Lettres à repondre / Lettres repondues / Adresses et notes

[Correspondence portfolio]. A correspondence portfolio of the Biedermeier period.

Upper Austria, ca 1845.

Folio (265 x 366 mm). A portfolio bound in auburn morocco with elaborate coloured silk embroidery on the upper cover, monogrammed "H". Gilt-stamped borders to both covers, chased metal clasp including the key. Pale pink blindstamped paper interior.

 3,500.00

An attractive gift of love: a privately embroidered portfolio with three compartments in the upper cover, captioned in gilt Gothic letters: "Lettres à repondre", "Lettres repondues" and "Adresses et notes"; the lower cover contains a single, spacious further compartment. On the first page of the inserted sheaf of blotting paper (bound in matching blindstamped pink wrappers) the owner has penned a note commemorating this gift from his beloved: "Du schönes Buch, / Du theure Gabe inn'ger Liebe. / Wie dich die Treue schuf, / Bewahre treu mir auch die Stunden, / Die hochbeseligt mich / In der Geliebten Näh‘ gefunden. // Am 10. August 1845 beim Sonnenuntergang / auf der Eisenbahn bei Wels" (a reference to the horse-drawn railroad, the second public railroad ever built in Europe - the local tracks served by steam locomotives would not be inaugurated until 1860).

Fascicule of blotting paper formerly fastened with a silk band but now loose with slight discoloration to its spine. The embroidery is splendidly preserved.

Stock Code: BN#47491 Tags: ,