Egyptomania meets Book Arts in a newly discovered gem from WLE at #BKMLibrary. The work in question

Egyptomania meets Book Arts in a newly discovered gem from WLE at #BKMLibrary. The work in question – Das Totenbuch oder Die Kapitel vom Hervorkommen am Tage (Dichterische Paraphrase) (A Poetical Paraphrase of the Egyptian Book of the Dead; The Chapter of Arising at Daybreak) – by the German poet Felix Wolff.This charming volume of poetry was published in a very limited edition by the Ernst Ludwig Presse of Darmstadt in 1914. The Ludwig Presse was founded in 1907 by Duke Ernst Ludwig Von Hessen and directed by the German graphic artist and typographer Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens. Kleukens was deeply involved in the German ‘New Book Art’ movement of the time – an artistic movement  active in the years before the First World War and heavily influenced by the contemporaneous Arts and Crafts Movement.The title page of this slim volume features a delicate Heliogravure of a tomb painting at Thebes by Kleukens; as artistic director of the Ludwig Presse, Kleukens hand-crafted all fonts, decorations and illustrations.This lovely book came to the Wilbour Library through a donation by the noted Egyptologist Georg Steindorff. The edition is fabulously rare – WLE owns the only known copy in North America. Das Totenbuch is a beautiful example of the marriage of Arts and Crafts sensibility and European fascination with the ancient world.Posted by Roberta Munoz -- source link

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