Gart der Gesundheit - photo 1
Gart der Gesundheit - photo 2
Gart der Gesundheit - photo 3

Gart der Gesundheit

Lot 129
10.07.2024 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 75 600
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1249752
Lot 129 | Gart der Gesundheit
Estimate value
£ 70 000 – 100 000
Gart der Gesundheit
Gart der Gesundheit, compiled by Johann von Cube (Johann Wonnecke von Kaub, fl. later 15th century), edited by Bernhard von Breydenbach. Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 28 March 1485.
First edition of ‘a landmark in the history of botanical illustration, one which marked perhaps the greatest single step ever made in that art’ (Hunt I, 5). One of the first scientific incunables printed in the vernacular, it provides a full pharmacopeia, describing plants and their medicinal use but also animal products and minerals, including a description of petroleum (black oil coming from rock, ch. 332), one of the earliest in print. With its chapter on uroscopy and alphabetical lists of ailments, remedies and compounds, it provided a full medical manual, and the extensive contemporary marginal annotations in this copy attest to its utility. One of its chapters deals with marijuana, specifically medical uses. It follows by one year a Latin Herbarius, printed also by Schoeffer, but now rendered more accessible in the vernacular and more important in its extensive depictions of plants and animals, including some Middle-Eastern. ‘[These] delineations of plants, breaking away from the traditional stylized woodcut, were not only unsurpassed, but unequalled for nearly half a century’ (Hunt), until the publication of Brunfels's Herbarum vivae icones in 1530. Although the text was pirated and reprinted many times, the present large woodblocks were never reused. Recent investigations, including of the Codex Berleburg, established that the text is by physician Johan Wonnecke von Kaub (named on 10/4v) under Bernhard von Breydenbach, and attributes the design of the woodcuts, and some of the cutting, to Erhard Reuwich, the artist who accompanied Breydenbach on his expedition to Palestine in 1483-1484 (see P. Rudolph, Im Garten der Gesundheit, 2020). Almost half the surviving institutional copies are imperfect or highly fragmentary. H *8948; BMC I 35; Bod-Inc G-050; Hunt 5; Klebs 507.1; Klebs (Gart) 1; Klebs Early Herbals 22; Nissen BBI 2267; Schreiber V 4332; Goff G-97; ISTC ig00097000.

Chancery folio (267 x 199mm). 346 leaves (of 360, lacking first 6 and final 7 text leaves and final blank), fo. 42/8 misbound after 42/1 with early ms. direction, quire 43 of 8 leaves, unlike BMC which has 2 4-leaf quires. 376 (of 379) woodcuts, all but one coloured by a contemporary hand, partly rubricated, initial spaces (repaired tears in several leaves with minor loss in 2, some light soiling, occasional staining). Modern flexible vellum, title written on spine. Provenance: contemporary ms annotations throughout (trimmed) – some near-contemporary plant identifications in a Slovak language – occasional later manuscript annotations – Donaueschingen (Sotheby’s 1 July 1994, lot 125, then bound in 19th-century sheep; Donau Inc. no. 287 at top of first leaf).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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10.07.2024 – 10.07.2024
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