1166 - Two bookplates for Max Manfred von der Heyden and Kurt Cramer, knight with lady, Hermes head, 1922

Two bookplates for Max Manfred von der Heyden and Kurt Cramer, knight with lady, Hermes head, 1922 Two bookplates, etching on paper, each signed in pencil lower right (not deciphered) and dated 1922, 1) bookplate for Max Manfred von der Heyden, inscribed in the plate "BÜCHEREI" at the top and "MAX MANFRED VON DER HEYDEN" at the bottom, interior with walls of books, in the centre a knight in armour leaning on his sword, on the right a woman with bared breast and fur cape, on the left a winged putto sitting on a helmet with the monogram "AD", floor as a chessboard, 2) bookplate for Kurt Cramer, inscribed in the plate "EXLIBRIS" and "Kurt Cramer", head of Hermes with winged helmet, on it a seated nude man seen from behind with raised arm, behind it a path with small people leading to a temple on a mountain, good condition commensurate with age, bookplate for Kurt Cramer foxed, image each 14x11 cm (HxW), passe-partout, overall each 22x16.5 cm (HxW) A bookplate (ex libris), also called a book owner's mark or book label, is placed in the front of a book and identifies its owner; the custom dates back to the 15th century. Circa 1880 Max Klinger revived the bookplate as an etching, Art Nouveau brought a further flowering, and in 1891 the Exlibris-Verein, today's Deutsche Exlibris-Gesellschaft, was founded in Berlin, from which a collecting field of its own developed. The owner of the first sheet was himself an etcher and created bookplates in 1921, among them a sheet for Margot von der Heyden and one with the inscription "Aus der Bücherei Suzanne Ziegler Frey". The winged putto on the first sheet derives from Albrecht Dürer's engraving "Melencolia I", whose monogram the helmet bears; in Dürer's work the putto sits on a millstone.