645 - Large Nuremberg folio Bible with brass mounts and copper engraving by Johann Georg Eckstein

Large Nuremberg folio Bible with brass mounts and copper engraving by Johann Georg Eckstein Large folio Bible in brown leather binding over wooden boards. The spine with five raised bands, the leather extensively rubbed so that the red ground shows through; head and tail of the spine damaged, the blue and white headband exposed. Both covers with blind-tooled framing and central ornamental panel and each with four large shield-shaped brass corners. One of two clasps preserved. One cover is detached from the text block; pastedowns and free endpapers of blue marbled paper. The edges heavily patinated. The text block printed in two columns in Fraktur; each verse is accompanied by numbered explanations in smaller type, together with chapter summaries, column-by-column contents in the running heads and, at the end of each chapter across both columns, the sections “Nutz-Anwendungen” and “Gebet”. The title page is missing. Preserved are the “Verzeichniß Aller Bücher des Alten und Neuen Testaments” with German and Latin names and chapter numbers, the “CHRONOLOGIA Oder Zeit-Register” and the “Vorrede über die fünff Bücher Mosis”. Before the First Book of Moses a copper engraving which, as a landscape-format vignette, occupies roughly the upper quarter of the leaf: within a rocaille cartouche Paradise unfolds with lions, deer, horse, ibex and Adam, above the landscape the Tetragrammaton shines. The engraving is signed lower right “Joh: Georg Eckstein sculp. Norib”. On the loose flyleaf a handwritten dedication of 1877. In heavily used condition, cover loose, flyleaf loose, partly with old restorations, with tears and water stains, not checked for completeness. Please inspect. 41x27x15.5 cm (HxWxD) The copper engraver Johann Georg Eckstein worked in Nuremberg; the abbreviation “Norib” in his signature stands for Norimbergae. Alongside Wittenberg and Frankfurt, Nuremberg was the most important centre of German Bible printing. The Endter printing house there printed Luther Bibles from 1613 to 1792. Two series were particularly successful: the Weimar or Ernestine Bible, first published in 1641 and popularly known as the Kurfürstenbibel, which combined the Bible text with a scholarly commentary in smaller type directly after each verse and was accompanied by eleven full-page copper engravings of Saxon princes, and the plainer Dilherr Bible, printed from 1656 and named after the Nuremberg preacher Johann Michael Dilherr, which accompanied the continuous Luther text with woodcuts.