Joseph Heller and the Art of Collecting

Almost half of the State Library's collection of prints and drawings, which today comprises about 80,000 items, goes back to the legacy of Joseph Heller (1798–1849), a gentleman of independent means from Bamberg.
Already during his lifetime, he maintained close ties with the local academic Library, created when Bamberg became part of the kingdom of Bavaria, and appointed the institution as his heir.
In 2017, the library launched a research project on Heller's collection with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). The aim was to digitally reproduce the historical order of the collection by using a selection of works.
On the basis of digital reproductions created and made freely accessible on the library's website, interested parties can now trace the history of 2,800 prints and drawings as well as the collection structure created by Heller himself.

We cordially invite you to visit our website and browse, admire and discover Heller's collection.
Additionally, the exhibition catalogue is available for browsing and downloading as an interactive e-book.

Heller's great interest in the history of Bamberg is documented by the copper engraving by Petrus Zweidler which consists of four sheets. The plan shows Bamberg around 1602 in a bird's-eye view and was the basis for many 17th-century views of Bamberg. Today it is regarded as the most important source of information on the townscape of Bamberg before the far-reaching changes caused by urban development during the Baroque period.

Only a few copies of Zweidler's plan have survived, including one from Heller's collection. When the latter asked the Nuremberg collector Hans Albrecht von Derschau in 1819 to give him the ground plan of Bamberg [...] for cash or preferably in exchange, he probably referred to Zweidler's plan.

The artist Andreas Blattner (1867–1933) drew Heller's birthplace. Known to all inhabitants and visitors of Bamberg, it is located on the Lower Bridge directly above the river Regnitz, right across the well-known tourist attraction named Little Venice.

Behind these windows, Joseph Heller kept his growing collection.

The elderly gentleman in a frock coat, who lifts his hat in greeting, may be the collector himself.

The earliest entries date back to Heller's youth. During his apprenticeship in Nuremberg he began to establish contacts with artists and publishers, who added inscriptions to the album. Among them were the Zurich engraver Johann Jacob Lips (1791–1833) and the Bamberg bookseller Carl Friedrich Kunz (1785–1849) .

Frequently, the texts and pictures refer to Heller's appreciation of art. A friend from Nördlingen wrote to him on New Year's Day 1826:
Three times happy is the mortal who chooses wisdom as his guide and art as his companion. One gives dignity to life, the other gives joy, one secures the step, the the other embellishes the path.

In the years 1818 to 1821, Heller kept a record of his extensive correspondence. He drafted letters which his secretary then wrote and posted. In his letters Heller turned to publishers, art collectors and dealers with enquiries and orders. Between 1816 and Heller's death in 1849 he received countless replies, which he carefully archived.

With the Innsbruck Rentmeister and collector Augustin A. Pfaundler (1757–1822), Heller first made contact in spring 1821. During summer of the same year, he even visited him personally. Both collectors shared an interest in Dürer and his art.

Several months before a trip through Germany, Austria and Italy, Heller contacted Pfaundler. By post he asked him for a reprint, if possible even to sell a watercolour by Dürer, known as Traumgesicht, which Pfaundler kept in his private collection.

Pfaundler did not sell the original, but he made a copy, sent it to Bamberg and ...

This woodcut by Dürer shows the Swiss lawyer Ulrich Varnbüler (1474–1544). The artist transferred a chalk drawing which he had made in 1522 to the woodblock.

An inscription draws attention to Dürer as Varnbüler's friend and portraitist.

As early as 1827, Heller mentioned in his Dürer monograph that the printing block had come into the possession of the Dutch artist Hendrik Hondius (1573–1650), who produced Clair-obscur-prints from 1620 onwards. In this process, surface tones are printed from several printing plates.
Heller noted 2 Jan 1822 as the date of arrival of the multi-plate print in Bamberg which he could buy in addition to the "normal" print.

This ideal type of a female bust goes back to a preliminary study made by Dürer in 1508 for the painting Death of Lucretia (see Vienna, Albertina, Inv. No. 17533).

The person portrayed has been traditionally identified as Agnes Dürer (1475-1539), the wife of the artist.

...is listed as Agnes Dürer or The Witch.

In 1821, Heller borrowed the original manuscript, which had never been published, from the Frankfurt lawyer Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schlosser (1780-1851) for transcription. Schlosser had been able to purchase it from Hüsgen's papers and supported Heller's research on Dürer by lending it to him.

Heller was so shocked about the poor condition of the tomb that he wrote an essay expressing his wish to preserve it.

For the documentation, Jäck commissioned the artist Georg Christoph Wilder (1797–1855) with a pencil drawing.

In September 1821, the two travellers stayed in Innsbruck. Heller had already inquired about Dürer's Plate of Christ on the Mount of Olives in a letter some months before. He learned that the Innsbruck artist Johann Georg Schedler (1777–1866) made prints of this plate and sold them for a profit.

Dürer had created the motif as an etching in 1515 – a technique that he used only six times in his oeuvre.

In his depiction of the crucifixion from 1503/04, Dürer combined numerous plot lines.

The crucified Christ is placed on the central axis.

Mary Magdalene embraces the trunk of the cross in mourning.

To the right of the Saviour stands a soldier with a club on a ladder to break the thief's legs.

The armed man talks to Longinus, who is on horseback and is holding a lance with which he will pierce Christ's side.

In the foreground, dice are thrown over the skirt of the crucified Christ, while St John and the mourning women hold Mary, who is unconscious.

In his last will he had appointed the Royal Library as heir to his art and book collection in order to preserve it for public use.

At the time of his death, however, Heller had substantial debts. Jäck's successor, library director Michael Stenglein (1810–1879), therefore sold 28 manuscript antiphonaries from the library's holdings. The proceeds of 2300 guilders were used to pay off Heller's creditors, who still had claims after the possessions of the deceased had been sold.

Around 1510, Dürer created the woodcut Der ungläubige Thomas as part of his Small Passion, first published in 1511.

The twelve apostles are gathered around Christ who has appeared to them.

Since Thomas cannot believe in the resurrection of the Lord, Christ takes his hand and lets him touch the side wound.

The wide reception of the woodcut shows how highly its artistic quality was appreciated. Heller added several copies to the originals in his collection.

He was able to acquire five copies of the motif Der ungläubige Thomas, but he knew far more.

Between 1827 and 1831 Heller published the second volume of his book about Dürer, which was originally planned to comprise three volumes.

All art works by Dürer which Heller listed were given a number and a description. A printed asterisk next to the number indicates that Heller was already in possession of at least one copy of the work at the time of publication.

The absence of the asterisk next to the Heller number 1582 reveals that the collector did not yet own the sheet in 1827.

In his publication of 1827, Heller praises this pen and ink drawing by Dürer as displaying much insight and great spirit.

The Nuremberg master sketched the Man of Sorrows crowned with thorns and with his arms crossed in front of the body. His wounds are visual signs of the Passion.

The study of a garment above Christ is not related to the scene.

The drawing of Christ is regarded as Dürer's preparatory work for the Man of Sorrows at the Column, which is generally regarded as the title page of the copperplate Passion, a work created over a period of many years.

The year 1509 and Dürer's monogram are inserted into the round arch, which opens the view on the three crosses on the hill of Golgotha.

Around 1525, Dürer designed a victory monument. His inscriptions explain the individual components of the column, which stands on a multi-level base and powder kegs.

The shaft of the column is decorated ...

... and knightly helmets and feather bushes crown the column.

The monogram and dating were added later by an unknown hand.

The drawing is Dürer's study of the monument column, which was printed in the third book of his main geometrical work Vnderweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt, first published in 1525.

Heller was able to acquire one copy of the first edition as well as two copies of the second edition, which Dürer's widow had published in 1538. One of them is bound together with one of only two surviving handwritten copies of Dürer's diary of the journey to the Netherlands.

Heller acquired also a changeable woodcut by Hans Springinklee (1495–1540). In this one, the saint depicted, here Dorothy, can be turned into a different person by exchanging the outer border of the woodblock with the attributes.

Dürer's Monogram was stamped on the sheet somewhat later. Because of this practice, Heller warned in 1823: The blind veneration of names also greatly facilitates fraud.

The woodcut of Lucas Cranach the Elder showing the sacrificial death of Marcus Curtius not only bears the purchase note Vienna 1821 on the reverse ...

...but also a copy in reverse. This reproduction came about when the sheet with the woodcut was placed on top of another fresh print.

Heller received the drawing entitled Jungfraw Suten on the underlay sheet as part of a set from the collection of the Nuremberg artist Hans Albrecht von Derschau (1755–1824). The bust of a young woman was considered as a work by Dürer at the time.

Heller reported that the sheet was cut out at the beginning of the 17th century [...] and pasted onto white paper. Probably at the same time, the name of the sitter was added in handwriting ...