Lange, Eduard, Adolph Menzel. - Die Soldaten Friedrich's des Grossen [Friedrichs des großen]. Mit 31 Original-Zeichnungen von Adolph Menzel. [WITH 31 HAND-COLOURED UNIFORMS PLATES / HANDKOLORIERTE AUSGABE].

Leipzig, Avenarius & Mendelssohn, 1853. Hardcover. Crown quarto. Five books in one, paginated consecutively. Pp. xx, 599. Half-title; illustrated and tinted title-page; second title-page printed in letterpress; dedication leaf. Plus contemporary hand-coloured frontispiece and 30 other contemporary hand-coloured plates (31 in total). Set in Gothic type. HARDCOVER, bound in handsome three-quarters calf and light-purple marbled boards, spine with raised band between compartments, richly decorated in gilt; corner-tips chafed. Bit spotted in places, a lovely copy in a very good condition, very fine plates. ~ With a beautiful set of hand-coloured costume plates, exquisitely produced. The plates, by E. Kretzschmar after Adolph Menzel, are the result of a complicated and delicate process, now obsolete, which was invented in the early 1850's by Firmin Gillot. Known as Gillotage, the process turned a lithographic drawing into a relief plate. Employing both planographic and relief methods, the process remained purely manual, involving no photography. The lithograph was transferred to zinc and then etched, in an extremely laborious process, to make a metal relief block from which the final print was made. Noteworthily, many of Daumier's lithographic plates were treated in this way before their publication. Here, the plates are delicately hand-coloured by contemporary hand, rich in detail, and in fine condition, totally free of foxing. H-1 .

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