Book art

The high-quality collection of historical book bindings refers to a high-ranking artistic and technical achievement that is no longer the focus of public attention in our age of functional publisher's bindings and paperback paperbacks. This sophisticated art is still of great importance - not only in bibliophile circles. For centuries, the book, as a manuscript or, after the revolutionary development of letterpress printing by Johannes Gutenberg (around 1450), set in movable type, usually contained precious sacred or profane content. The magnificent book binding had the task of making the great importance of the Holy Scriptures, prayers and the spiritual work of man manifested in writing appropriately visible. The oldest example in the museum's collection, dating from the Romanesque period, depicts Christ among the apostles in finely carved ivory.

In the following centuries, cut, embossed, sometimes gilded or painted leather, followed by parchment, became the standard binding material. The figurative or ornamental decoration essentially followed the general stylistic development; the museum preserves high-ranking examples of this.

Apart from a few exceptions, the masters of binding art have only been signing their works since the 20th century. There are few, but high-quality examples of this, from Joseph Zaehnsdorf to Otto Dorfner. The book cover is still important today in bibliophile collector's items, artist's books and in the field of design.