Nuremberg Chronicle - photo 1
Nuremberg Chronicle - photo 2
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Nuremberg Chronicle

Lot 24
16.10.2025 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
$ 48 260
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1471947
Lot 24 | Nuremberg Chronicle
Estimate value
$ 28 000 – 35 000
SCHEDEL, Hartmann (1440–1514). Liber chronicarum. Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July 1493.

First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th century. William Tooke’s copy. Albrecht Dürer, godson of the printer Anton Koberger, is thought to have contributed to the celebrated series of 1809 woodcuts while working for the workshop of Michael Wolgemut. The publication history of the Nuremberg Chronicle is perhaps the best documented of any book printed in this period: the contracts between Schedel and his partners Schreyer and Kammermaister, and between Schedel and the artists, all survive in the Nuremberg Stadtsbibliothek, as do detailed manuscript exemplars of both the Latin and the German editions. The Nuremberg Chronicle includes two double-page maps: a world map (Shirley 19) based on Mela's Cosmographia (1482), and a map of northern and central Europe by Hieronymus Munzer (1437–1508) after Nicolas Khyrpffs. The world map is one of only three 15th-century maps showing Portuguese knowledge of the Gulf of Guinea of about 1470. The map of Europe is closely associated with Nicolas of Cusa's Eichstatt map, with which it is thought to share a common manuscript source of c.1439–54. It is therefore claimed to be the first modern map of this region to appear in print. Although published later than the map of Germany in the 1482 Ulm Ptolemy, it was constructed earlier (Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472–1500, 1987).

William Tooke (1744–1820) was a British historian of Russia, living in St. Petersburg for periods of his life while researching and writing his works. The present copy formed part of his library at St. Petersburg and is dated 1772. HC *14508; BMC II, 437; CIBN S-161; BSB-Ink. S-195; Bod-inc. S-108; Schreiber 5203; Goff S-307; ISTC is00307000.

Imperial folio (414 × 275mm). 320 leaves (of 326, without V, IX, CCLXV, CCXCVII, CCXCVIII and final blank). 2 double-page maps (map of Europe and colophon laid in with chipped fore-edges). Illuminated initial on first text leaf, first full-page woodcut in contemporary color, table’s initials in red and blue, red and blue paraphs (additions including Maximilian supplement inserted after CCLXVI, tears at head and tail of gutter of first 3 leaves, tears in XXIII and CCLXVI, soiling, occasional dampstains and small wormholes). Late 18th-century Russian quarter brown calf, blue paper boards, spine tooled and lettered and in gold and blind (rebacked, rubbed, paper soiled in places). Provenance: early Latin inscriptions on title-page – John (18th-century inscription and pen trials on blank after Maximilian supplement) – William Tooke (1744–1820; inscription on title-page dated 1772) – Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913–1994; leather label); by descent.
Place of origin:Germany
Auction house category:Antiquarian books, Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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02.10.2025 – 16.10.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
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