The Váchal Museum has enriched its collections with an extraordinary set of bookplates

During his lifetime, Josef Váchal created an extensive series of bookplates, which he produced throughout his active artistic career. They were a welcome source of additional income for him. Unlike the works that were important to him, he often printed only a few copies himself and sent the rest to the printer. He painted many of the bookplates directly into books, mostly using watercolors. He created between 475 and 480 graphic works during his lifetime. Some are now missing. He created bookplates using the etching and aquatint techniques from 1908, and woodcuts from 1909. From this first year, his personal bookplate Chodba mystiků (Corridor of Mystics) is represented in the acquired collection.
The originally small, single-color Art Nouveau bookplates were replaced in the 1930s by multicolor works, often in large formats. These periods of development are very convincingly represented by the newly purchased specimens. Among other things, the collection includes numerous bookplates created for Váchal’s girlfriend from his youth, Máňa Jančáková, as well as commissions for his later life partner, Anna Macková. In the 1950s, Váchal created his last bookplates, sometimes for fictional characters — several such examples also appear in this collection.
All purchased works are preserved in exceptionally good condition. The collection also includes a number of large-format bookplates, which rarely appear on the art market. The collection of 140 bookplates comes from a private collector who was its owner for three generations. However, his collection was much more extensive. For the collection of the Regional Museum in Litomyšl, which is administered by Portmoneum – Josef Váchal Museum, those items were selected from among the offered specimens that were missing from the museum’s collection or were already there but not signed. The collection also includes several items that are not bookplates but are closely related to Váchal and his work – these are New Year’s cards, handwritten notes on mystical tarot cards, two postcards with his photograph, Váchal’s wedding announcement, and the initial used in Krvavý román (The Bloody Novel).
The purchase of these works was made possible thanks to a grant from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. It has significantly enriched and increased the documentary value of the collection of the so-called Váchalean Litomyšl Museum. After the new additions to the collection have been processed, the collection will be presented to the public.