316. Szent Biblia...

Az-az: Istennek Ó és Új Testamentomaban foglaltatott egész Szent Iras. Magyar Nyelvre fordittatott Károli Gáspár által. Es mostan Kilentzedszer e’ kis formában ki-botsáttatott. 
Ultrajectumban, 1747. W. Reers Ianos. 1pl(s). (engraved title page)+(2)+1196+(1)p. Engraved title page and the first three leaves replaced by copies.

Bound with:
Szent David kiralynak és profetanak szaz ötven soltari...
Ultrajectumban, 1765. Reers W. János. 104+(6)p. Last four leaves replaced by copies.
A further edition of the Károli Bible in the text revised by Miklós Tótfalusi Kis – the ninth Utrecht printing, and the second from Reers’s press.
"I kept the book so that I could one day express my view on the shame of the bookbinding and restoration profession, which under the Kádár regime was relentlessly glorified. As a so-called 'bookbinding artist' he is still referred to online as a master of his craft, yet in reality he was no more than a bungler – much like Elek Mekk, the goat, Imre István’s fairy-tale character who, after failing in nine other trades, suddenly becomes a good tailor. György Váci may have had some skill, but it certainly was not in bookbinding or restoration. He produced gold-stamped, padded bindings – impressive from a distance or in photographs – that in time deteriorated of their own accord, being nothing more than shoddy imitation leather over cloth.
He began at the Kapisztrán printing house in Vác, then in 1956 became independent and entered the Franciscan order – or was placed there. While his fellow friars who did not conform were persecuted by the State Office for Church Affairs, he, as a protégé of the regime, received one prestigious state commission after another. He bound volumes for the Presidential Council, the Council of Ministers, the Parliament Office, the Government Secretariat, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the National Bar Council, and various ministries – his work was even given as a gift to Queen Elizabeth II of England.
The constant stream of praise orchestrated by the Office of Church Affairs eventually led him to believe himself a true master, when in fact he was nothing more than a party-state puppet, constructed to showcase the supposed good relations between church and state. Propaganda persuaded the uninformed public to regard his amateurish bindings as masterpieces. The continued veneration of György Váci is a travesty of the profession.
I was horrified to read on Wikipedia that he also dabbled in restoration – crowning his destructive career by ‘restoring’ (in truth, ruining) a Corvina, an incunable, and other early books. Someone must finally say it: the emperor has no clothes. This conceited man, the prince of bunglers, honorary citizen of Vác and Kiskunhalas, party propaganda’s pet Franciscan, was a disgrace to the bookbinding and restoration profession."(Lajos Borda)
Padded modern leatherette by György Váci, gilt and blind-tooled. Some leaves stained, soiled, and frayed at the edges.
Erdős: 21.
 
Starting price: 40 000,-