Unrecorded Mid-Century Swiss Costume Panorama

[Weinig & Comp]

Costumes Suisses Line [Unrecorded Swiss Costume Leporello] [20 Chromolithographed Plates]

Zurich: Weinig & Comp., [c. 1850]. 16mo, original embossed cloth folder. An unrecorded mid-19th-century accordion-style leporello panorama containing twenty vibrant, multi-figured lithographic plates capturing the regional costume traditions of the Swiss cantons.

This pocket-sized volume documents the intersection of alpine tourism, regional Swiss typography, and the mid-century development of commercial color lithography.

KEY FEATURES 
+++ Visuals: 20 vibrant plates capturing traditional folk attire across various cantons including Aargau, Neuenburg, Bern, Zug, Glarus, Solothurn, Appenzell, Unterwalden, Basel, Wallis, Thurgau, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Freiburg, and Luzern. 
+++ Binding: Original dark blue-grey 16mo cloth folder featuring intricate blind-embossed, raised Rococo scrollwork framing a stamped gilt title. 
+++ Content: Detailed multi-figured compositions displaying regional folk dress, tools, agricultural implements, and domestic or alpine backdrops, captioned bilingually in German and French. 
+++ Imprint: Zurich: Weinig & Comp., Mid 19th-century. 
+++ Specs: 3.25 by 4.75 inches; continuous folding accordion-style sheet (leporello) containing 20 distinct visual panels.

LIMITATION & SIGNATURES 
+++ Archive Limitation: Completely unrecorded in global bibliographic databases. No institutional copies located. 
+++ Typographic Transcriptions: Stamped in bright gilt on the raised front panel cover: 'COSTUMES SUISSES. ZURICH Weinig & Comp.' Each individual plate contains printed bilingual labels at the lower margin identifying the respective cantons (e.g., 'AARGAU. ARGOVIE.', 'NEUENBURG. NEUCHATEL.', 'URI.', 'BERN. BERNE.').

CONDITION: The blind-embossed cloth folder remains crisp and sturdy with light wear to the corners and spine extremities. The internal folding panorama sheet is currently separated along the fragile fold lines into three distinct parts, with a few additional minor tears along other folds. The colors remain exceptionally bright, clean, and unfaded throughout. The first panel, which remains attached to the front pastedown, shows a small scuff to its upper corner and the second and third panel are repaired and do not fully open. A highly restorable survival of a delicate mid-century souvenir format.

ARTISTIC & HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
+++ The Narrative Hook: This mid-19th-century costume panorama serves as a primary visual record of the Swiss regional identity during the golden era of European alpine tourism. Printed during a period of expanding international travel, pieces like this were purchased by sophisticated Grand Tour travelers as both luxury souvenirs and ethnographic studies.
+++ The 'Who': Issued by the Zurich firm of Weinig & Comp., this panorama highlights the specialized regional print shops that flourished across Switzerland to supply the high demand for topographically and culturally accurate views.
+++ The 'Why': The plates document the traditional dress of individual cantons in precise detail, capturing subtle variations in embroidery, headwear, and textiles before the homogenization brought about by late-industrial globalization.

MATERIAL & BIBLIOGRAPHICAL UTILITY
+++ The 'What': The work takes the physical form of a 'leporello' or accordion-fold book, a structure specifically chosen to allow the viewer to either flip through the pages like a standard book or extend the entire sheet into a continuous, panoramic gallery display.
+++ Technical Standards: The plates utilize early commercial color printing methods, applying rich, layered tones to achieve a hand-colored appearance that enhances the depth and texture of the textile representations.

SCHOLARLY FEATURES: DESIGN, SCHOLARSHIP, & INFLUENCE
+++ The 'How': The binding reflects high-quality mid-century publisher design, utilizing heavy blind-stamping to create an architectural, raised relief effect that safely housed the delicate paper blocks within.
+++ The Lineage: This panorama belongs to the lineage of European costume books that served as precursor studies to modern regional ethnography, capturing folk traditions through a romanticized yet highly structured taxonomic lens.

INSTITUTIONAL & RESEARCH VALUE
Completely unrecorded in global library databases, this variant represents a critical acquisition for institutions specialized in textile history, Swiss cultural topography, or the history of 19th-century European printing.
Scarcity Data: A comprehensive search of OCLC/WorldCat reveals zero institutional holdings for this specific Weinig & Comp. edition, confirming its status as an uncommon primary-source survivor.

SUBJECTS: Swiss Cantons, Swiss Costumes, Regional Folk Dress, 19th-Century Lithography, Leporello Panoramas, European Grand Tour, Textile History, Zurich Printing 

GENRES: Ephemera, Costume Book, Panorama, 19th-Century Binding.

Item #22288

Price: $145.00