .
A Contribution to the Chronique scandaleuse of France ’.
The folktale was so naive that it conferred the greatest part of the Bacchanals on Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, too … The secluded pavilion to which the king repaired to unrecognized was situated in the quarter of the deer park …
And the opera of the royal orgy, which mixes up two totally different Louis, (we will take confidently) as what it is: as a document of the revolution , a saucy theatrical scene , whose original once was
of much more tender poetry
as it is inherent to the art of Paul Scheurich once again ”
(E. Nern in his epilog, “p. 27-38 interesting historico-cultural sketch by the translator”, H.-G.). And
“ In spite of the historico-cultural interest (of present volume it) was forfeited to confiscation ”
(file no. 2. b. J. 26/20 , as above) .
Scheurich is “Primarily known for his precious models formed in rococo style for the porcelain factories Meissen, Karlsruhe, Nymphenburg and Berlin. His graphic portfolios mentioned in Thieme-Becker” (Vollmer IV, 183). Among them then also The Royal Orgy.
The Cherries
With 7 signed chalk lithographs
(“free, but not very erotic”, H.-G.; 17-20.5 x 10-19 cm)
as well as vignettes & upper ledge borders
by
Wilhelm Wagner
(Hanau 1887 – Bad Saarow 1968)
29 unnumbered leaves, 1 leaf imprint. – Text printed by Otto von Holten, Berlin
DER VENUSWAGEN VIII
Hayn-Gotendorf IX, 270; Englisch I, 191 f.
The serial vignette adjusted to the content. – Title in red & black. – The fine large typography especially worth mentioning. – At the beginning originally only one additional fly-leaf. – Without the collection-specific written specification of the number of prints in the title. – Only quite occasionally small foxspots. Minimal rubbing of the upper edge of the back cover.
“ Heinse (son of a pastor & pupil of Wieland, Langenwiesen, Thuringia, 1746 – Mayence 1803) advocated the emancipation of flesh. ‘Love tolerates no moral. Who dies while satisfying his passion is blessed!’ he confesses. Goedeke says quite right of him: ‘Heinse’s talent is unmistakable, but an intoxication of the senses without love, ecstasy without heart did not let him get to the beauty of the soul and the deed …’ … He made his (present 1773) poem after Dorat: Les Cérises et la double méprise, contes en verse … However, this himself has two predecessors and models resp., that is Beroalde de Verville (Moyen de parvenir) and Grécourt. The sujet has a large circulation …
The lustful depiction of the revealed feminine charms (here in word & picture) is the main point for Heinse. But in erotic regard, in the glorification of the free sensual pleasure, Heinse remained just a bungler. Also his works are
calculated only for an intellectually advanced circle of readers .
His followers and parrots knew better to get to the masses as they accommodated themselves eagerly to the taste of the reading-rabble … ”
(Paul Englisch). And Robert Koenig’s Deutsche Literaturgeschichte, 4th ed., 1879 :
“ Returned home (from an Italian journey) he entered the service of the enlightened elector of Mayence as Privy Councilor and librarian. Under the very nose of this religious (spacing in the original) gentleman he wrote his immoral books and read them aloud with much applause in the circle of the court. ”
“ It was in July , when Herr von Strahl ,
A hero , shortly Frederick’s general …
Weary of the city’s deadening ,
Idle of martial business ,
Decided to move into the country
From his splendid Berlin ”
Gilles de Rais
German by August Döppner
With 15 signed lithographs
by
Willi Geiger
with additional monogram in the stone
(11-20.5 x 5.5-18 cm)
as well as large figurative closing vignette signed in the stone only
and figurative opening initial
40 pages, 1 leaf imprint, 2 end fly-leaves. – Text printed by Otto von Holten, Berlin.
DER VENUSWAGEN IX
Hayn-Gotendorf IX, 298; Englisch I, 523 f.; Englisch II, 257
Only the series title in red & black with coincident omission of the serial vignette. – The erroneous specification of the imprint with regard to only 35 luxury copies corrected by hand to 40. – One cover tissue paper defect. Back cover with faint long scratch mark and three minimal rub marks, such also at the headcap and the ribs at the back.
Gilles de Rais’ (c. 1405-1440) entry into the eyes of the public was as remarkable as his end terrible. “(O)f breath-taking beauty, of rare elegance … richest of the barons of France … (protector of Joan of Arc). He follows her everywhere, stays at her side in the battle, even under the walls of Paris, is beside her in Reims on coronation day (Charles VII) where … the king appoints him at the age of 25 Marshal of France!”
“ He was a learned Latinist, a brilliant conversationalist, a generous and reliable friend. He owned a library unusual in those days where reading was limited to theology and the life of the saints. We have the index of some of his manuscripts: Sueton, Valerius Maximus,
an Ovid on vellum – bound in red leather
and with gilt silver lock and key .
He was infatuated with these books ;
he always had them on him when he was travelling .
… His table was set for every guest; from all ends of France caravans wend their way to this castle (Tiffauges), where artists, poets, scholars found a princely hospitality, informality, welcome presents, and farewell gifts …
Certain (yet, too), that this man’s mind was saturated with mystic ideas; his whole story proves this. He lived at the side of that extraordinary girl whose adventures seem to confirm that a divine intervention in the events here below is possible … ”
In search for the philosopher’s stone, with alchemist experiments of making gold, he proceeded deeper and deeper into the company of the promisors of miracles and ecstatics. He slides into crime, following his inside, his mystical voices. And at the end asks his religious judge, just Jean de Malestroit, for his “intercession with the fathers and mothers of the children he had ravished and murdered so cruelly that they plead for him in his death”.
“ And these people, whom he had torn out the heart, sobbed for pity. They saw in this demonic grand gentleman only a poor man anymore, who mourned over his crimes … and from nine o’clock in the morning on the day of the execution they moved in a long procession through the town, sang psalms on the streets, and vowed in the churches to fast three days for the marshal’s salvation. ”
For Geiger (Schönbrunn near Landshut 1878 – Munich 1971) this was a theme as particularly salient in Waldemar Bonsel’s Kyrie eleison, “in which the theme of the sexually motivated murder presses for artistic creation. Further the etchings for the erotic ‘Novellas from the Italian Renaissance’ and the lithographs for ‘Huysmans, Gilles de Rais’ (collection ‘Der Venuswagen’ 1919) are by him … Geiger’s etchings are, looked at from the erotic point of view, charmless because the intellectual prevails too much and the sensual motive is of secondary importance” (Englisch). The latter quite an advantage for his Gilles de Rais, according to H.-G. created 1914.
“ Jean de Malestroit left his seat and raised the defendant …
the judge in him disappeared , only the priest remained ;
he kissed the repentant sinner and wept over his guilt …
‘Pray ,
so that the just and frightful wrath of the almighty be silent ;
weep ,
so that your tears purify your lustful .’ ”
« For always
an intellectual relation is necessary
to realize the deeply concealed value (of the autographs) .
Only by the soul ,
not by the coarser exterior senses ,
the beauty
and the intellectual value of the autographs
can be realized …
By such mysterious means autographs have the power
to conjure up for us
the present of figures
vanished since long … »
Stefan Zweig,
Sense and Beauty of the Autographs,
in Encounters with People Books Cities
Frankfort/Main, S. Fischer, 1956, pages 441 & 446
This then
the 9-axle
Venuswagen
illustrated and written for you with the recommendation to have it roll up , ready
for every now and again
the last half hour of a day
for now this , now that volume ,
quite when you feel like it
and the pleasure
at now regular , now large typography
as at the same time an optical feast for the eyes .
For ,
so Wilhelm Heinse in the preface to his The Cherries ,
“ For all (exhaustions) of the mind there are no better remedies than the stories of la Fontaine , Boccaz , Grecourt , Hamilton , Crebillon , Voltaire , Dorat , Fielding , Cervantes , and some other
Hippocratesses of the mind ,
which one therefore has to reckon fairly among
the benefactors of the human race . ”
As then the authors & illustrators , the editor , the publisher , the printers of the
Venuswagen
with its rare texts and excellent visualizations
in the here then noble luxury garb ,
yet presented more adequately than anywhere else . Exactly . In the copy of the
No. I
as its prince
The Doctor Heinrich Stinnes in Cologne
Offer no. 15,648 / price on application
„ heute kam ich wieder nach Hause und fand die Bilder vor. Sie sind wohlbehalten angekommen und in einem guten Zustand … Vielen Dank für Ihre Mühe “
(Frau E. K., 24. Juni 2002)