An early eighteenth-century German perpetual calendar.

Nürnberg : Johann Jacob Wolrab, [circa 1720]. Original wooden box, 270 x 105 x 40 mm, with two compartments containing removable cards: 6 double-sided cards for the months and 16 smaller double-sided cards for the days; each card is engraved and hand-coloured, but the larger cards also have hand-painted gouache decorations illustrating the months and signs of the zodiac; the verso of the sixteenth day card (i.e. the card with ’31’ on the recto) has the engraved imprint of ‘Nürnberg zu finden bey Johann Jacob Wolrab‘; the cards have an expected amount of rubbing and handling wear (one has a recent tape repair), but overall they have been remarkably well preserved, the colours still vibrant; the wooden box has a short crack on the underside.

A rare and charming perpetual calendar made and sold by Johann Jacob Wolrab (1675-1746), a Nürnberg bookseller, publisher and art dealer who is perhaps best known for his engravings of dwarf caricatures. 

The cards for the months have printed information about each month, including variation in day lengths. It is almost certain that the calendar – of which we have not been able to locate a comparable example – was issued in an uncoloured state and without illustrations, as some traces of the printed text show through the overpainted motifs. However, the appeal of this particular calendar lies in these attractive, naively executed decorations – unquestionably fully contemporary with the printed cards – that transform it into a unique artwork.