Lot 582: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar (1847-1925). Meggendorfer's Bilder aus dem Tierleben. Ein

MEGGENDORFER, Lothar (1847-1925). Meggendorfer's Bilder aus dem Tierleben. Ein Verwandlungsbilderbuch. COMPLETE SET OF MEGGENDORFER'S ORIGINAL ARTWORK AND MECHANICALS. Germany, 1907.

A REMARKABLE ARCHIVE OF MATERIAL RELATING TO THE PRODUCTION OF ONE OF MEGGENDORFER'S CLASSIC MOVEABLE BOOKS.

The collection comprises: a complete set of twelve watercolor illustrations over ink and pencil, each drawn on four consecutive slats or narrow sheets of paper, forming (when assembled in pairs) six sets of transformation pictures. The archive of mechanicals includes two outline lithographs for pictorial cover label, each heavily hand watercolored and detailed by the artist; and an uncut specimen sheet with proofs of pictorial cover label (before letters) and transformation slat pictures (still attached), dated by hand 1907.

For the German edition, Bilder aus dem Tierleben, the collection includes the pictorial cover label and three text-leaves for the first edition; a set of twelve colored plates, partly cut into segments but still unassembled; and three sets of text marked fifth and "seventh to ninth" edition dated by hand 1913 and 1925 (two copies). Included for the English edition, Scenes of Animal Life [no imprint], are the pictorial cover label and a complete set of the translated text, dated by hand 1924. For the French edition, Scenes et Tableaux a Surprises par Ernest d'Hervilly. Nouvelle Serie (Paris: Louis Westhausser), the archive contains a set of translated text and a broadsheet advertisement, dated by hand 1895; a set of text for a new edition imprinted by Dambuyant & Guignard, dated 1900; a pictorial cover label and a set of text for the new edition printed by A. Capendu, dated 1914; and a pictorial cover label (without imprint), dated 1923.

Lothar Meggendorfer was born in Munich, Germany. During his career he illustrated over 100 books, including "mechanical toy books," or pop-up books. An illustrator and watercolorist, he drew for the German humor magazines Fliegende Blätter and Münchener Bilderbogen. Meggendorfer created the most original movable picture books of the 19th century were devised by Lothar Meggendorfer. The Munich artist had a rare comic vision and imagination that was transmitted both through his art and through ingenious mechanical devices. In contrast to his contemporaries, Meggendorfer expanded the possibilities of his moveable books, and devised intricate levers, hidden between pages, that gave his characters enormous possibilities for movement. He often used tiny metal rivets, actually tight curls of thin copper wire, to attach the levers, so that a single pull-tab could activate all of them, often with several delayed actions as the tab was pulled further out.

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