MAYER, S - ANTWERPBiblio.com
The five senses on four large porcelain cards.
1850103087<p>Antwerp S. Mayer n.d. c. 1860. Four porcelain cards. size: c. 225 x 31 cm. All signed: "Gravé par S. Mayer a Anvers" & "Etabl. lith. de S. Mayer à Anvers". In 1880 the firm of S. Mayer was taken over by Seghers. some light staining & two plates with some tiny damage to the margins but good copies.</p><p>The five senses - sight hearing smell taste and touch - are represented on these charming porcelain cards. Sight hearing and smell each have their own card and taste & touch share a card. Five scenes represent the five senses: sound is represented by a woman listening at at door; taste by a clergyman drinking a glass of wine smell by a man sitting on a chair who smells a substance he has taken from a small pot; sight by a girl looking through binoculars and a woman who is reading; and touch by a miser touching coins. Surrounding these scenes on each of the plates are numerous tiny drawings also representing the senses. They range from seventeen small noses on cord held by two little devils twelve tiny eyes no a scroll held by two little angels to small scenes showing a painter at work a cook two fencing boys a little girl playing a piano a woman being revived with smelling salt etc. etc. The lithographer obviously had fun making these.</p><p>Porcelain-cards or were mainly produced in Belgium in the nineteenth century between 1825 and the 1870's. They are called porcelain-cards because they look a bit like porcelain. They were printed in lithography on a white background of paper with kaolin or lead white. Their production gradually stopped in the 1870's because of the health hazards for printers. They are technical masterpieces of the so-called chromolithography just after its invention.</p>
Knuf Rare Books · France2 000,00 €
