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UNIQUE ALMANAC WITH 2 WOODCUTS
SLOVENIAN(?) GOLD PANEL-STAMPED PAPER ARMORIAL BINDING
FOR PRESENTATION TO A LINZ(?) DIGNITARY
[ALMANAC]. HAN (HAAN, HAHN), Paul Conrad Balthasar. Europäischer Currier oder Geschichts-Calender auf das Jahr ... M. DCC. XXXXI. ...
Augsburg, "Vrechenmacherischen [sic] Erben" (= heirs of Caspar Brechenmacher), [1740]. 4to (20 x 15.5 cm). Almanac for the year 1741, with the title-page and calendar pages in red and black; a full-page woodcut scene of men on horseback arriving at an inn, with a battle scene in the background (the 1686 conquest of Buda?), a variant title on a panel below left and a cockerel as inn sign, alluding to the author's name; and a woodcut zodiac-man (for bloodletting). Further with zodiac, planet and other almanac signs, and decorations built up from fleurons. Contemporary boards, covered with red paper, panel-stamped in gold with the title; 2 biblical scenes and 4 other figures; and 27 coat-of-arms, namely 12 of the Holy Roman Empire and its dominions, 7 of cities in Upper Austria, and 4 (each repeated) mostly of provinces in western Slovenia.
| Orders and Information | € 2250 |
Only copy located of the almanac for 1741 from an extremely rare series (for the years between 1701 and 1761 we have located copies for only eight of the fifty-nine years, each unique). Paul Conrad Balthasar Han (1633-1699) began the almanac, first known from the issue for the year 1691, and it continued under his name until at least 1761. The present issue begins with a full-page woodcut of two men on horseback, arriving at an inn, with a battle before a burning city in the background. A panel below left gives the (barely legible) title, "Europaischer Currier oder Gespræch[s] Calender," while the the inn's hanging sign-board shows a cockerel, alluding to the family name Han. The scene is copied from that used in the seventeenth-century Han almanacs (probably from the beginning). It may represent the 1686 fall of Buda to the Holy Roman Empire after nearly one-and-a-half centuries of Ottoman rule, which was topical when the almanac began and is still noted in the present almanac, on the back of the woodcut, as the most recent item in the one-page list of events since the creation of the world. After the title-page follows the calendar itself, with one page for each month; a one-page table for determining days for bloodletting; the historical section promised by the title, with sections on Germany, Turkey, Sweden, Russia, and England & Spain (quire C, 8 pp.: "Des Europäischen Curriers Zwischen-Materie, mitbringend: kurtze Nachrichten von einigen Merckwürdigkeiten"); the weather and other predictions for 1741 (quire D, 8 pp.: "Prognosticon"); and finally the two-leaf quire E, with further information for bloodletting (with the zodiac-man woodcut), information on the post coaches, and an alphabetical list of cities and towns with their fairs and annual markets. The whole collates: [A]4 B-D4 E2 = 18 leaves.
The remarkable binding is panel-stamped in gold on red paper, over paperboards. The main panel, stamped on both boards, has two windows (rectangular at the top and oval in the centre), so that it could be used for various purposes. In the present binding they are filled with different panel stamps on the front and back boards, so five panels were used to stamp the binding. Some of the arms are depicted in mirror image, most of the tinctures are not indicated, and details of the bearings are occasionally unclear, but most can be identified. The main panel, perhaps the best clue to the location of the binder, contains four coats of arms, at least three for provinces in western Slovenia (counter-clockwise from upper left to upper right): an unidentified rampant lion, Carniola, Gorizia and Carinthia. It has a scene at the foot (the three magi with three attendents?), two angels playing harps flanking the rectangular window at the top, two female allegorical figures (Justice and Temperance) flanking the oval window in the centre, and flower and vine decoration.
The oval panel-stamp on the back board, perhaps the best clue to the book's first owner, shows seven coats of arms from Oberösterreich (the province of Upper Austria). It shows an angel above the arms of Linz (or less likely the very similar arms of nearby Wels), encircled by the arms of six Oberösterreich cities, namely (counter-clockwise from left to right) Styria, Wels (or possibly Linz), Enns, Gmunden, Vöcklabruck and Freistadt. The oval window on the front board shows the arms of the Holy Roman Empire, about thirty-five years out of date: it is more or less the arms of the Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705), but the arms in half of one quarter (normally Burgundy) is reversed and impaled (with arms whose bearing is unclear). The whole coat of arms is encircled by eleven coats of arms of dominions within the empire (counter-clockwise from upper left to upper right): Slovakia, Steiermark?, Croatia, Austria, Bohemia?, Carniola (in the tail of the Imperial arms), Tyrol?, Burgundy?, Bosnia, Dalmatia and Hungary. The rectangular window on the front board gives the title, "Schreib|Calender|Auff das Jahr|1741" (stamped with a relief panel: the last two digits of its date may have been revised in the panel over the years) while that on the back shows the Nativity. It seems likely that the binding was made in western Slovenia, perhaps for presentation to a dignitary in or from Linz or the vicinity.
In good condition, with some browning, 2 letters shaved on the title-page and one corner of the first few leaves clipped, affecting only the border. The calendar pages were once interleaved, but only stubs remain, with traces of writing. The binding is also good, with only minor scuffs and tears. A unique almanac from an extremely rare series, with a gold panel-stamped paper armorial binding with western Slovenian and Upper Austrian arms.
