The Graphic Collection consists of more than 43,000 original and reproduction pages and series of pages dating from the 15th to the 21st centuries. These high-quality artefacts illustrate certain aspects of books and writing such as art, design and print technology.

Origins of the Graphic Collection

The foundations of the Graphic Collection at the German Museum of Books and Writing were laid at the beginning of the 20th century by the so-called Weissenbach and Schoppmeyer collections. These model collections were largely destroyed during World War II, but since 1950 have been gradually replaced by acquisitions.

New highlights have been added in the form of graphics, book art and experimental works by contemporary typographers and book artists. The collection, which is continually being expanded, contains the following:

• Works by individual artists, workshops, artists’ societies, printers and publishers, mainly on book design and illustration
• Samples of original and reprographic techniques and processes
• Examples of hand-written texts, initials and miniatures (originals and reproductions)
• Typographic book decorations (borders, vignettes, signets)
• Drafts, layout templates, typographic and calligraphic scripts
• Commercial art, small print products, luxury papers, devotional pictures, pictorial broadsheets, labels, greeting cards, paper money, baptismal certificates, paper lace

Bookplate collection

The Museum's collection includes more than 2,900 different bookplate designs. Book lovers have been using these tokens of ownership to label their book collections ever since printed books first became available. The variety of designs is enormous – from simple written bookplates to small, complex, printed bookplates featuring mottoes, illustrations, photos, monograms and symbols. Individual bookplate designs were frequently commissioned from artists. Take a look at a selection of bookplates from our collection:

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Bookplate Alice Pontoppidan

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Encompassing thousands of designs, the private bookplate collections of Hans Schulze, Karl Wiegel and Raymund Schmidt are some of the most outstanding parts of our collection.

Portrait collection

Encompassing more than 3,300 graphics, the portrait collection is one of the most extensive of its kind in the world. Portraits of printers, editors, book dealers and book binders are just as much a part of this unique collection as portraits of censors and others who worked in the book trade. The collection was catalogued and digitised as part of a large-scale project by the German Research Foundation. The index of images lists the names of the portrait subjects in alphabetical order.

Index of images

Pictorial broadsheets

The Museum’s collection of pictorial broadsheets consists of coloured and uncoloured pictorial broadsheets dating from between 1835 and 1975. Most of them came from the Weissenburg paper factory in Alsace. The collection also contains a number of rare Russian folk pictures known as LUBOK prints.

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Bilderbogen: Gott segne das ehrbare Handwerk!

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Reich prints

The collection of Reich prints encompasses almost all the graphic prints issued by the Reichsdruckerei (Reich printers). This came into existence in 1879 when the Königlich-preußische Staatsdruckerei (Royal Prussian State Printers), founded in 1852, merged with the Königlich Geheimen Oberhofbuchdruckerei (Royal Secret Court Book Printers). Their products included treasury notes, bank notes, stamps, postage stamps, monetary instruments and official works.

Loose-leaf collections from the German Book Traders’ Association

The loose-leaf collection of the German Book Traders’ Association library consists of around 9,000 items. These include miniatures, parchment manuscripts, reproductions of incunabula, print samples, handwriting samples, bindings and fragments of bindings, printed documents, portraits, Gutenberg portraits, pictures of buildings dedicated to the book trade, watermarks and coloured papers.

Contact: Julia Rinck