[Beuth, Christian Peter Wilhelm & Schinkel, Carl Friedrich]

Vorbilder für Fabrikanten und Handwerker. Auf Befehl des Ministers für Handel Gewerbe und Bauwesen herausgegeben von der technischen Deputation für Gewerbe. Berlin: 1836; [III:]1821



3 plate volumes, folio (22½ x 16½ in.; 572 x 420 mm). Two letterpress titles, section titles, 118 engraved and 32 lithographed plates of which 31 are in one or more colors by Lowry, Sellier, Brégard, Mauch and Turrell after Schinkel and Mauch; small embossed stamp in margin of each plate with eagle and initials "FR", some mostly marginal foxing in the first volume, some marginal soiling. Nineteenth-century dark green three-quarter morocco and pebbled cloth, spines gilt; rebacked with original spines laid down.

See M. Snodin, Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1991), p. 187

A monument to  Prussia's attempt to reorganize and revitalize its industry after the Napoleonic Wars, this is an album of design models assembled by the "State Agency for Trade and Industry"  for the use of construction workers and craftsmen, in order to encourage and promote high-art aesthetics in the manual crafts. Beuth was director and Schinkel was responsible for aesthetic issues.

Included are examples of architectural ornament, utensils, vessels, and textile patterns. The examples in the book were drawn from antiquity and the Renaissance, with some of the textile patterns from the Islamic world. The only contemporary designs were by Schinkel and run to about 40 plates, all based on neo-classical motifs. In Prussia, individual plates were distributed free to public libraries, authorities, drawing schools, known artists and craftsmen, but not sold through bookshops.

Introductory text volumes, published in 1830 and 1837, are not included here.