Commemorative album for the architect of Austria's National Bank

[Ferstel, Heinrich]. Dem Erbauer des Bank- und Börsegebäudes Architekten Heinrich Ferstel zur Erinnerung.

Vienna, October-November 1860.

Folio (295 x 360 mm). 36 signatures on 2 pp. and a signed dedicatory leaf. Bound after a calligraphic title-page with dedicatory verses, masterly watercolour illumination, and historicist initials on gilt background, signed by Karl Geiger. Coloured inlaid full leather binding, spine on five raised bands, with eight square chiselled, gilt fleuronée corner fittings with bosses to both covers. Coloured, decorated flyleaves and pastedowns of finely ribbed paper.

 9,500.00

Unique, splendidly produced commemorative album, dedicated to the Austrian architect Heinrich Ferstel by the artists and personnel involved in the building of the bank and stock exchange on Vienna's Freyung square, today known simply as "Palais Ferstel". The book presents the signatures of the 36 principal men, women and representatives of businesses who helped create the structure which Ferstel designed for the Austrian National Bank: Florian Baldus, Stefan Barawitzka, Bernardo de Bernardis, Joseph Berndt, Anton Detoma, Franz Josef Dobiaschofsky, Anton von Fernkorn, Carl Josef Geiger, Carl Geyling, Josef Griller, Philipp Haas & sons, Eduard Hauser, August Kitschelt, Rudolf Knepper & Schmidt, Franz Melnitzky, Anton Ölzelt, Anton Theodor Palkl, Friedrich Paulick, Hermann von Riewel, and Carl Wisgrill. Wilhelm von Lucam, the first Austrian vice-governor of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, contributed a six-line autograph inscription of his own. The elaborate dedicatory title-page, meticulously executed in ink, watercolours and gilt, is by Ferstel's personal friend and collaborator, the Viennese illustrator and painter Carl Joseph Geiger (1822-1905). The impeccably preserved signed master binding is the work of the Viennese luxury bookbinder August Habenicht.