Ludwig Rosenthal (1840-1928), bookseller

The son of a merchant of art and books in Fellheim (Bavaria), Ludwig Rosenthal is seen as the founder of a four-generation dynasty of internationally acclaimed antiquarian dealers. His passion emerged when, as a schoolboy, he took English lessons at the former Charterhouse of Buxheim and admired manuscripts and printed books from the monastic library. Ludwig started his formal training at fifteen with his uncle Isaak Hess, a bookseller of Ellwangen. At this early age he already demonstrated promising skills, discovering a 1470s woodcut of the pilgrimage account Mirabilia Urbis Romae, which Hess sold for a considerable sum. After this three-year apprenticeship, his career took off quickly. In 1859, he opened a bookshop in Fellheim and, in 1863, published his first catalogue Katholische Theologie, which contained 3,000 items. In 1867, he moved his firm to Munich.

From there, Ludwig’s Antiquariat developed into a remarkably profitable company and gained a reputation for excellence. As well as selling German collections, such as those of the historian Karl Maria Aretin, the Jesuits of Landsberg and the Charterhouse of Buxheim, Ludwig also travelled through Europe to lay his hands on further books and treasures. In Paris, he found a copper globe representing Verrazzano’s journey to America, formerly owned by Queen Elizabeth I, which he sold to J. P. Morgan. According to an interview he gave in 1907, that year his stock contained an astonishing one million books.

Over the course of his career, Ludwig published more than 180 catalogues, trained renowned dealers, including Martin Breslauer, Maurice Ettinghausen and Emil Hirsch, as well as his brother Jacques and he greatly contributed to placing Munich at the centre of the trade in incunables and manuscripts in Germany. Today, Ludwig Rosenthal’s Antiquariaat, run by his great-granddaughter Edith Petten-Rosenthal at The Hague, preserves his legacy and love for books.