This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
[BUCHINGER, Matthias] (1674 – 1740). Folio of Etchings, Drawings, and Engravings of Remarkable Characters and Freaks, Including Matthew Buchinger. German [?], compiled ca. 1850. A scrapbook of twenty-four leaves bound in later plain paper-covered boards (rubbed), comprised of images chronicling the “freaks” of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and including etchings depicting the human circulatory system, osteopathic deformities, and other anatomical features; but most prominently various human oddities, among them bearded ladies; various “monsters” represented by original inked sketches (and likely modeled on the images first published by Liceti in De Monstris) including ink drawings of a cyclops, a giraffe-necked archer, many views of Siamese twins, a “leopard skin” man, infants with cleft palates, limb-deficient individuals, and other deformities. Manuscript notations in Latin accompany many of the illustrations. Most prominent is an engraved portrait of Matthew Buchinger (10 1/2 x 7 1/8”), circa 1705, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED IN MIRROR WRITING AND UPSIDE DOWN by Buchinger below the likeness: “Ich Matthias Buchinger … Anno 1709. Zurich.” Each line of the inscription is written differently, including lines composed upside down and backward. Beside the inscription are three large block capital letters in Buchinger’s hand, “A-B-C.” The image pictures the famous performer in an elaborate coat and three-pointed hat, with many of the accoutrements he exhibited with, including a rifle, quill, pen, and paper, as well as a German hackbrett (a dulcimer-like instrument). Laid down and mounted on the album page, with margins cropped close, one loss in image, and trimming below the likeness affecting some text. Still, an early and important example of Buchinger’s abilities as a calligrapher, and an early likeness of the “little man of Nuremberg.” See Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women, p. 55, and Matthew Buchinger, p. 11.