The remarkable edition of Das Blumenbuch [The Flower Book] was published several times between 1929 and 1942, from small pocket book editions to precious volumes and portfolios, involving many collaborators, printers and publishers like Mainzer Presse, Ernst-Ludwig-Presse in Darmstadt and Insel-Verlag, Leipzig.

Rudolf Koch, explains in a letter that he ‘collected [flowers] at random and without any particular aim. I ketched only the ones which grew in and around Offenbach … This collection is intended to give people a taste of summer while it is winter.’ One member of Koch’s ‘Werkstatt’, the young Fritz Kredel, engraved most of the 250 drawings in pear wood. 

With rare and unpublished material from the Klingspor Archives. Courtesy Klingspor Museum, Offenbach am Main.

• Das Blumenbuch on archive.org

• Das Blumenbuch on Poem

• Klingspor Museum, Offenbach am Main

• Jessen Type fonts by ANRT / Alexis Faudot & Rafael Ribas, Gotico-Antiqua 2019