"Erinnerungsblätter aus Gastein". Photo album.
Oblong folio (265 x 195 mm). 12 large photographs on strong cardboards, all edges gilt. Contemporary calf with metal applications, title label, floral embroidery, gilt spine and metal clasp. Satin pastedowns signed August Klein, Wien, Graben No. 20.
€ 4,500.00
A charming, specially commissioned album of expressive photographs showing the famous Salzburg spa village Bad Gastein and environs. The lavishly decorated dedicatory title-page is inscribed to a valued spa guest of many years, the Upper Austrian jurist and civil servant Alfred Straberger, with 11 signatures by members of the family of the Gastein hotel owner and mayor Carl Straubinger (1855-1924), by the spa physician Dr Anton Wassing, and by his wife Therese. Another signature is likely that of the landscape painter Ludwig Beständig (ca. 1860-1915), long active in the Salzkammergut district. A masterpiece from the studio of August Klein (knighted in 1881: "von Ehrenwalten"), bookbinder and manufacturer of leather accessories. Klein's work won prizes at numerous exhibitions. He was the first Austrian maker of his kind to manufacture his products on a large scale, set trends in style, and through his exports to France, England, and America join the world market (cf. ÖBL III, 386).
