About the cover:

Full-grain binding Master binding in Art Deco style. Dark red, finely grained goatskin with smooth spine and gilt title. Horizontal hand-gilt lines running across the spine, front and back cover, four longitudinal bands of gilt rings, each with alternating black and yellow leather overlays, intermediate surfaces textured with a blind-stamped diamond pattern, gilt head edge, hand-stitched capital, gilt inner edges, triple endpapers: mirror and flying leaf moiré silk, French jasper coloured paper.

Half-leather chemise with gilt title and broad leather splints, coloured paper cover, slipcase edged with leather and dark moss-green suede lining, covered with the same coloured paper.

About the content:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Clavigo Trauerspiel in 5 acts (1774)

With 12 original lithographs by Gunter Böhmer

Ex. No. 55 of 766 Zerkallbütten Johannespresse, Zurich 1949

Published for Goethe's 200th birthday to the members of the Swiss Library Society for the years 1949 and 1950 Clavigo is a tragedy in five acts with Beaumarchais as the protagonist. Written in just eight days in May 1774, the stage manuscript was already available in July as the first work published under Goethe's name.

About the artist: Bookbindery Hermann Schumacher, Bern Artisan studio, at that time called: RELIURE SCHUMACHER BERNE The later Schumacher AG relocated its operations to Schmitten in the canton of Fribourg in the 1970s and employed up to 400 people there at peak times following the takeover of Sauerer AG in the 1990s. In 2020, the company was taken over by unknown investors and still employs around 40 people. The hand binding department no longer exists.