1703.b.16, 1

Imprint: Wien, 1859. Wilhelm Braumüller, K. K. Hofbuchhändler.

Folio, quarter-leather binding and green cloth boards, with royal coat of arms stamped in gilt on upper and lower boards, 382 x 330 mm, marbled edges and endpapers; [12], 88 pp., with 72 salted paper prints of suits of armour, mounted on light card, one to a page (recto only) within gilt rules, each image preceded preceded by a leaf with plate number and caption in letterpress. The text supplies detailed biographical notes on the original owners of the armour depicted, preceded by a list of about 211 subscribers to the work, both individual and institutional (including the British Museum). The work was originally published in parts, each 'Lieferung' containing 8 prints. This first volume comprises the first 9 issues: the decorative blue front wrapper for Lieferung 1 is bound in at the front of the volume, with the back wrappers for all 9 parts (listing contents of each instalment) bound in at the back of the book. For the continuation of the series, dealing with foreign armour in the collection, see volume 2.The basis of this magnificent collection of armour was the ‘Heroes and Vassals Armoury’, assembled from 1547 by Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria and arranged as a museum in Ambras Castle near Innsbruck. The collection was later transferred to Vienna and in around 1889 amalgamated with the Imperial Armoury, now part of the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum. The photographer Andreas Groll was a daguerreotypist in the 1840s, opening a photographic studio in Vienna in 1857. His work was also shown at the international exhibitions in Paris in 1855 and in Vienna in 1864.