The British Museum. Department of Prints and Drawings. Catalogue of German Printed Books to 1900

Citation

Kelly, W.A. (2003), "The British Museum. Department of Prints and Drawings. Catalogue of German Printed Books to 1900", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 181-182. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2003.52.4.181.3

In his Preface Antony Griffiths, the Keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawings, claims that the administrative and physical separation of the British Museum and the British Library has not affected the still vital links between the two institutions, as represented by the present catalogue. An outsider, i.e. this reviewer, must wonder at this assertion when his enquiries about the availability of this volume at the British Library’s bookshop were met with the claim that this volume, as the production of an entirely separate institution, would not be sold there. Unfortunately cynicism is given further rein in the Introduction’s reference to the nineteenth century success of the Department of Printed Books in securing financial support from the government for its vision of establishing a universal reference collection; if only the British Library were still administered by scholars with such vision. An important element in the department’s holdings is the wealth, numerical and artistic, of prints donated by William Mitchell, a noted collector of German renaissance prints, and by Campbell Dodgson, a leading historian of German art in his day and probably the most illustrious member of the department’s staff. Paisey rightly draws attention to the donations of the former, which includes a small group formerly owned by the Nürnberg humanist, Willibald Pirckheimer (1470‐1530). These came down from a descendant of Pirckheimer through sale and donation to the Howard family on to the Royal Society in 1667, which sold a large number of them two centuries later, and later through dealers to Mitchell.

This volume presents an initial problem for a reviewer such as the present one who, though well versed in early German bibliography, has no expertise in art history. Though the volumes are listed under their authors or titles as one would expect of a catalogue, the reviewer must put aside his usual bibliographical perspective and consider the volumes not as literary texts or as examples of the work of a particular printer but as art objects, whose main interest is in an engraved title page, or a woodcut border or illustrated plates. It is for this reason that the bulk of each entry in the catalogue is devoted to a description of the volumes’ artistic merit and that priority is given in the indexes to the artists responsible.

The mention in the Introduction of the department’s important holdings of early German prints, which still require a catalogue, and of the similar material still in the Royal Society’s possession raises the hope that Paisey’s bibliographical expertise will find scope in the years to come to inform and delight us still further.

A particular pleasure for this reviewer is an acknowledgment in the Introduction to Ulrich Kopp, the sixteenth century specialist in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, to whom scholars in many disciplines around the world are indebted for his expertise so generously given.

My only serious complaint is not with the compiler, but with the British Museum Press, which has priced the volume, all 130 pages of it, at the exorbitant price of £90.00, which effectively puts it out of the range of the average member of the public.