Bookmark

To  the  Centennial  of  the  Gutmann  Expedition  into  the  pathless

Gutmann, Rudolf Ritter von. (My Hunting Expedition in the Year 1909). Vienna, author’s edition printed as manuscript, 1912. 4to (32 x 25 x 4.5 cm). 2 unpag. leaves title + dedication, 30 pp. With

route  map + 87  heliogravures  on  mounted  China

of varying size as dedicated plate each from the author’s on-the-spot photographs. Heavy hunt-green orig. half morocco on 5 ribs with the back leather reaching especially far into the color marbled boards + equally opulent leather corners as well as back plate, ornamented full back gilt tooling + gilt lines on the boards, color marbled fly-leaves, hunt-green silk bookmark ribbon + gilt edges by “Ferdinand Bakala, (Archducal Chamber Supplier Vienna), IV. Belvederegasse 21.” with his gilt coat-of-arms inscription in the upper inner board lower left.

No. 47/50 copies of the expedition report, “Dedicated to my mother in faithfulness”, of one of the top magnates of the k.k. monarchy of his time, whose unparalleled most comprehensively designed collection of Ridinger prints established, owing to the noble 2-volume catalog of the collection written by Ignaz Schwarz – the baron’s once personal copy no. I of the but two Roman numbered of moreover in total just 202 here available – his fame as art collector permanently, even though just constituting just a part of his universal interests in art.

The document numbered in printing of his otherwise hunting passion here then present as

whereby the stable smell of course reminds of the “Ringstraßen architect” Heinrich von Ferstel (1828-1883), the, together with Hansen and Schmidt, “creator of modern Vienna” (Catholic Encyclopedia) with the Ferstel Palace at the Herrengasse as the city’s most modern building of the period of promoterism as crown jewel, though originating in the Abensperg-Traun Palace of 1651 with on its part once the first water pipe in a private building in Vienna.

With a company of five Baron Gutmann left Europe June 15, 1909, on the Lloyd steamer Kaiser Wilhelm II to reach, after short stays in New York , Chicago and the Yellowstone Park, Seattle on July 6 and by this the Norwegian steamer “Transit” chartered for the purpose of the hunting expedition

“ at  the  coast  of  Kamchatka , North  Siberia  and  Alaska ”

which they boarded on the eighth.

“ We  sailed  towards  happy  free  hunting …

I felt the whole fascination which lies in renouncing civilization , to employ in the wild country the own strength , the own will , to enjoy the new , to expect the unexpected , in the heart the wish

After first big hunting luck on Bald Eagles at Juneau, the mightiest of which impressing by a span of 2.27 m, the walruses at Nome were on the wishlist.

“ In Nome we chartered a wooden schooner as our iron steamer could not have withstood the pressure of the ice … With regard to the advanced season we had to search for the walruses … in the polar ice and sail the frequently tempestuous Bering Strait. ”

July 22 they sighted the East Cap, the most eastern point of the old world. And Diana travelled with them.

“ During the day we stayed with these Chukchis in their village. Then the storm had driven away the clouds and the sun drove away the storm. The most splendid night, transformed to day by the midnight sun, leads us across the polar circle … Now dark masses appear … and a muffled roar becomes audible. After barely two days of searching we had found the walruses! ”

With respect to bears at the Anadyr River + Cap Navarin as the most northern coastal settlements of Eastern Siberia just as at the Baron Korff Bay at the coast of Kamchatka they had been taken in. With Petropavlovsk, capital of the latter, then also the turning point was reached and via north of the Aleutian Islands they returned to the southern coast of Alaska, to the sea-lions at Lighthouse Rock. “Only during few rare days in the course of the year it is possible to advance up to (the latter).” Then again northwards to the grounds of the reindeers and to Kenai Peninsula, “the home of the moose”! With September 22 as

“ The  finest  day  of  hunt  I  ever  experienced .”

The expedition resulted in the following bag :

“ 6 Moose Bulls , 17 Walruses with tusks of up to 1.05 m , 3 Sea-lions , 1 Bear , 4 Caribous , 2 Alaska Dall Rams , 1 Kamchatka Snow Sheep , 2 Bald Eagles , further much moor and water fowl , grouses and porcupines . ”

It was a journey into regions whose game – so for instance a herd of moose or “Now the walruses recognized their enemy” – partly obviously never had sighted a human before, it was a hunting in jungles. Searched and experienced just in time before Kamchatka disappeared for decades as additionally military barred zone behind the Iron Curtain. “Not even presidents of other socialist countries were allowed by the government in Moscow to hunt there” (Horst Rademacher, [Volcanoes in Russia’s Wild East], in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 28, 1995).

Starting with Downtown Manhattan from the seaside the set of plates illustrates above all the course of the expedition in its places and their inhabitants, the communal with the latter at and with the ships + boats, then the really counting climaxes of the hunt. With “My Moose Antlers” as epilogue. Their reproduction as heliogravures – here executed by the Munich Graphic Company Pick and Co. – corresponds with the pretensions of author + contents:

“ Heliogravure, French photogravure, … is a process for the production of etchings on copperplates for intaglio printing developed 1878 by the Vienna painter Karl Klic. The h. is a copperplate printing by hand which origins on a photographic base …

Characteristic  for  the  h.  is  the  smoothness  and  warmth  of  the  tone

as well as the mark of the edge of the plate which creates the connection with the engraving. The h. had a very important part in book illustration of 1890-1910, it was downright characteristic for the monochromatic illustration of

precious , splendid  and  high-quality  books ,

especially of works which  were  printed  in  small  editions . As  it  was  expensive  it was displaced later more and more by mechanic intaglio or collotype printing … ”

(Löffler-Kirchner, Lexikon des Gesamten Buchwesens, II [1936], 80).

The opulence of here even 87 such works in the scope of the intended report thus speaks for itself. Their number obviously varies, ultimately reflecting the private character of practically each single copy. Numbered, though not without exception, throughout, the suite reaches with plate “88” its highest mark not only in the present case. Among the few copies provable here none counts more than 87 plates, however, just as here then, too. For beside those numbered in Arabic there are those not numbered – here 2 of them – as well as those marked in caps as here and there also elsewhere as “A” & “B”. Sequence and omissions of numbers vary from copy to copy. Even a copy proven here containing only 85 plates should be complete by itself and correspond to the respective selection the author had handed to the bookbinder.

The sequence here :

0 (for the map, this counted with would indeed result in “88”) – 1 – 2 – 6 – 3 – 5 – 7-9 – 11-26 – no no. – 27-32 – 34-44 – no no. – 46-59 – 62 – 61 – 60 – 63 – A – 65-73 – 75 – 74 – 76-79 – 84 – 85 – 82 – B – 80 – 83 – 81 – 86-88 .

Due to the heavy Japan mounting paper any later removal of a plate could not go undetected. Of the cover sheets similar to rice straw paper the one of the map creased, five small margin tears/tear offs were done acid-freely, three somewhat larger ones were left untouched for optical reason.

Mounting paper as text sheets uniform of course, qualified by the expert as “Imitation Japan, wood-free, yellowish”, otherwise standing for a hum, heavy Japan which communicates the importance of such volumes. The richly crafted back of the binding paled to light brown and at its joints here and there (most) minimally bruised. A minimal dent besides in the upper gilt line of the back-plate. Several folds above and/or below mostly a little torn and inconspicuously done with transparent acid-free material. Otherwise perfect. And delighting.

Offer no. 15,305  /  price on request