An Automaton ala Lothar Meggendorfer

by Stephen J. Gertz

An exceedingly scarce Schoenhut automaton, c. 1890-1900, in full working, unrestored and fine condition - with its original key, yet - featuring illustrated figures in a comic situation typical of movable book master Lothar Meggendorfer has come onto the market.

The scene depicts a tailor sitting at his table with his legs crossed, drowsily stitching a garment while nodding off. To the left, a rascal apprentice also sits at the table with his legs crossed stitching a garment. All of a sudden he sneezes and pricks his dozing master with a sewing needle while his companion apprentice looks on and stops ironing in anticipation of the stab. The tailor jerks awake at the pinprick, but soon dozes off again and the cycle begins anew.

Schoenhut automata have become insanely difficult to find;  I'm aware of only one other coming into the marketplace within the last ten years. As might be easily imagined, automata for children did not endure their enthusiastic play any more than movable books easily survived the eager little hands that mauled them.

Albert Schoenhut (1848-1912) was born into a toy-making from Wurtenberg, Germany; his father and grandfather made dolls, rocking horses, and wagons. As a boy Albert was a toy-making prodigy. His toy pianos were more than just, well, toys. They stayed in tune.

In 1866, a buyer for Wanamaker’s, the famous Philadelphia department store, heard about the wunderkind of Wurtenberg and hired the seventeen year old as a repairman of glass sounding pieces in German toy pianos that had been damaged in shipping en route to Philly.

In 1872, Schoenhut left Wanamaker's to establish the Schoenhut Piano Company on Frankford Avenue in Philadelphia. As his toy piano business prospered, Shoenhut added other toy instruments to his line and expanded it to include dolls, circus figures, toys, and, as here, automata. By 1901, the firm had 125 employees making novelty toys.

By the time of Albert's death, Schoenhut Piano Company was the largest toy company in the United States and the first in the U. S. to export toys to Germany; up until then it was the other way around. 140 years after its founding it is still active as a maker of toy pianos, though, after multiple changes in ownership since Schoenhut's death in 1912, its archives have been scattered and all records of their vintage automata are, alas, lost.

As a result, it is unknown whether Schoenhut copied existing Lothar Meggendorfer designs or had an employee finely imitate the great Meggendorfer's style.

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[AUTOMATON]. [“The Tailor and His Two Apprentices”]. [Philadelphia: Schoenhut, n.d. c. 1890-1900]. Boxed automaton. Image size: 11 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches; 293 x 395 mm. Box size: 13 5/8 x 17 5/8 x 5 1/8 inches; 345 x 447 x 130 mm. Schoenhut blue trademark label to rear.

Three cardboard figures in original paper-covered wooden box, with glass cover and gold-painted metal frame. A sliding panel on the back of the box reveals cardboard parts moved by clockwork mechanisms, which can be wound up with the original metal key.

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Videography by Dustin Jack and courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

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Of Related Interest:

Lothar Meggendorfer Mania at Auction.

Lother Meggendorfer Animates the Inanimate.

A Movable Book Feast.

Waldo Hunt and Pop-Up Books: A Brief Overview.
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Lothar Meggendorfer Mania at Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Humoristische Blätter.
München und Wein: u..a. Schreiber, 1891-1903.
First  edition. Quarto. Collection of all 165 issues
of this humor magazine.

On November 21, 2011. Ketterer Kunst Auktions of Hamburg held a magnificent sale of the J. Landwehr collection of movable books. The auction included eighty-six volumes by Lothar Meggendorfer, the innovative master of mechanical books. Of those eighty-six, only a handful of lots did not sell (but remain available by post-sale).

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Gamla Bekanta.
Stockholm: O.L. Lamms, [c.1880].
First Swedish edition. Quarto. 25 color lithographs.

John Landwehr is the renowned Dutch collector and bibliographer of emblem books, the author of the standard reference on Dutch color-plate books, an esteemed scholar of the Dutch East India Company, and, not so by the way, one of the world's great collectors of children's literature, with an emphasis on movable books.

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Grosses Puppentheater.
Esslingen: J.F. Schreiber, [1890].
First edition. Quarto. 6 color-lithographed plates by P. Wagner
and 9 illustrations by Meggendorfer.

“There is little doubt that the most elaborate and ingenious movables ever produced were those of the German Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925) made during the 1880s and 1890s…the mechanisms and operations of Meggendorfer’s books—not to mention the originality of his figures—are far superior to any others published before or since.…'They were marvels of ingenuity…Usually several movements took place at the same time on the same page' (Eric Quayle)…

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Heitere Verwandlungen.
N.p., [c. 1880].
First edition. Quarto. 6 multi-part color-lithographed plates.

"The devices that operated the various figures in Meggendorfer’s books consisted of a series of inter-connecting cardboard levers sandwiched between the coloured illustration on the front of the oblong leaf and the dummy pasted behind it. The animated limbs and heads were cut-out models on the front of the picture, and moving the tab set the whole scene in motion…Needless to say, such was the delicacy of Meggendorfer's machinery that if a child pulled too hard the whole thing could be ruined beyond repair” (Haining, Movable Books, pp. 65-73).

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Kinderlieder.
Neurode: E. Rose,, [1907]/
First edition. Quarto. Numerous illustrations by L.M.

"While Meggendorfer was an inventor, working with paper, he was also an artist of great talent," said modern master, Waldo H. Hunt, "who insisted upon handling most of the details required of multicolored lithography...

 

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Lebende Bilder.
München: Braun & Schneider, [c. 1890].
First edition of the movable book by  Meggendorfer.
Quarto. 8 color-lithographed plates.

"But what really set Meggendorfer apart," Hunt continued, "and what has continued to fascinate collectors of his work, are the ingenious mechanizations that he achieved, not just for their own sake but to fulfill and enhance the comic or dramatic effect that he had in mind" (Introduction to The Genius of Lothar Megendorfer).

MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Look and Laugh. London: H. Grevel, c. 1897.
First U.K. edition. Quarto. Four color lithographed plates.

Given the circumstances, it's something of a miracle that any have survived in collectible condition.

MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Neues Struwwelpeterbuch.
Esslingen: J.F. Schreiber, [1891].
First  edition. Quarto. Numerous illustratoins, many in color.

The Landwehr Collection sale was one to keep an eye on simply because the collectors market for movable books is limited and this was an enormous amount of material to appear at a single offering.

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Nur für brave Kinder.
Esslingen: J.F. Schreiber, [1896].
Seconf German edition. Quarto. Six color-lithographed plates.

A total of 241 movable books from the Landwehr Collection were offered in the sale. Sixty-six did not sell; approximately 25% of the collection went begging and are now being offered by Ketterer Kunst in a post-auction sale.

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Verschiedene Leute.
Esslingen und München: J.F. Schreiber, [1902].
First edition. Quarto. six color-lithographed plates.

That 75% of the collection did sell, however, is a positive sign. It was always iffy that all would would be claimed by collectors; there are just not that many in the world who are committed to movable books.

From: MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Les aventures de Zigomar.
N.p. , c. 1890.
First edition in French. Quarto. 14 color-lithogrphed plates.

It was a good day, then, for collectors and the trade. Not a great day, but, given the still struggling economy, a positive omen.

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All images courtesy of Ketterer Kunst, with out thanks.
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Of related interest:

A Movable Book Feast: The World's Greatest Collection Comes to Auction.

Lothar Meggendorfer Animates the Inanimate.
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Lothar Meggendorfer Animates The Inanimate

Deep within a secret atelier in Munich, Germany, circa 1880-1900, a mad artist with a mechanical turn of mind was bringing life to the inanimate. A photo survives of his first success:

"It's alive! It's alive!"

People, however, were none too pleased about his experiments so, in a desperate attempt to avoid a torch and pitchfork-bearing posse of villagers seeking vengeance and on the prowl for his blood, he changed his name, underwent extensive cosmetic surgery, turned away from humans and began working on books. Books that had life, and were animated. Books that moved. But were no threat to families and children. Children could, indeed, delight in them. The burghermeister could sleep easily, the Prefect of Police, relax.

"The book is the life, Mr. Renfield." 

(Whoops. Sorry, wrong story).

If you want life in your books, look no further than Dr. Frankenstein, er, Lothar Meggendorfer's movable books. Specifically,  one of his rarest, a book that, according to ABPC, has not come to auction within the last thirty-five years, with no copies, per OCLC  and KVK, in institutional holdings worldwide.

"It's alive! It's All Alive!"
(First U.K. edition, scarce).

What's the big megillah with Meggendorfer?

"Quite simply, Meggendorfer turned the mechanical toy book into a work of art. He was the supreme master of animation: every gesture, both animal and human, is conveyed with uncanny precision via the primitive but - in his hands - versatile medium of moveable paper parts. but the pictures do more than move; they come passionately to life…Meggendorfer captures the essential gesture in his moving pictures and that is his genius..." (Maurice Sendak, The Genius of Lothar Meggendorfer. p. 1).

Lothar Meggendorfer (post-surgery).

"While Meggendorfer was an inventor, working with paper, he was also an artist of great talent," says modern master, Waldo H. Hunt, "who insisted upon handling most of the details required of multicolored lithography...But what really set Meggendorfer apart, and what has continued to fascinate collectors of his work, are the ingenious mechanizations that he achieved, not just for their own sake but to fulfill and enhance the comic or dramatic effect that he had in mind" (Introduction to The Genius of Lothar Megendorfer).

“There is little doubt that the most elaborate and ingenious movables ever produced were those of the German Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925) made during the 1880s and 1890s…the mechanisms and operations of Meggendorfer’s books—not to mention the originality of his figures—are far superior to any others published before or since.…'They were marvels of ingenuity…Usually several movements took place at the same time on the same page' (Eric Quayle)…The devices that operated the various figures in Meggendorfer’s books consisted of a series of inter-connecting cardboard levers sandwiched between the coloured illustration on the front of the oblong leaf and the dummy pasted behind it. The animated limbs and heads were cut-out models on the front of the picture, and moving the tab set the whole scene in motion…Needless to say, such was the delicacy of Meggendorfer's machinery that if a child pulled too hard the whole thing could be ruined beyond repair” (Haining, Movable Books, pp. 65-73).

Pull tab at bottom and the cows bob the trough.

From All Alive.

Despite Meggendorfer's charming admonition that "Men and creatures here you find/Are lively and amusing;/You fingers must be slow and kind/And treat them well while using," the books were routinely subjected to rough treatment by the enchanted children who enthusiastically played with them.

Given the circumstances, it's something of a miracle that any have survived in collectible condition.

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MEGGENDORFER, Lothar. All Alive. A Movable Toybook by Lothar Meggendorfer. London: H. Grevel & Co., [n.d., ca. 1885-90].

First English edition of Lebener Tierbilder (1884). Large folio (12 15/16 x 9 5/16 inches; 329 x 235 mm.). [17], [1, blank] pp. Lithographed preface and eight full-page chromolithographed plates (included in pagination), each of which has a movable tab to set the scene in motion. Each plate with a leaf of text opposite.
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Meggendorfer resources:

The Originality and Artistry of Lothar Meggendorfer, University of Virginia.

Aleph-Bet Books, the respected childrens lit. specialists, has as complete a bibliography of Meggendorfer as can be found in English, based upon books they have now, or have had in the past.
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