?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(ERNST LUDWIG PRESSE.) Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust, eine Tragödie von Goethe. Printed in red and black in Kleukens-Antiqua type at the Kleukens Presse. 4to, handsome binding of red morocco with dotted border and inset frames on each cover containing decorative clover, arrow, and star motifs, with small insets of turquoise and black morocco, by paul kersten, signed along rear turn-in, spine evenly darkened, some scuffing to bands at hinges, turn-ins over marbled paper; top edges trimmed and gilt. Frankfurt-am-Main, 1922
The Ernst Ludwig Presse was founded in 1907 as private printing company for the Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen, with typographer and printer Friedrich Wilhelms Kleukens as its director. As one of the first German private presses, Ernst Ludwig looked to such English Arts and Crafts printing houses as Kelmscott and Doves. Friedrich's brother and Pressman, Christian, was in fact heavily influenced by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and the dramatic full-page opening initial I in Faust is reminiscent of the Doves Bible.
In 1919, Christian Kleukens and Rudolf G. Binding founded the Kleukens-Presse in Frankfurt am Main which became affiliated with his Ernst Ludwig Presse, hence this 'joint' production.
