Prof. Herm. Ludw. v. Jan; Dr. Bruno Meyer - Das lebende Modell - 1904

"The Living Model. Twenty Painted Nude Studies", Vols. I–II, Leipzig: A. Schumann’s Verlag, 1904 – First Edition

The two-volume, fully preserved work "The Living Model. Twenty Painted Nude Studies" by Prof. Hermann Ludwig Jan and Dr. Bruno Meyer appeared in 1904 from the Leipzig publisher A. Schumann and ranks among the outstanding examples of early artistic nude photography around 1900. Each of the large-format folio volumes contains eight unpaginated text pages in German Fraktur type as well as twenty cardboard leaves with high-quality, monochrome to lightly tinted photogravures, for a total of forty plates.

The plates depict female models in painterly, partly naturalistic poses, often photographed outdoors, giving them a remarkably modern character shaped by light and the study of the body. Each page is provided with a decorative printed guard sheet and a fine "spiderweb" tissue, underscoring the luxurious finish and the artistic aspiration of the work.

The two volumes survive in their original, printed stiff-paper covers with cord- or thread-binding and reflect the high aesthetic and craft standard of the turn of the century. "The Living Model" stands at the interface between academic painterly tradition and emancipating photography as an independent art form, and today it is regarded as a significant document of nude photography and erotica around 1900.