#anton koberger

[tinyuglyworld]

The Creation, in one of the first German translations of the Bible, printed in Nuremberg in 1483 by Anton Koberger

Scanned from “A History of Christianity” by Owen Chadwick

[beyond-crusading]

If you were a character in this engraving of Noah’s Ark (Anton Koberger’s Bible, 1483), who would you be ? Answer honestly.

[urodzaj]

The Schatzbehalter des wahren Reichtümer des Heils (Treasury of the true riches of salvation)

[triste-le-roy]

Monsters—from Hartmann Schedel’s Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten (aka The Nuremberg Chronicle aka Liber Chronicarum aka Book of Chronicles), published by Anton Koberger (written by Hartmann Schedel, illustrations by Michael Wolgemut & Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, 1493 CE).

(photographed by Collin Colsher, Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, 2018).

[muspeccoll]

Although the woodcut illustrations of early printed books were occasionally printed in color -- Erhard Ratdolt was an early pioneer, issuing woodcuts in up to five colors -- it was much more usual for illustrations to be printed in black alone. But color could easily be added after the fact, as these three examples show. All three are from books printed by the German goldsmith-turned-printer Anton Koberger:

1) Neunte Deutsche Bibel, Nuremberg, 1483

2) Schatzbehalter, Nuremberg, 1491

3) Weltchronik, Nuremberg, 1493 [The Nuremberg Chronicle]

Koberger was one of the most successful German printers of the incunable period -- the period from the development of printing with movable type in the middle of the 15th century to the end of the year 1500.

- Tim

Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber. Der Buchholzschnitt im 15. Jahrhundert in Original-Beispielen. Munich: Weiss, 1929. Special Collections Rare Vault Folio NE905 .S2

[thefugitivesaint]

Anton Koberger (1440-1513), 'Four Horsemen', from ''German Bible'', Vol. 2, 1483 “In Revelation 6:1–8, the lamb on the altar opens four of the seven seals on a book. Each of these seals releases one of the apocalyptic horsemen: first, a crowned conqueror on a white horse who wields a bow; second, a sword-bearing warrior who rides a red horse; third, a rider on a black horse who holds a pair of scales; fourth, a grisly figure on a pale horse who comes with the gaping mouth of Hell in inexorable pursuit. Representing plague, war, famine, and death, these horsemen kill one-fourth of the earth’s population. Whereas medieval illuminators had depicted the four riders as described in the biblical account, galloping forth individually as each seal is opened in a sequence of four images, German artists of the fifteenth century began to treat the subject as a single cavalcade within one unified scene. The anonymous designer of the exhibited “Four Horsemen” woodcut has created the convincing impression of forward momentum. The people swallowed by the mouth of Hell include a king, pope, cardinal, and pious peasants. The Apocalypse woodcuts used in Koberger’s Bible of 1483 profoundly influenced his godson, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who in 1498 would adapt many of the pictorial motifs from this Bible into the woodcut illustrations of his Apocalypse cum figuris.” Source: http://www.smu.edu/Bridwell/SpecialCollectionsandArchives/Exhibitions/First4CenturiesIllustratedBible/15thCentury/KobergerVol2

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Anton Koberger - Four Horsemen, from German Bible, 1483.

[ducissatenebrarum]

Hartman Schedel, Liber Chronicarum (Book of Histories) Printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger, 1493