A Spectacular Contemporary Coloured Copy from the Ritman Collection

[Pinder, Ulrich]. Speculum passionis domini nostri Ihesu christi. Nuremberg, [Ulrich Pinder], 1507.

One of the great illustrated Passion books of the German Renaissance, printed in Nuremberg in 1507 and illustrated with 76 woodcuts by Hans Schäufelein and Hans Baldung Grien, both recent collaborators from Albrecht Dürer’s workshop.

The present example is exceptional because every woodcut survives in magnificent contemporary hand-colouring in yellow, green, rose, red, brown, blue, and grey — a survival of the utmost rarity. Formerly in the collection of Joost Ritman’s Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, the book remains among the most visually striking illustrated German devotional books of the early sixteenth century.

Edition & Bibliographic Information

Folio (approximately 304 × 205 mm), printed in double columns.

Illustrated with 76 woodcuts, including 39 full-page compositions, all contemporary coloured by hand. The illustrations include monumental Passion scenes, large devotional images, and smaller narrative cuts throughout the text.

Bound in an eighteenth-century German or Austrian calf binding with richly gilt spine, gilt dentelle borders, pastepaper endleaves, and gauffered gilt edges.

Binding rubbed and slightly spotted; corners bumped; faint dampstaining in the upper blank margin and an additional smaller dampstain extending from the inner margin; discolouration from the colouring here and there; minimal brown spotting at the outermost side margin of the final four leaves; leaf A1 largely backed, leaving only the title exposed on the recto; leaf A2 remargined at the head.

Blank leaf Q4 is missing.

Overall, a magnificent copy.

Schäufelein, Baldung Grien, and Dürer’s Workshop

The Speculum Passionis stands among the most ambitious illustrated woodcut books produced in Germany immediately after Dürer’s Apocalypse.

Hans Schäufelein and Hans Baldung Grien had both recently worked in Dürer’s workshop in Nuremberg, Schäufelein from roughly 1503 to 1507 and Baldung from 1503 to 1506. The influence of Dürer is unmistakable throughout the cycle, yet the book possesses its own distinct visual rhythm and emotional intensity.

Schäufelein supplied more than half the illustrations, including 35 full-page compositions. Most appeared here for the first time. Baldung contributed 22 woodcuts, among them some of the most dramatic scenes in the volume, including the monumental Man of Sorrows, the Nailing to the Cross, and the Raising of the Cross. A further cut has been attributed to Hans Süß von Kulmbach.

Only Dürer’s own Apocalypse can truly be regarded as a precedent for such an extensive and visually coherent woodcut cycle at this date.

The Passion Narrative in Images

The structure of the book unfolds almost cinematically through the sequence of full-page illustrations.

After the opening Crucifixion and the monumental Man of Sorrows, the narrative initially advances through smaller devotional scenes before expanding into a sequence of increasingly dramatic full-page compositions beginning with Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.

Scenes of relative calm — the Last Supper, the Washing of the Feet, the Prayer on the Mount of Olives — gradually give way to escalating violence and emotional intensity: the Arrest, the Mocking, the Flagellation, the Carrying of the Cross, the Nailing to the Cross, and finally the Raising of the Crucifixion itself. The emotional register then softens again through the Lamentation and Entombment before culminating in the Resurrection, Christ’s appearances after death, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Last Judgment.

The contemporary colouring transforms the cycle even further. The woodcuts no longer function merely as printed illustrations but acquire something approaching the richness of illuminated devotional manuscripts.

Ulrich Pinder

The publisher and editor Ulrich Pinder occupied an unusual position within Nuremberg intellectual life.

Originally trained as a physician, Pinder had served as personal doctor to Frederick III of Saxony before becoming city physician of Nuremberg. He belonged to the humanist circle surrounding Conrad Celtis and was active not only as an author of medical works but also as printer and publisher in his own house.

The Speculum Passionis reflects this combination of humanist ambition, devotional intensity, and visual sophistication characteristic of early sixteenth-century Nuremberg.

Provenance

Ex libris of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica of Joost Ritman, Amsterdam. Later reacquired directly by HT.

Literature

Catalogue HT XX, Illumination und Illustration (1987), number 64.

Wunderkammer, Catalogue 90, vol. I, entry 34, p. 301.

Adams P 1243; BM STC German 697; Davies, Fairfax Murray German 333; Dodgson II; Geisberg; Mende 286–297; Oldenbourg; VD16 P 2807.