Item #4504774 Illuminated presentation address from the German Association of Victoria to Prince Otto von Bismarck on his seventieth birthday and fiftieth anniversary. BISMARCK, Charles TROEDEL, Carl.
Illuminated presentation address from the German Association of Victoria to Prince Otto von Bismarck on his seventieth birthday and fiftieth anniversary.

Illuminated presentation address from the German Association of Victoria to Prince Otto von Bismarck.
Illuminated presentation address from the German Association of Victoria to Prince Otto von Bismarck on his seventieth birthday and fiftieth anniversary.

Melbourne: 1885.

Large folio-sized presentation album framing lithographed and hand-painted illuminated manuscript address, 435 x 315 mm, ink and watercolour, two large initials gilt with red and blue foliate decoration, and initials alternating red and blue, with moiré silk doublure, by Charles Troedel; dark tan grained morocco with four perforated brass corner fittings and a medallion metal centerpiece.

The German Association of Victoria salutes the Iron Chancellor

This handsome illuminated address was commissioned by the Deutscher Verein or German Association of Victoria on behalf of the German population of "we Germans who live abroad", to pay homage to the "Iron Chancellor", Otto von Bismarck, on his 70th birthday (on the 1st April 1885) and for 50 years "in service of the Fatherland".

This handsome illuminated address was commissioned by the Deutscher Verein or German Association of Victoria on behalf of the German population of "we Germans who live abroad", to pay homage to the "Iron Chancellor", Otto von Bismarck, on his 70th birthday (on the 1st April 1885) and for 50 years "in service of the Fatherland".

Dedicated to His Highness Prince Otto von Bismarck, the address is signed by Hermann William Puttmann (1840-1914), as President of the Association and by the Secretary Ernest Hartung. Puttmann was son of the émigré publisher and man of letters Hermann Puttmann who had founded numbers of short-lived journals and newspapers (most notably he published an account of Burke's expedition Geschichte der Victorianischen Expedition zur Erforschung Australien's unter Burke's Leitung, 1862). The most long-lasting of these (continued by his son) Püttmann's Australischer Kalender, was a "strange mixture of liberalism and German as well as Australian patriotism"[ADB]. Such influences are evident in the proud patriotism in the words of the address. As well as citing a couplet from Goethe's Faust in honour of the Chancellor ("Not even endless aeons can efface/The trace of [your] terrestrial days"), Puttmann alludes to Australia as new "cultural ground for independent German life…to bloom". Lithographed (and signed) by the eminent Melbourne printer and lithographer Charles Troedel, this address is a testament to the rich cultural life of the German population and the skill of Colonial printers.

Provenance: From the Estate of Otto von Bismarck (the "Iron Chancellor", 1815-1898).

ADB; Leslie Bodi, Hermann Püttmann: a forty-eighter in Australia, (in The German Contribution: sesquicentenary essays on German-Victorian crosscurrents. Edited by Leslie Bodi and Stephen Jeffries. (Clayton: Dept. of German, Monash University, 1985); Wallace Kirsop, Bendigo's Nineteenth-Century German Library (BNSANZ Bulletin 1994, Vol 18, Nos 2-3, pp. 169-72, also online); Wendy Pryor, Illuminating Oakleigh (La Trobe Journal No 42, Spring 1988); Tom Darragh & Walter Struve, Using Victoria's 19th Century German Newspapers (La Trobe Journal No 53, October 1994).

Condition Report: Light spotting to the certificate and moiré silk doublure; well preserved in fine condition.

Price (AUD): $5,750.00

US$3,776.70   Other currencies

Ref: #4504774

Condition Report