Beschreibung:

MAXIMILIAN I (1459-1519) -- TREITZSAURWEIN, Marx (d.1527). Der weiss Kunig: Eine Erzehlung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten. Vienna: Joseph Kurzböck, 1775. 2° (340 x 237mm). 237 woodcuts, irregularly numbered, most after Burgkmaier and Beck. (Some plates browned, plate 137 bound in upside-down, some plates and text leaves detached.) 19th-century calf-backed marbled boards (block split after Ll1, front inner hinges split). Provenance : Charles, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (1744-1836, armorial bookplate) -- Librairie Madame Manier (loosely inserted one-page typed letter, dated Monte Carlo, 27 March 1950, to Comte O. Seilern-Aspang, commenting on the superiority of his copy of Weisskunig to another recently sold at Drouot). FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of the most extensive of the Emperor's unfinished works, an autobiographical romance supplementary to Theuerdank, much of it dictated directly to his secretary, Treitzsaurwein. All the characters go by fictitious names. Maximilian himself is the Young White Knight, a name derived from his white (i.e. silver) armour. Contemporary kings and dukes are usually identified by either a colour or a heraldic beast. The Blue King is the King of France, the King of Steel the Duke of Burgundy, the King of the Wild People the King of Scotland, and the King of the Fish the Doge of Venice. The White Company are Maximilian's subjects, the Brown Company the Flemings, the Peasants with the Strange Flag the Dutch insurgents, and the Peasant Company or Company of Many Colours, the Swiss. The confused state of the text is reflected in the illustrations. Some subjects were cut twice, many others omitted, while some represent events that do not occur in the unfinished text. The Emperor and his advisers prescribed the content of the illustrations, and various artists worked on the sketches which were then drawn on the block in almost equal proportion by Burgkmaier and Beck. The blocks, of which 223 are still preserved in Vienna, were cut by the group of wood-engravers working at Augsburg under Jost de Negker No edition appeared in Maximilian's lifetime, and his grandson Ferdinand's wish to issue the work was frustrated by the death of Treitzsaurwein in 1527. This first edition was printed after the discovery of the original blocks at Graz. There was a second issue, with a French title, published by S. Edwards of London in 1779. Brunet V, 933; Dodgson II, p. 90/55-101 & p. 125/7; Graesse VII, p. 192; Hollstein II, Beck 11 & V, Burgkmaier 431-551.