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A coloring book based on the Nuremberg Chronicle with 12 color images and 12 black and white images to color.
THE HARRY RANSOM CENTER is home to several copies of the Liber chronicarum, a book better known in English as the Nuremberg Chronicle. Its content covers world history, beginning with Creation, and has a distinctly German focus. As a printed book, it ranks high among the most lavish publications of the fifteenth century. With 328 leaves—656 pages—each copy required 164 sheets of one of the largest paper types available in the period. Those pages contain over 1,800 illustrations printed from around 650 blocks of wood cut specifically for use in the two editions finished in 1493: one Latin, one German.
One of the Center’s Latin copies is particularly distinctive. Its woodcuts were hand colored in the fifteenth century, using pigments consistent with those used by the workshop that the book’s Nuremberg printer, Anton Koberger, employed. By 1580, the volume had made its way to England. In 1680, a full century later, a man named William Cherry donated the book to the library in Bray, a town in Berkshire. Then, in 1692, his son Francis Cherry had the woodcuts “elegantly repainted.”
Each opening in this coloring book reproduces two copies of the same woodcut portrait: one from the twice-colored volume and one from an uncolored copy at the Center for you to decorate yourself. Each portrait features a book. What colors will you choose?
- 12 color pages
- 12 black and white coloring pages
- 11.3" X 8.3"
- 0.3 ounces
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