1939 Jan Konůpek – Ten, který nezemřel aneb Vše je dovoleno umělci. One of 50 Copies

Prague: Jaroslav Picka, 1939 [issued 1943]. Quarto. Printed on handmade paper. Four-page introductory text by Jiří Konůpek, explanatory key to the illustrations, and nineteen separate illustrated plates by Jan Konůpek. Loose gatherings and plates as issued, housed in original handmade-paper wrappers with mounted illustrated label. Edition limited to 50 copies.A Czech bibliophile publication depicting an imaginary journey of Jesus Christ through Bohemia and Moravia. The nineteen illustrations transpose biblical episodes into Czech landscapes and historical settings, including Mount Říp, Lake Mácha, Panenský Týnec, Prague, and Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. In his introductory essay, Jiří Konůpek, the artist's son, describes the work as a painter's dream in which Christ returns to earthly life and encounters the people and places of the Czech lands.The publication forms part of Jan Konůpek's extensive work in biblical illustration, particularly his collaboration with the printer Jaroslav Picka on an illustrated Czech Bible. Although dated 1939 on the title page, the book was reportedly issued in 1943, during the German occupation. Ota Halama discusses the publication in his study of Konůpek's biblical illustrations.References: Antonín Grimm, Knižní výzdoby Jana Konůpka (1972), no. 153; Ota Halama, “Biblické ilustrace Jana Konůpka,” Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum 68 (2023), pp. 35–47, particularly p. 42.