Collection de Cinquante Vues du Rhin. depuis Spire jusqu'à Dusseldorf Dessinees sur lieux d'apres Natur 1798. Fünftzig malerische Ansichten des Rhein-Stromes von Speyer bis Düsseldorf nach der Natur gezeichnet.

Vienna, Ataria & Co., 1798. Large Folio, (420 x 550mm), attractive binding of full red morocco gilt, engraved title and 50 finely fully hand-coloured, etched and aquatint plates within wash borders, text in German and French.

A MAGNIFICENT SERIES OF FINELY HAND-COLOURED VIEWS OF THE RHINE, including the major cities, castles and sights along the river at Speyer, Mannheim, Worms, Mainz, Bingen, Koblenz, Bonn, Andernach, Gottesberg, Poppelsdord, Cologne and Dusseldorf, and elsewhere.

FIRST EDITION

This has now become a rare and splendid work and is rightly considered to be the most beautiful collection of Rhine Views ever published. (Schmitt 114). “The Viennese landscape painter Laurenz Janscha (1749-1812) and the draftsman and engraver Johann Ziegler (1750-1812) created a rococo-style work of Viennese Views probably under instruction from Maximilian Franz, son of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa ”

One of the most beautiful of all German colour plate books, and undoubtedly the mostmagnificent series of views of the Rhine. One of the earliest of the spectacular colour-plate books on the journeys of rivers. Although this vogue can be said to have started with Gilpin’s book on the River Wye, the first of the great books was probably Boydell’s Thames (1794). The present work appeared shortly after that book and pre-dates the river journey books by Ackermann. In the Romantic tradition of book illustration, it shows the great castles and ruins of the middle-ages in the most picturesque settings

(Haberland, Illustr. Rheinbücher 24).