[Wiener Werkstätte. Julius Zimpel manuscript] Die schöne Müllerin von Wilhelm Müller

Fully calligraphed manuscript, no location listed (Vienna), monogrammed "JZ" in stamp and dated in pencil 1 May 1918 on the first blank page, "Vollendet am 27. April 1918" on the last blank page, 65,(1) pages, with a pasted round potrait photograph surrounded by a decorative gouache border on the title page, four full-page gouaches and 20 small floral illustrations to close the verses, bound by the artist in originally decorated cardboard sides with the aforementioned monogram on the sheep's leather back, floral endpapers, with the upper endpaper showing the small ex libris of the artist, 17x9 cm.

With unidentified blind stamp "PH" on first blank. Beautiful original manuscript of the Austrian painter, graphical artist, printer, and craftsman Julius Zimpel, born in Vienna on 30 August 1896 and there taken before his time on 11 August 1925. The text of the poem series Die schöne Müllerin is by the German poet Wilhelm Müller, part of his 1821 "Sieben und siebzig Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten." Franz Schubert displayed the collection of poems in 1823. Julius Zimpel attended the Kunstgewerbeschule from 1911 to 1914, and afterwards apprenticed as a painter to Kolo Moser for two years. In 1916-1917 he taught at programmes for bookbinders and jewellers. After the First World War, the polymath Zimpel contributed to the Wiener Werkstätte by designing in many different crafts. Shortly before his death he succeeded Dagobert Peche as artistic director of the Wiener Werkstätte. In 1911, Julius Zimpel started making booklets such as this little manuscript, the "persönlichen Bücher”, followed by the "Zimpel-Bücher," published by bibliophiles (including among others romantic fairytales by Wieland and Hoffman) in the early '20s.