Arnold, Thomas Walter.MareMagnum
Quran.MareMagnum
A miniature Qur'an. Vimperk, Hans Steinbrener, no date (20th century).
26 x 37 mm. 819, (5) pp. Original leather leather binding richly gilt with floral motifs, with leather clasp and cord with attached magnifying lens. All edges gilt. In original cardboard box. A charming miniature Quran in excellent condition, preserved in its original gilt binding and cardboard box. With richly decorated opening double page frontispiece. Fully vocalized text set in a frame, verse separators, sura headings and section markers in the margins printed in black throughout. These miniature Qurans were printed at the press of Hans Steinbrener since the early 1900s; with the new millennium, the shop closed down and ceased production. These miniature editions of the Holy Quran, with their elaborate gilt leather bindings and attached magnifying glass, count among the finest examples of their kind and as masterpieces of Bohemian printing and craftsmanship. "The firm advertised itself as the continent's largest producer of artistic bindings for prayer books and the largest publisher of prayer books [...] This publisher supplied a market ranging from Manila to New York" (Marija Dalbello, "Franz Josef's Time Machine: Images of Modernity in the Era of Mechanical Photoreproduction", in: Book History, Vol. 5 [2002], pp. 67-103). - Available colours: green, red, blue, brown, maroon. Gilt cover design, box design, and clasp design may vary. Coin shown for size comparison only.
