My collection revolves around the work of the Romantic polymath E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), who celebrated his 250th birthday this year. A lawyer by training, Hoffmann was a virtuosic writer, music critic, caricaturist, composer, and chapel master. His texts mesmerize as tales of enchanting beauty, and yet he is credited as a master of the uncanny and was a progenitor of the horror genre.
Hoffmann left behind a vast oeuvre of literary texts, in which the enjoyment of books and other forms of art can become a psychedelic and transcendental experiences. My collection seeks to encapsulate Hoffmann’s world, as well as the inspiration he has provided to book artists, bibliographers, collectors, philologists, and other bookish or bibliophilic professionals. They all cared deeply about his life and work and sought to preserve it for future generations.
Through prints, books, and autographs, I chart Hoffmann’s sources and his reception in book history, bibliophily, and other arts. The items presented do not stand on their own, but rather point towards Hoffmann’s enmeshment with print and visual culture, the preservation of his memory, and the large shadow that he casts on the world of music.
Jacques Callot. Captain Zerbino and Scapino. ca. 1630.
Etching after Callot, reverse pirated version of Lieure 390.
Throughout his career, E.T.A. Hoffmann was a great admirer of the work of Jacques Callot: His first story collection was entitled the Fantasy Pieces in the Manner of Callot (1813). In 1820, he wrote the fairytale Princess Brambilla, whose eight chapters all contain, depict, and narrativize scenes from Callot’s Balli di Sfessania. These Commedia dell’arte figures, originally named Zerbino and Scapino, continue their animated conversation over a flagon of wine as Giglio and Pantalon in Prinzessin Brambilla.
Friedrich Schnapp. TLS, January 24, 1949, to Stanislaus Rothballer.
Sent on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 173rd birthday, this is the first letter between Hoffmann collectors Friedrich Schnapp and Stanislaus Rothballer. A protegée of the bereaved collector and bibliophile Hans von Müller, Schnapp began preparing a state-of-the-art critical edition of Hoffmann’s work immediately after the end of World War II. In his correspondence with Rothballer, Schnapp sought to obtain relevant autographs and other reference material pertinent for his great work.
Hans Fronius and Michael Duske. E.T.A. Hoffmann.Lithograph on Paper, 2008.
Signed.
This lithograph was made and monogrammed by the Austrian book artist and illustrator Hans Fronius and signed by the Hoffmann collector Michael Duske, who used it as a New Year’s greeting card. Duske ran the Berlin-based publishing house Serapion vom See, which exclusively published Hoffmann in pristine, limited editions for bibliophiles. The design itself is based on a 1970s greeting card by Fronius; it shows an iconic image of Hoffmann, wearing a cane and a melon hat, and unrecognizable city (Berlin?) in the background.
