What did a 17th-cen­tury bookbinder’s work­shop actu­ally look like? What went on at the wigmaker’s, or inside a mys­ter­i­ous alchemist’s kit­chen? And how did a com­pass smith mas­ter his craft? For us, these illus­trated volumes – provid­ing detailed glimpses into life 400 years ago – are a fas­cin­at­ing jour­ney through time. But even dur­ing the Baroque era, they were abso­lute best­sellers.

A Society in Fixed Ranks

Soci­ety at the time was strictly divided into “Estates” (Stände), which gave this genre of books its name. A person’s place in life was con­sidered pre­destined, and the bound­ar­ies between groups were sharply drawn. These “Register of Estates”, some­times called “Book of Trades”, offered a rare look into these often-hid­den worlds:

The Defend­ers (Wehr­stand): Rulers, nobil­ity, and the mil­it­ary, respons­ible for pro­tec­tion and social order.

The Pro­viders (Nähr­stand): The largest group, con­sist­ing of farm­ers, artists, and above all, the crafts­men who sus­tained the rest of soci­ety.

The Teach­ers (Lehr­stand): Cler­gy­men and schol­ars ded­ic­ated to the care of the soul and the mind.

Christoph Weigel: Chronicler of Everyday Life

In 1698, one of the most pop­u­lar works of this genre was pub­lished in Regens­burg: “Abbildung Der Gemein-Nütz­lichen Haupt-Stände” (Rep­res­ent­a­tion of the Socially Use­ful Main Estates). Its pub­lish­er and mas­ter engraver, Chris­toph Wei­gel, pur­sued a monu­ment­al ambi­tion.

He depic­ted over 200 pro­fes­sions and ranks in metic­u­lous cop­per­plate engrav­ings – most shown at work with­in their work­shops or typ­ic­al envir­on­ments. Along­side the images were detailed descrip­tions of the crafts and mor­al­iz­ing verses known as emblems. Wei­gel insisted on abso­lute accur­acy: he per­son­ally vis­ited many work­shops, sketched on-site, and drew tools dir­ectly from the ori­gin­als. As a mas­ter of his craft, he used light and shad­ow to give these interi­or spaces an impress­ive sense of depth.

Authentically Observed – and Masterfully Copied

How­ever, not everything Wei­gel showed in his book was based on his own obser­va­tions. Many motifs ori­gin­ated from a work pub­lished four years earli­er in the Neth­er­lands: “Het Menselyk Bedryf” (The Human Occu­pa­tions) by the renowned engravers Jan and Cas­par Luyken.

What looks like a “pir­ated copy” today fol­lowed a dif­fer­ent logic in the Baroque era: Wei­gel simply brought Cas­par Luyken, the son, to Regens­burg to have him re-engrave his own designs for the new pub­lic­a­tion. The sig­na­ture “Casper Luyken invent. et f.” (designed and executed) on the edge of the Sea Admir­al engrav­ing above is a test­a­ment to this cross-bor­der col­lab­or­a­tion.

A Contest of Splendor

Weigel’s book was more elab­or­ate than the Dutch ori­gin­al and became a massive suc­cess. This, in turn, spurred the Luykens to action. Upon Caspar’s return to the Neth­er­lands, fath­er and son pub­lished an even more opu­lent edi­tion.

In our gal­lery, you can see the dir­ect com­par­is­on: we present examples from the three great edi­tions – on the left, the ori­gin­al by Luyken (1694); in the middle, Weigel’s Regens­burg edi­tion (1698); and on the right, the Luykens’ mag­ni­fi­cent late work of 1699.

A double-page spread from “Abbildung Der Gemein-Nütz­lichen Haupt-Stände”

Here you find a gal­lery with all motives.

Text: Ger­hard Groebe, © Images: Pub­lic domain

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