Folio, (322 x 210 mm). 306 leaves: 12 unnumbered leaves, 294 leaves foliated I - CCXCIIII], including Cranach’s full-page woodcuts of St. Stephen and the Crucifixion. Full 19th century dark chocolate crushed morocco by Thompson with his stamp to front free endpaper verso, boards with elaborate decorative tooling in blind, raised bands to spine with gilt tile 'MISSALE PATAVIENSIS' and date 'M. D. III.' in six compartments, all edges gilt. Frontispiece remargined at head not affecting image, and with double rules in red recto and verso, leaf t3 with large repaired tear with no loss, occasional small repairs to corners and edges of other leaves (tabs lost or removed?), occasional marginal annotation, several leaves retain deckle edges at head or foot, overall a tall, wide-margined and complete copy of Winterburger’s first printed missal with Lucas Cranach’s earliest woodcuts.

Although early details of the life of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 - 1553) are scarce, these early woodcuts, already accomplished, demonstrate a masterful grasp of technique. The son of an artist himself, it has been suggested recently that Cranach learnt print-making from his father. Cranach appears to have arrived in Vienna c.1500 and although he had spent time in Nuremberg, Regensburg and Passau en route, it seems likely, despite the dearth of evidence, that these woodcuts were achieved there; in 1505 Cranach moved to Wittenberg where he remained until his death at Weimar in 1553. Johannes Winterburger, like Ratdolt in Venice, saw a commercial opportunity in the publication of printed missals - as opposed to the manuscript tradition that was at that time being superseded - and produced a number of which the present example, for the use of Passau, was the first. Later versions, such as the re-issues of this edition (1507, 1509 and 1512) as well as the Missale Olomucense (1505), the Missale Salisburgensis (1506) and the Missale Strigoniense (1508), also made use of all or some of the woodcuts printed originally here.

The missal opens with Cranach's portrait of St. Stephen (titled 'Sanctus Stephanus prothomartyr', dated 1502 in the block and here within double red rules), held traditionally to be the first Christian martyr, stoned to death after his trial for blasphemy. Cranach depicts Stephen with a halo-like crown of thorns within a woodcut border of contorted oaks (the acorns are evident) housing grotesques and putti and holding a cloth bag filled with the very stones that were to kill him. Cranach's second woodcut is the extraordinary half-page white-line woodcut designed to be used to determine the dates of Easter, church holidays and the dominical letter of the year: a series of lettered and numbered concentric circles, surrounded by a detailed foliate and floral decor, used for the various calculations, while the centre holds a large owl with its prey, a dove.

The third woodcut, and that of most significance given its relation to other printed and painted versions by Cranach and others, is the full-page Crucifixion woodcut printed to the verso of blank leaf CXLV (it features a two line legend in Latin beneath), depicting Christ on the Cross as the central figure flanked by the Virgin at left and St. John the Baptist at right. Cranach's composition positions Christ in the upper portion of the frame, the blank sky behind him pushing him toward the viewer; the background landscape and cityscape beneath, with the figures of his attendants and strewn with skulls and bones, has a similar effect, pushing Christ upward and outward. The figures of John, barefooted, wringing his hands and gazing at the foot of the cross in misery, and Mary, her arms crossed, clutching herself mid-shiver in despair, her gaze uplifted to the emaciated, crucified figure of Christ, all combine to promulgate a novel realistic and pathetic emotion, the viewer engrossed too in the suffering.

A final note must reference Cranach's smaller woodcuts, the small woodcut face of Christ to the foot of leaf CXL, the elaborate white-line woodcut, Winterburger's device, in red to the final leaf and the historiated and inhabited initials, the majority also in red, that are used throughout. In terms of the initials, of particular note are the following: the 9-line 'A' in red to leaf I, the 7-line 'P' in red to leaf XI verso, the 7-line 'S' to leaf CVI verso (it is also repeated later in the text) and the 7-line 'B' to CXII verso which depicts a devouring giant with a human in each hand; the largests initial is the 'T' (it intorduces the 'Te igitur') in black to leaf CXLVI - it faces Cranach's crucifixion and brings balance to the spread as a visual whole - showing Moses and David with a tree with elaborate foliage growing through the letter.

Overall the work includes a full-page woodcut of St. Stephen, 6 leaves of calendar, half-page Dominical calendar woodcut by Cranach, 24 leaves of music, Cranach's large woodcut of the Crucifixion on t1 verso (recto blank save foliation and signature), colophon to leaf CCXII recto, final leaf with publisher's large woodcut device in red verso. The text is largely in double columns, in Latin in red and black throughout with numerous initials and decorations in red and with 16 decorative white-line woodcut historiated and inhabited initials by Cranach (all save one in red), and a small circular woodcut at foot of leaf CL verso.

“Another important part of Cranach’s earliest known ars graphica are the various book decorations he created for Johannes Winterburger in Vienna. At the time Winterburger was establishing himself in the lucrative market for liturgical works through the publication of Mass books for various dioceses in the vicinity of Vienna between 1503 and 1512. The first among them is the Mass book for Passau from 1503 ... The Crucifixion woodcut ... shows all the vibrancy that is so characteristic of his other Viennese works ... The liveliness of forms and visual inventiveness is also apparent in the various decorative white-line initials used throughout the book. Perhaps the most astonishing decorative element, however, is the large and elaborate white-line woodcut that Cranach designed for the table used for finding the dominical letter (littera dominicalis) and the dates of church holidays for each given year starting in 1490 ... Ultimately, the decorations for Winterburger’s Missal books are the only works from Cranach’s Viennese years ever to appear on the market; in any case, they are very rare.” (C. G. Boerner).

This first missal of Winterburger's is extremely rare: we trace copies via OCLC at the library of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary and the National Library of Denmark only, with no copies recorded in the USA; JISC Library Hub records a single copy in the UK at the British Library (USTC adds another at Cambridge); other copies are held at Amsterdam (Rijskprentenkabinet), Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett), Munich (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), and Vienna (the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek holds three copies). At auction too we locate only this copy although copies of later editions are recorded: this copy sold as lot 304 by Christie's in March 1995 (the sale also included other missals from the Bute collection).

Provenance: chromolithograph bookplate to front pastedown with arms and the Latin text 'Iohannes Patricius Crichton Stuart Marchio de Bute' (i.e. John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, 1847 - 1900); woodcut bookplate with arms of Cardiff Castle, primary seat in Wales of the Bute family, to rear pastedown; sold in Christie’s London in 1995.

[see C. G. Boerner's catalogue 'Neue Lagerliste' issued in conjunction with Harris Schrank Fine Prints, 2015; Hollstein xx & xx].