Das Hohe Lied Salomo – Harry Kessler & Eric Gill 1972

Das Hohe Lied Salomo stands as one of the crowning achievements of the celebrated Cranach Press and a landmark of twentieth-century fine book production. Published in 1931 under the meticulous direction of Count Harry Kessler, this exquisite edition of the Song of Songs represents the last completed work of the Weimar press and is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful German private press books ever printed.

The volume brings together the complementary talents of Kessler as visionary publisher and the English artist and typographer Eric Gill as illustrator. Gill contributed eleven wood engravings, seven of which are full-page, along with thirteen decorative initials that ornament the text throughout . His illustrations capture the sensuous and spiritual dimensions of the biblical poetry with remarkable subtlety, their “darkly tonal wood engravings” standing in what one critic described as “a ravishing dialogue of light and dark” against the slender columns of text.

Kessler himself characterized Gill with a memorable phrase that illuminates the artist’s approach to this material: “Gill is a completely unspoiled mixture of religion and eroticism”. This duality finds perfect expression in the Song of Songs, where divine and human love intertwine. The tension between Kessler’s aesthetic vision and Gill’s artistic instincts shaped the final work, with correspondence revealing that the two men navigated differing views on color and decoration throughout the design process .

The typography is equally distinguished, featuring the Jenson Antiqua typeface specially cut for the Cranach Press by E. Prince. Printed in red and black on handmade Maillol-Kessler paper, the book measures an elegant 26 by 13.5 centimetres, its tall, narrow format echoing the proportions of manuscript traditions that inspired Kessler and Gill during their research at the British Museum. The German text draws from Martin Luther’s translation, while its dramatic arrangement follows the Vulgate .

Only one hundred copies of this German edition were printed on handmade paper, with additional copies on vellum and Japanese paper completing a total edition of 258. Despite its breathtaking quality, the book appeared at an inopportune economic moment; many copies remained unsold at Kessler’s death in 1937, a testament to the gap between artistic ambition and commercial reality in the final years of the Weimar Republic. Today it is treasured by collectors as the supreme expression of the Cranach Press’s ideals and a monument to the fruitful collaboration between two of modern book design’s most original figures.