1830c Gottfried Mind (b1768); Juvenalia, “Fantasies”, with 12 fine aquatints

Gottfried Mind (1768-1814)

OEUVRE DE GEOFROI MIND de Berne receuilli de différens Cabinets particuliers et publié par J.P. Lamy, Editeur d'Arts à Berne et Bâle. Livraison accompagnée d'une Notice historique er biographique du Peintre. Berne, Basle & Lausanne, 1816 (ca). Reissued in publisher’s cloth ca 1830.

Oblong quarto. (31 x 24.2 cm). Stipple engraved title with vignette, pp. 8. Publisher’s cloth with gilt to upper board: ‘Collection de Fantaisies’ - Overall very good. Binding a touch rubbed, some light spotting to text and age toning to plates.

Hand-colored aquatints (12). Playing children after Geofroi Mind, bound and mounted on cardboard. Each with blindstamp L.(Lamy) or JPL and with publisher's details in manuscript. Publisher’s engraved label to inner front board.

Exceedingly rare collection using the aquatints and and text first issued in 1816 but with a new publishers binding.

Gottfried Mind (1768 - 1814) was a talented Swiss artist and draftsman who specialized in children and animal motifs. Because of his successful cat drawings, he became known as Cat Raphael.

Mind grew up in modest circumstances, was physically handicapped and mentally retarded. Even as a child, he attracted attention with his talent for drawing and carving. Around 1775-1780 he lived in Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi's Neuhof educational and labour institution in Birr, where he showed talent in the field of fine arts, but was unable to learn to write or do arithmetic. After the Neuhof was closed in 1780, he was taken in by the family of the Bernese painter Sigmund Freudenberger, in whose studio he initially worked as a draftsman. After Freudenberger's death, Mind continued to work in his studio. Mind died of lung disease at the age of 46.