Mon Jan 1, 2024 12:28 PM

I thought it might be fun this year to go through the books individually in some sort of order, rather than scattershot. We can talk about where they are located and can be accessed. Maybe look at a pattern or two per book and be inspired to create a modern project. I’ll still try to post matches with portraits as I find them, since I love doing that, but reviewing the books certainly helps in spotting those matches.

I think I’d like to rotate back and forth between the two halves of the Lotz list so we progress somewhat chronologically by publication date. I may include some non-Lotz books as they come up, however.

So, let’s start with Lotz book 1.

Lotz 1a Schonsperger _Furm oder Modelbuchlein Lotz lists 2 copies. The first was located at the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Leipzig. The museum was renamed the Grassi Museum of Applied Arts in 2005 after major building refurbishment. It is starting to put much of its collection online, but Schonsperger is not yet part of it. That’s assuming it survived major destruction of the museum during WWII

The second was located in Vienna at the Museum for Art and Industry, now the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts.) They have a huge part of their collection online. I’m having a difficult time accessing it today, so I will need to edit this post later.

Lotz 1b Lotz has one copy held by the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin. Their copy is available online at https://www.bildindex.de/document/obj14096872

I considered doing a counted project with these as they are fabulous for that use, perhaps some pattern darning. I decided instead to go in a different direction and carve a fabric printing block. Schonsperger’s press printed fabric as well as books, and it may well be part of why they printed an embroidery book. So, I selected two of my favorite patterns and plan to cut some lino today.