The Royal Scroll.
[ Chicago: Powers, Fowler & Lewis, 1896.]. Includes the explanatory books Pen Pictures from Genesis to Revelations (64 pp.) and Bible Study in Topical Form (63 pp.), plus color maps (4 pp.) of Palestine. [With:]. The Royal Scroll. [Chicago: Powers, Higley & Co., 1902.] Folio case, 17 x 16 x 2 inches. Same design and content as above, but with an updated illustrated panel inside showing a stage and columns (as opposed to the Roman villa). Second edition. The interior of the case includes a large illustrated panel showing a Roman villa. With a double-sided movable scroll on rollers that is visible through two die-cut windows, cut in the illustrated panel: the upper window offers a view on 20 continual chromolithograph plates (each 9” x 7 ”); the lower window shows 132 chromolithograph plates (each 4 ” x 3”), viewed three across. 60 of the plates visible through the lower window were illustrated by J.C. Leyendecker. Also with two pictorial drop-down flaps (13” x 9”), one serving as the title-page and one showing a map of locations mentioned in the Bible. Folio case, 17 x 16 x 2 inches. Item #16728
Both editions in folding wooden easel cases covered in black cloth. Wearing to cloth at extremities and some wear to joints on both cases. First edition with the original working nickel-plated clasp on top exterior flap of easel case; the clasp is present on the second edition but does not lock. Two keyholes on the side of the case can be used with the key to turn the two scrolls (the original key is included with first edition but is lacking for the second). In the second edition, there is predation to the first ten or so leaves of the Pen Pictures book and to a few leaves of the Bible Study book. The title-page is most significantly affected by the predation and is coming loose at the fore-edge. The pictorial cardboard panel covering the lower window in the second edition is detached but placed its original position. Some light foxing to illustrations in both editions. Overall good copies of this elaborate and inventive Bible education tool.
The sixty illustrations by Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951) included in The Royal Scroll comprise his first commercial art commission, which he performed for the Powers Brothers Company when he was in his early twenties, shortly before enrolling in the Chicago Art Institute. Leyendecker went on to illustrate over four hundred magazine covers and iconic advertisements for the Kellogg Company, the Boy Scouts, and the United States military. One of his most famous illustrations was of the “Arrow Collar Man” for the fashion advertisements of Cluett Peabody & Company. Shau, J.C. Leyendecker, pp. 14-15.
Price: $1,500.00