Nückel’s only wordless novel, Schicksal, depicts the struggles of a single woman dealing with poverty and misfortune leading her to infanticide, prostitution, murder, and suicide.
Leadcuts
Schicksal, appears to be unique in the wordless genre in that it was printed from plates of engraved lead (later steel faced). The actual lead plates no longer exist and were presumably melted down for the war effort.
Wood engraving blocks were the standard for printing on paper where fine lines were required. It is believed that a scarcity of good quality wood blocks resulted in Nückel turning to lead.
Without more information, an assumption can be made that Nückel did not use pure lead but some type of alloy. Since the mid 1400s, and going well into the 1900s, an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony has been used for printing words on paper. This alloy would have been readily available to Nückel from any printing shop.
Leadcuts appear to result in a slightly different texture on the paper surface – some would suggest a softer appearance. After Nückel’s use of lead a few other artists explored the medium but not to any great extent.
Schicksal: eine Geschichte in Bildern [Fate: A Story in Pictures]
A number of dealers give a publication date of 1926 for Shicksal but when asked – there is nothing in the book to establish this. It may be based on the Sennewald reference book.
NOTE: If you have access to Sennewald, please send a photo of the entry for this.
- Ref: Adolf Sennewald: Deutsche Buchillustratoren im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts. Materialien für Bibliophile. Wiesbaden 1999. (German book illustrators in the first third of the 20th century. Materials for bibliophiles. Wiesbaden 1999).
- Sennewald 26. Vollmer III, 497. also: Sennewald 139/26 (I am not sure why there is a difference)
208 unnumbered leaves: all illustrations ; 21 cm
Came as both a soft cover and a hard cover.
Schicksal – Prospectus, undated
a card cover and 9.50 marks in a full linen binding.
Card/Soft cover -undated
No top stain.
Hard Cover – Full linen binding
- Title: Schicksal: eine Geschichte in Bildern [Fate: A story in Pictures]
- Author and Illustrator: Otto Nückel
- Date: believed to be 1926
- Publisher: Delphin Verlag
- Place of publication: München
- Copyright: artist?
- Size:
- Dust jacket/slipcase: there is nothing to suggest this was shipped with a DJ or slipcase.
- Binding: full linen binding. For most copies the cloth appears to be a light beige or tan or possibly an off-gray – all with black ink printing on the spine and for the cover image. Some copies appear to be a variant with a distinctly browner/orange cloth – see below.
- Black top stain
- Language: German titles, etc
- Paginated: unpaginated
- Printed from the original matrix: lead cuts but electroplated
Variant color cloth binding
For a discussion on variant cloth covers see blog: Nückel – Destiny; variant tan/grey cloth covers
Ken Sanders describes a copy as: “Camel-colored cloth over boards with brown ink stamped titles on the backstrip and front board and a brown ink stamped vignette on the front cover. Publisher’s black topstain.”
Even allowing for differences in cameras, lighting, computer monitors, etc it appears as if some of the hard cover copies of Schicksal have a variant cloth cover and brown ink used for printing and the scene on the front cover.
1985 Schicksal: Eine Geschichte in Bildern
Title: Schicksal : Eine Geschichte in Bildern.
Publisher: Zürich : Limmat-Verlag
Publication Date: 1985
Binding: Card covers
[207] pages. With numerous black and white illustrations. 21 cm
