Jacob Zader, Die schöne Sommerzeit des ewigen Lebens
Wittenberg: Paul Helwig, 1603
148 x 90 mm, 42 additionally inserted full-page gouaches
inserted after p. 336: Grain harvest at a farmstead
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Jacob Zader, Die schöne Sommerzeit des ewigen Lebens
Wittenberg: Paul Helwig, 1603
148 x 90 mm, 42 additionally inserted full-page gouaches
inserted after p. 56: Winter scene with a view of Halle
Jacob Zader, Die schöne Sommerzeit des ewigen Lebens
Wittenberg: Paul Helwig, 1603
148 x 90 mm, 42 additionally inserted full-page gouaches
inserted after p. 60: A dramatic tempest at sea
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Jacob Zader, Die schöne Sommerzeit des ewigen Lebens
Wittenberg: Paul Helwig, 1603
148 x 90 mm, 42 additionally inserted full-page gouaches
inserted after p. 42: Winter scene, a man sitting by the fire in front of a house, roofers at work, signed AV 1613
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Jacob Zader, Die schöne Sommerzeit des ewigen Lebens
Wittenberg: Paul Helwig, 1603
148 x 90 mm, 42 additionally inserted full-page gouaches
inserted after p. 326: Christ on the Cross before a dark sky, at the foot of the cross a pelican feeding its chicks with blood from its breast, in the foreground a family with four children
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Jacob Zader, Die schöne Sommerzeit des ewigen Lebens
Wittenberg: Paul Helwig, 1603
148 x 90 mm, 42 additionally inserted full-page gouaches
inserted after p. 156: Birds and bird trapping in a garden at night, a hen and chicks in the fore ground
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While a typical German edifying book of the beginning Baroque period of German literature, this is a remarkable copy of a very scarce edition. As the book is, moreover, highly embellished with painted illustration, it is also – and above all – a charming piece of art.
The author, Jakob Zader (1555-1613), uses winter and summer as allegorical representations of the earthly and eternal lives of the faithful.
Our copy is abundantly decorated with additionally inserted colourful images, which offer charming vignettes of contemporary country life, such as wild landscapes, gardens, and husbandry, showing wild and domestic animals, farmers working the land, a shipwreck, craftsmen in their workshops, as well as devotional and allegorical scenes. While several features of the gouache illustrations suggest various stylistic influences, the identity of the artist(s) who dated and monogrammed the initials AV and NG on some of the miniatures remains unknown.
This work is now in the collection of the Walters Art Museum as W. 937. To read more about it, consult Walters' curator Lynley Ann Herbert's article in the Journal of the Walters Art Museum.
