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Bookplate of Hildebrand von Brandenburg

A work made of woodcut in black with hand coloring on cream laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper, with inscription in pen and brown ink, laid down on cream laid paper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of woodcut in black with hand coloring on cream laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper, with inscription in pen and brown ink, laid down on cream laid paper.

Date:

c. 1470–80

Artist:

Artist unknown
German, late 15th century

About this artwork

The earliest documented printed ex libris is this hand-colored woodcut arms of Hildebrand von Brandenburg. Hildebrand identified his entire personal library with this woodcut and a standardized inscription before giving it to the Carthusian monastery at Buxheim that he joined around 1480. 143 of his books have been identified, a large collection for a non-royal individual at the time. The inscription Libros historialem Pauli horosii likely refers to the fourth-century priest Paul Orosius’s Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, in which he argued that Christianity was not responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire and all subsequent calamities.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Title

Bookplate of Hildebrand von Brandenburg

Place

Germany (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1465–1485

Medium

Woodcut in black with hand coloring on cream laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper, with inscription in pen and brown ink, laid down on cream laid paper

Dimensions

Block: 6.7 × 6.5 cm (2 11/16 × 2 9/16 in.); Primary support: 7 × 6.8 cm (2 13/16 × 2 11/16 in.); Secondary support: 13.1 × 13.6 cm (5 3/16 × 5 3/8 in.); Tertiary support: 28.9 × 19.6 cm (11 7/16 × 7 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

The Joseph Brooks Fair Collection

Reference Number

1947.453

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/60691/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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