Biblia Pauperum (Pauper's Bible)

1465-1470

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bound volume with 40 hand-colored pages printed from 20 woodblocks. The left side of each sheet (left page) was glued to the right side of the preceding sheet, and the right side of each sheet (right page) to the left side of the succeeding page.

  • Credit Line

    Anonymous Gift

  • Dimensions

    sheet: 27.5 x 21 cm (10 13/16 x 8 1/4 in.)
    overall: 28.3 x 21.8 cm (11 1/8 x 8 9/16 in.)

  • Accession

    2005.5.1

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Benedictine Monastery at Erfurt; Ducal Library, Gotha; M. Sinelikoff, 1951; Countess Carrie Estelle Doheny, Los Angeles, California (sale, Christie's, London, Doheny Sale, 22 October 1987, no. 73); Private collection, Washington, D.C.; gift to NGA, 2005.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2005

  • Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2005, Washington only and not in exhibition catalogue

2008

  • Medieval to Modern: Recent Acquisitions of Drawings, Prints, and Illustrated Books, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, no. 29 b.

Bibliography

1902

  • Schreiber, W.L.. Manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois. 4, Leipzig, 1902: 7.

1935

  • Hind, Arthur M. An Introduction to a history of Woodcut. New York, 1935: 238.

1987

  • Christie's. Christie's Doheny Sale, 22 October, 1987. London: Christie's, 1987: no. 73.

Inscriptions

front pastedown in black ink: upper center: Biblia Pauperum Latina. / no. 1 / auf Erfurt; / col la u'.21 6_; center: Zylogr. pag. II. no. 5. / Niederlandisch / cf. Schreiber Manuel de l'amateur de la gravure / sure bois VII tab. XIII. praef. p. VIII front free endpaper: upper center: book plate of Estelle Doheny; upper right in graphite: A116; lower right in black ink: F.I.folio 1 recto: center right: stamp of Bibliotheca Ducalis Gothanafolio 21 verso: upper center in black ink: undecipherable reference to Erfurt Benedictine Monastery; center left: stamp of Bibliotheca Ducalis Gothanaend pastedown: upper center in graphite: Sindnikoff / Jan 1951

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