Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900). Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1908.

One of two known examples of the 1914 exhibition design, signed and dated by Otto Dorfner at Weimar in 1916.

“It ranks among the most beautiful bookbindings of the early twentieth century.”

— Alexander Rosenbaum, 2020 (translated by Atelier Zweig)

Details

Folio (380 × 255 mm). 3 preliminary leaves, 160 pages, 2 terminal leaves. Type drawn by Georges Lemmen and cut with the participation of Harry Graf Kessler; double-page ornamental title, title-page vignette and four ornamental part-titles by Henry van de Velde; printed in black, purple and gold at the Offizin W. Drugulin on Dutch handmade paper watermarked with van de Velde’s device for the Nietzsche-Archiv. One of 530 copies. Full dark-blue morocco by Otto Dorfner after Henry van de Velde, the covers panelled in gilt with red-morocco onlays, title gilt on the upper cover, spine with raised bands, top edge gilt, brown endpapers; signed and dated on the front turn-in V. D. VELDE INV · DORFNER EX · WEIMAR 16; in a dark-blue half-morocco box. The colophon records numbers 1–100 in leather and 101–530 in parchment.

A strict gilt grid encloses the central title field. Twenty red-morocco compartments form the border, their inner sides opening into stylized flower-cups; the narrow gilt capitals, probably drawn by Dorfner, are fitted closely to the dark-blue field. The severe architecture derives from early-medieval liturgical treasure manuscripts. At Leipzig, the exhibition copy was displayed like an incunable.

Van de Velde devised the binding for the Internationale Ausstellung für Buchgewerbe und Graphik (BUGRA), held at Leipzig in 1914. In March of that year, the Insel-Verlag sent the Weimar school a copy of the monumental 1908 Zarathustra and requested a particularly rich hand binding. Van de Velde answered with a wholly new design made expressly for the exhibition. Following its reception at Leipzig, the publisher ordered three further examples.

Two examples of this exclusive design are presently recorded: identical in ornament, lettering and gilding, but differing in their leather. For one, Dorfner chose cherry-red morocco with two lighter red tones; for the other, dark-blue morocco with red leather onlays. The turn-in dates the execution of the present example to 1916. This is the blue.

The liturgical source is inseparable from Nietzsche’s own language for the work. In February 1883 he described the emerging Zarathustra as “a fifth Gospel … for which there is as yet no name”; two months later he wrote that he had made a “new holy book.” Van de Velde and Dorfner gave that claim material form: dark leather, hieratic lettering, a sacral frame and hand-laid gold.

The monumental edition began with Harry Graf Kessler, who engaged van de Velde in 1898 and, after seeing the first drawings, predicted “undoubtedly the most beautiful book produced in centuries.” Franz von Stuck, Hans Thoma and Max Klinger were considered as illustrators and all declined. Klinger objected that illustration would lower a work which, despite its poetic dress, remained philosophy. The published book consequently depended on type, proportion, paper, ornament and colour for its visual force.

Van de Velde’s engagement with the text preceded the commission. He had read Zarathustra during his retreat at Wechelderzande in 1887 and later recalled that its thoughts nourished him better than real food. While remodelling the Nietzsche-Archiv at Weimar, he read the opening section in Nietzsche’s manuscript. For the edition itself he withdrew during the summers of 1906 and 1907 to Schwarzburg, rereading the work and reducing his ornament to its final forms.

Georges Lemmen had drawn the type in Brussels in 1900. Van de Velde designed the titles, part-titles, ornament and original publisher’s binding and directed the printing at W. Drugulin. The subscription prospectus announced the “monumental edition” in 530 copies. The Nietzsche-Archiv remained physically present throughout the book in the watermark devised by van de Velde for the institution. The completed volumes were delivered at Christmas 1908.

The 1914 BUGRA design replaced the moving circular structure of the 1908 publisher’s binding with a rectangular order. In the earlier design, an off-centre circle turns beneath the cover ornament and within the part-titles. Van de Velde deliberately restrained the circular structure in Parts I and II and released it fully in Part III, where the doctrine of eternal recurrence emerges. In the BUGRA binding, movement is arrested within the grid and the title occupies the position of an icon.

Otto Dorfner had trained, after his master’s examination, at Paul Kersten’s Berlin school. In 1910, aged twenty-five, he was appointed to direct the bookbinding workshop of van de Velde’s Weimar school. His work was distinguished by command of materials, technical precision and mastery of hand-gilding. At BUGRA, Dorfner received a gold medal for bindings shown in the Jakob Krausse-Bund section.

After the school’s closure, Dorfner continued his workshop privately. Walter Gropius brought him into the newly founded Bauhaus in 1919, where he remained until 1922 as Werkmeister for bookbinding and teacher of lettering. The turn-in gives the collaboration in its own terms: van de Velde conceived it; Dorfner executed it; Weimar, 1916.

Literature

Sarkowski 1193; Schauer I, p. 61 and II, pl. 16; Eyssen, p. 17; Hofstätter, p. 101; Garvey & Wick 115; Castleman 34; Carter & Muir, PMM 370; Langer, p. 132; Arnolds graphische Bücher 2149; Lammers & Unverfehrt 40; Rosenbaum, pp. 205–224, esp. pp. 222–224 and pls. 14–15; Brinks, Denkmal des Geistes, pp. 287–296, esp. pp. 293–294; Lobisch, p. 99; Brinks, “Vom Zauber der Linie,” pp. 34–83, esp. pp. 40–46; Weber 47; Schütze 11b.

Condition

Overall a breathtakingly beautiful copy.