Martin Luther - Haus-Bibel - 1860

Martin Luther

"The House Bible, or the entire Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, according to Martin Luther's German translation. A splendid edition with fifty-two steel engravings and a map of Palestine."

1860

50 illustrations.

The “House Bible” (Hildburghausen, 1860) is a representative Luther Bible edition that provides the complete text of the Old and New Testaments in Martin Luther’s German translation. It is clearly aimed at domestic use and a bourgeois audience that values a dignified presentation and vivid elucidation of the biblical narrative, as a “splendid edition.”

A defining feature is the elaborate illustration: the edition is equipped with fifty steel engravings and additionally complemented by a map of Palestine. In this way, it unites Bible text, iconography, and geographic localization of the “Holy Land” into a holistic concept that serves both devotion and instruction. Such accoutrements help the understanding of places, journeys, and historical references in the biblical stories and correspond to the 19th century, in which illustrated family Bibles were popular as status and educational objects.

In bibliophilic terms, the edition is often described as large-format and luxurious, sometimes with a leather binding and gold edges. Surviving copies, however, often show age- and use-related traces (e.g., foxing), which is not uncommon for family Bibles of this period.

879 + 243 pages, 27 x 18.5 cm. Inside browned / stained. The binding at the beginning somewhat loosened.