Open Gutenberg Bible
Stephen Tabor with the Huntington Library's copy of the Gutenberg Bible The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens
When railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington bought a rare edition of the Gutenberg Bible in 1911, he paid $55,000—the equivalent of around $1.8 million today.
But despite the high price, Huntington’s 15th-century Bible was incomplete. In 1825, an auctioneer had removed three devotional prints contained within the Bible’s pages since the 1450s to sell separately.
For two centuries, the Bible and its prints remained separated. Last spring, Stephen Tabor, the Huntington Library’s curator of rare books, heard about an upcoming sale of one of the prints, Christ on the Mount of Olives, according to Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. The Huntington jumped at the prospect of finally getting its Bible one page closer to completion.
After months of research, paperwork, licensing and fundraising, the print arrived at the library in San Marino, California, in September in a “wooden casket befitting a lost ark,” as Tabor says, per the library’s website. They will be on public display together at the library until May 26.
Christ on the Mount of Olives was likely added to the Gutenberg Bible by its first owner in the 1450s or 1460s. The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens
“Reuniting the print with the Huntington’s Bible deepens our understanding of this landmark of printing—how it was used and valued—enriching both scholarship and public appreciation,” Sandra Brooke Gordon, the director of the Huntington Library, says in a statement.
In the 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg created about 180 copies of the Bible using movable type. He printed roughly 145 copies on paper and 35 on vellum, parchment made from calfskin.
Gutenberg’s innovations revolutionized the way our ancestors made books and accessed information. Hundreds of years later, however, only about 50 copies are known to exist.
Eric White, a Gutenberg scholar and rare books curator at Princeton University, says the vellum copy that Huntington bought in 1911 is “the most beautiful copy in the world,” according to the statement. It is one of only three vellum editions in the United States, including one at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and one at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.
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Henry E. Huntington bought the Bible for $55,000 in 1911. The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens
The print is perhaps even rarer. It depicts Christ in prayer on the night before his crucifixion. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” Christ says in a Latin inscription. His disciples are asleep next to him, but betrayal is at hand. In the upper right corner, Judas leads Roman soldiers to Christ, saying, “He whom I shall kiss, He is the one, seize him.”
Originally affixed within the covers of the Bible, the print exemplifies the “dotted metal cut” technique. To create the print, tiny holes were punched into a thin metal plate, leaving a highly detailed and stylized black-and-white ink image that was later colored by hand.
“It’s an example of a very specialized style from a limited area of Europe,” Tabor tells Erik Pedersen of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, adding that the technique was practiced near the Rhine river in Germany.
Tabor suspects that the first owner of the Bible added the three prints—including another scene of Christ on the Mount of Olives (owned by the University of Manchester) and one depicting the crucifixion (owned by the British Museum)—in the 1450s or 1460s.
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Eric White says the Huntington's Bible is "the most beautiful copy in the world." The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens
“Why these private devotional prints were put inside indicates to me that it was probably a private buyer who got the Bible originally and not an institution like a monastery or a church,” Tabor tells the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “Either way, it would have to be a wealthy buyer.”
However, why a private citizen would have bought a two-volume copy of the Gutenberg Bible in the 1450s is unclear, Tabor adds.
“There are two volumes. Each one’s 25 pounds. You’re not going to curl up in bed with it,” Tabor tells the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “It was really designed as a lectern Bible, or something you stand to read from, a formal sort of Bible.”
By the time of the 1825 auction, the Bible and its prints had stayed together for nearly four centuries. After another two centuries apart, Christ on the Mount of Olives and the Gutenberg Bible have finally been reunited.
“The Bible is not a dead museum piece; it still holds surprises for those who look closely enough,” Tabor says in the statement. “That’s exactly what we’ve been doing in recent months—inspired by the return of the Christ on the Mount of Olives. Our discoveries about our Gutenberg Bible’s history and unique features have been accelerating ever since.”