Vellum folio leaf with canon image of the monogrammist AG, a student of Martin Schongauer

[Crucifixus from a Reyser missal]. [Missale.

€ 6,500.00

Exquisite full-page copperplate engraving of Christ on the cross, Mary on the left, John on the right, two angels floating under the crossbeam. Includes three lines of printed text which identify this as the extremely rare missal published by Michael Reyser in 1486, as distinguished from the 1481 "Missale Herbipolense" printed by Georg Reyser in Würzburg, both only existing in a handful of incomplete copies.

"That the city in the background is Würzburg with the fortified Marienberg, as Becker and Passavant say, is certainly possible, but it does not seem to me to be certain" (Lehrs). Below the illustration are three lines of text: "Et pace[m] tua[m] nostris co[n]cede te[m]poribus [...]", which leads Lehrs to conclude this can only come from the editions of 1481 or 1486.

The printer Georg Reyser (variously also spelled Reiser, Reysser, Ryser, Rieser, or Rüsser) is first documented in 1471, when he acquired citizenship of Strasbourg and entered the guild of painters and goldsmiths. His first recorded printing dates from 1472. From 1478 Reyser printed mainly liturgical works, from 1479 in Würzburg together with Michael Reyser (known from 1463 to 1505), who was either his brother or his cousin. In 1479, they were given the privilege of printing a Breviarium Herbipolense together with Stephan Dold and Johann Beckenhaub for the Würzburg Bishop Rudolf von Scherenberg (1446-99). The privilege was renewed in 1496 by Bishop Lorenz of Bibra (1495-1519).

Michael Reyser was imprisoned in Strasbourg in 1480 as the result of a quarrel, but appears to have been released through Scherenberg's mediation. In 1481 Georg published the Missale Herbipolense, and subsequently a Breviarium Eystettense in 1483 and the Statuta Eystettensia ca. 1486. Until 1494, Michael Reyser maintained his own workshops in Eichstätt, where 13 large format works, including three Missals, were produced.