Duerer in Lithuania. A Rare Book dedicated to one of Europe´s most famous artists in history

Among antiquarian items concerning "things German" the most wanted and most precious collectibles are rare books and graphics from the German renaissance era of Albrecht Duerer. Many enthusiasts regard this era one of the most important of European culture
ever. Huge sums of money are paid. Duerer is a goldmine for fine arts and booksellers - and for private and public collectors who´re in need of cash. So they browse the attics to find an original Duerer if lucky. Even high class institutions like the
Jesuit University of San Francisco consigned their Duerer items - a collection of original graphics - to an auction house in a symbolic act of "burning the furniture to keep it warm", as an arts professor pointed out.

One of the most popular and often copied self-portrait paintings in the oeuvre of Albrecht Duerer is this one: the artist as a young man; presented in Nuremberg Duererhaus, where the city´s most famous son lived an worked.

A print of this famous portrait picture covers the copy of a book I recently bought together with a bunch of copies of Lithuanian books on arts and archaeology (I wrote about those items in this blog). The book is written in Lithuanian language and is a translation from the Russian. Titel of the book: Albrechtas Diureris. Author: Sergejus Lvovas. Translator: Marija Macijauskiene. Vilnius 1982 (first ed. in Russian 1977). Vaga publishers, Vilnius. 344 pages. Hardcover binding in a not fine but good condition, edges mildly damaged. cutting and pages mildly tanned, spine ok, no further damages. Former price printed on the back cover: 1 rb 70 kp.

The book is very rare and as far as I know not offered on the internet except for this copy; libraries in Vilnius and Klaipeda have copies of the book in stock. No further information on the author available. Who´s interested in purchasing the copy should contact me via email or twitter. Please apologize my flaw photography skills. Tx.

Having expended my secondhand and rare bookselling activities I´ve developed some good contacts to bookowners from Russia, Ucraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, some of them schollared, all of them "bookish" but willing to sell; if you mail me your special interests I´d start investigating.

On Lithuania´s silver age. A rare book by archaeologist Laima Vaitkunskiene

In my neighbourhood live many immigrants from former Soviet Union countries, not only from Russia but from Kasakhstan, Ucraine and Lithuania. Some of them are socalled "Russlanddeutsche", members of the
German minority in Russia and the Soviet Union; others, esp. those from Ucraine and Lithuania, are Jews; though most of them in Germany have to make their living on social welfare, many of those immigrants are well educated academics, engineers, mathematicians, chemists or physicians. And they brought their books with them. Some of these books end up at the junk dealer´s around the corner, for the reason of monetary tightment, decease etc.. So I came across a very remarkable book written in Lithuanian language:

Laima Vaitkunskiene. Sidabras senoves Lietuvoje. Vilnius "Mokslas" 1981, 125 pages.

Subsequent to the Lithuanian text is a summary in Russian (cyrillic) and in German: the book deals with the country´s rich archaeological stock of silver items: jewelry, weapons and harnesses from ad 2-13. As the author tells us, silver was of huge cultural and religious importance in ancient Lithuania and connected with beauty, wealth and magical power, much more thand gold or iron: Lithuanian mythology tells many tales of enchanted silver treasures. As there were no silver mines in the country, the precious material was robbed during wars or was imported, e.g. from the Romans, and made to jewelry. The items shown in the book were digged during archaeological excavations.

The author, Laima Vaitkunskiene, was stuff member of the Lithuanian Institute of History and Archaeology at Vilnius University. She also researched the importance of amber for
Lithuanian culture. The book is in a very fine, almost flawless condition, with undamaged dust wrapper and cover, cutting and pages; flawless paper, friendly to the nose. Many photos and drawings. The book is rare and, at the moment, not available on the internet. It is kind of a standard works and cited in many articles online concerning Lithuanian history and archaeology. Various libraries have copies of the book in stock, in Lithuania and at the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center in Chicago, USA. Currently unavailable at Amazon.

For further information, please send me an e-mail, if you like.