A Replica of a Precious Vintage Calendar for Free?
Would you like to enjoy the charm of superb design from the beginning of the 20th century? Jugendstil, maybe? (By the way, Jugendstil is an Austrian version of Art Nouveau.) Here is your chance to use a scanned calendar book (you got it right - a book with double-sided prints, hardcovers, and A LOT of ornaments) by Heinrich Lefler, a leading artist of his time who frequently collaborated with his brother-in-law Joseph Urban. While Lefler was a trained painter, Urban graduated as an architect. They joined forces in numerous projects where Lefler took care of images and design, leaving Urban to finalize their work with ornamental borders and some details.
Making such a richly decorated calendar book was not cheap, so the publisher printed it with empty areas where the sheets for individual months could be inserted. Here are these sheets for several months.
As you noticed, the sheets were artistic achievements, too. However, the buyers had the option to insert their own sheets or simply write in the blanks if they wanted. Anyway, such a calendar book is today considered too valuable to scribble in it. If you find it in good condition, it could cost above one thousand US dollars.
As you may expect, replicas of Heinrich Lefler's Monatsbilder are already available online, but you can use the digitized version of Lefler's vintage calendar, too.
All presented images are in the Public Domain!
