These twenty-eight drawings come from the collections of the former Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse, then administered by the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse: sheltered from the bombardments of the Second World War along with the museum's most precious items, the collection of around 180 drawings from the 16th to the end of the 19th century, bought in their time by Mulhouse industrialists or donated to the Société Industrielle by artists, was only rediscovered in the early 1970s. The collection was then entrusted to the Bibliothèque municipale, which had already received the Société Industrielle's rich collection of prints a few years earlier.

The Mulhouse municipal library holds a number of early 16th-century works printed by Peter Schmid, a mysterious printer from Mulhouse about whom little is known. Almost all of these documents were printed in Mulhouse, although some were printed in Switzerland or Germany. Some are reprints of works by great contemporary figures such as Paracelsus, Luther, and Brant. Often beautifully decorated, they bear witness to the cultural importance of the town of Mulhouse in the years 1550-1560 and its role as a major centre for the dissemination of modern ideas.

This collection of works by engraver Hans Thoma (1839-1924) belongs to the Société industrielle de Mulhouse, on deposit at the Bibliothèque municipale.
The reason for their presence in Mulhouse and the nature of this collection remains a mystery: workshop collections or printer's collection ? The handwritten notes, typical of test prints, on many lithographs are but one clue. Moreover, research has not revealed the existence of any artistic printing workshops in the town at that time.

The Mulhouse Municipal Library holds hundreds of prints identified as from lithographer Godefroy Engelmann: lithographs, chromolithographs, treatises on lithography, etc. The collection is augmented each year by acquisitions of works by Godefroy Engelmann, such as this autograph manuscript collection and the Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, a suite of 24 prints, both acquired in 2020.

These drawings come from the collections of the former Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse, then administered by the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse. At the start of the war, the Museum's most precious pieces were packed up in the haste imposed by events, and taken to a region thought to be safe from military operations. The explosion that destroyed the Riedisheim bridge in 1940 and the bombing raids on the town in 1944 caused serious damage to the Museum and the objects that had remained there.

Designer Anton Seder (1850-1916) from Munich became the first director of the Kunstgewerbeschule of Strasbourg. He was known as one of lead artists of the nature-inspired Jugendstil movement, and initiated the revival of decorative arts in Alsace. His drawings appear in many lithographic books.

Mulhouse: this town on the border of three territories has aroused the curiosity of engravers and cartographers. The collections of the Mulhouse Municipal Library contain a wealth of views of the town, including drawings, prints, and maps. Let's explore these collections century by century...

The Mulhouse magistrate Armand Weiss (1827-1892) is relatively unknown these days, except among bibliophiles. While his legal work has left few traces, his gigantic collection of old books is well known. Bequeathed to the Société industrielle de Mulhouse on his death, the collection of nearly 5,000 books and prints was transferred to the Mulhouse Municipal Library in 2010, where it is carefully curated.

Mulhouse has an extraordinary past: a small village, first mentioned at the beginning of the 9th century, that allied with Switzerland from the 14th to the 18th century, before being attached to enemy Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. These many influences are reflected in the digitisations carried out by the Mulhouse municipal library, and hence in this colleciton.

The National and Academic Library (BNU) boasts 340 maps: 60 maps of Scandinavia as a whole and 280 of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Other regions include Iceland, Svalbard, Greenland, and the Arctic region.
Mostly from the 16th to the 19th centuries, these older maps were engraved by renowned cartographers, like Mercator, Ortelius, Janssonius, Homann, etc. and conjure up images of Vikings, myths, and fantastic beasts.