A fine characteristic German ecclesiastical ex libris of 1624 is the plate given—page 330, George Bell and Sons—of Otto Gereon von Gutmann, Doctor of Theology, Electoral Councillor, and Suffragan Bishop of Cologne.
A very fine armorial plate, of which we do not know the designer, the engraver, nor the date, is that of Alexandre Petau. His father, Paul Petau, Conseiller au Parlement de Paris, died in 1613, bequeathing to his son a fine library of manuscripts and printed books.
A bookplate in two sizes, engraved for Claude Sarrau, Councillor to the Parliament of Paris. He died in 1651, and his son Isaac, in 1654, edited his father’s correspondence with the learned of his time. The larger Sarrau plate, and probably the smaller as well, were engraved by Isaac Briot, who was born in 1585, and died in Paris in 1670.
Reaching the seventeenth century, we find German ex libris multiplying greatly, but not improving in design.
Armorial bookplates still predominate, but the shield is often in one way or another surrounded by wreaths of leaves and flowers. It can hardly be insisted on too clearly that there is nothing mysterious, though much that is interesting, about the varying modes and manners of ex libris. They, in fact, represented the art, customs, learning, and taste of successive ages.
Thus turn to Johann Sibmacher’s Wappenbüchlein, published in 1596, and you will find plenty of illustrations of these wreaths, though with no reference to bookplates.
CHAPTER IV
BOOKPLATES CHRONOLOGICALLY
The seventeenth century begins—German plates—William Marshall—Lord Littleton—Huet, Bishop of Avranches.
IN 1604 Egidius Sadeler of Munich engraved for Arnold von Reyger a plate which is both signed and dated. At the top of the plate is the Latin motto “Ad Deum Refugium,” and in another part of the plate are the letters “Z. G. M. Z.,” standing for “Zu Gott meine Zuflucht,” the German version of the Latin motto.
In 1619 Hans Hauer designed and Hans Troschel engraved a characteristic and very elaborate ex libris for Johann Wilhelm Krep von Krepenstein, of Nuremberg. Both designer and engraver were natives of Nuremberg, the former born in 1582, and the latter about six years later.