Constance Missal
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Hermann Joseph Otto Hubert August Constantin Hupp (May 21, 1859 – January 31, 1949) was a German graphical artist. His main working area was
heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and genealo ...
, yet he also worked as a
typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
designer, creating commercial symbols and metal works.


Life and career

Hupp was born in
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
,
Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...
, the fourth of five sons of the engraver Carl Heinrich Hupp. His father made him learn engraving as his profession, and, shortly after finishing his education, he moved to
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
in 1878. From 1891 till his death, Hupp lived in the suburb
Oberschleißheim Oberschleißheim (, , in contrast to " Lower Schleißheim") is a municipality in the district of Munich, and a suburb to Munich in Bavaria, in southern Germany. It is located 13 km north of Munich (centre). As of 2005 it had a population o ...
. From the painter Rudolf von Seitz he learned many styles of painting, and when he met the architect
Gabriel von Seidl Gabriel von Seidl (9 December 1848 – 27 April 1913) was a German architect and a representative of the historicist style of architecture. Early life, education and early career Gabriel Seidl was born in 1848 in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria. H ...
he received several contracts to paint wall and ceiling
fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...
s. Hupp's main field of work was heraldry, painting more than 6,000 coats of arms and writing books on heraldry. His ''Wappen und Siegel der deutschen Städte, Flecken und Dörfer'' (''Coats of Arms and Seals of German Cities, Places and Villages'' book series was started in 1895, but of the originally ten planned volumes only five were finished. 3,300 of his paintings of coats of arms were published as a collecting set from the coffee company '' Kaffee HAG'' from 1913–18 and 1926–38. This publication helped to make heraldry better known to the general public. Another important heraldic publication by Hupp were the ''Münchener Kalender'' (Munich calendar), of which 51 issues were published between 1885 and 1936 (the issue of 1933 was omitted). Besides painting existing coats of arms, he also created many designs for municipalities which were applying for new arms. Possibly his most important coat of arms was the 1923 version for the state of
Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
, which, however, was replaced with a new version after
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The first typographic works of Hupp were made in 1883. His first typeface, ''Neudeutsch'', was published in 1899 by Genzsch & Heyse. He created several further typeface later, such as ''Hupp-Gotisch'', ''Hupp-Fraktur'', and ''Hupp-Antiqua''. However, as his typefaces were not designed for standard uses, they did not spread much, and are nowadays mostly forgotten. None of them were ever converted for use in
phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of Typesetting, setting type which uses photography to make columns of Sort (typesetting), type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publ ...
, though some have been made available as digital fonts. Other significant works of Hupp include metal works for
Speyer Cathedral Speyer Cathedral, officially ''the Imperial Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption and St Stephen'', in Latin: Domus sanctae Mariae Spirae (German: ''Dom zu Unserer lieben Frau in Speyer'') in Speyer, Germany, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bish ...
in 1904 (which also gained him the title professor in 1906), the cover of an
astronomical clock An astronomical clock, horologium, or orloj is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets. Definition ...
donated to the city of Munich, beer steins, and the company logo of the Spaten brewery. Though Hupp was undoubtedly an artist, he himself did not claim to be one, preferring to say that he was simply using the technique of an artist, but failing to have the creativity of one.


The ''Constance Missal''

As reference material for his work as a type designer, Hupp collected early books and
incunabula An incunable or incunabulum (: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside (printing), broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. The specific date is essentiall ...
(books printed prior to 1501). Around 1880 he purchased a copy of an incunable which came to be known as the ''Constance Missal'' or ''Missale Speciale'' (five complete or partial copies are known). About 1895 he made a study of the volume and concluded that it had qualities in typography and production which suggested it was earlier than the
Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42, was the earliest major book printed in Europe using mass-produced metal movable type. It marked the start of the "Printing Revolution, Gutenberg Revolution" an ...
. Though he sold his copy, after several decades the argument took hold and by 1940 the Missal was recognized as predating Gutenberg's famous work. In 1954, a copy was sold to the
Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum (originally known as the Pierpont Morgan Library and colloquially known the Morgan) is a museum and research library in New York City, New York, U.S. Completed in 1906 as the private library of the banker J. P. Morg ...
for US$100,000. However, by the early 1960s further research by Allan H. Stevenson using watermark analysis demonstrated it was actually printed 20 years later than Gutenberg's work (in the fall of 1473).


References


External links

*
Literature List Online-Catalog
of the
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin The Berlin State Library (; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany, and a property of the German public cultural organization the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (). Founded i ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hupp, Otto 1859 births 1949 deaths Artists from Düsseldorf German-Nordic heraldry Heraldic artists German heraldists Artists from the Rhine Province German typographers and type designers