# Liber Chronicarum, the Khuner copy > Michael Wolgemut, with Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their Nuremberg workshop - Nuremberg, printed by Anton Koberger; Latin edition completed 12 July 1493 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/michael-wolgemut/nuremberg-chronicle-khuner-copy/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-10 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Michael Wolgemut, with Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their Nuremberg workshop - **Date:** Nuremberg, printed by Anton Koberger; Latin edition completed 12 July 1493 - **Medium:** Letterpress on paper, with woodcut illustrations printed in black ink from wooden blocks; uncolored in this copy - **Dimensions:** 45.2 x 32.2 x 7 cm closed, per the Metropolitan Museum of Art's catalogue record - **Object type:** Printed book - **Period:** German, fifteenth century - **Current location:** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Drawings and Prints - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary A copy of the most heavily illustrated book of the fifteenth century: Hartmann Schedel's universal history from the Creation to 1493, printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg and carrying about 1,800 woodcut impressions pulled from 645 blocks. This copy, uncolored and rebound at an unrecorded date, entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1981 as the gift of Mrs. George Khuner, and almost nothing is documented about where it was for the four and a half centuries before that.The book's real dispute is not about this copy's ownership, which is thin rather than contested, but about who cut its pictures. The woodcuts are contracted to the Nuremberg workshop of Michael Wolgemut and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Albrecht Durer served his apprenticeship in that same workshop for the three years immediately before the contract, and no cut in the book carries a signature. Whether any specific image is the young Durer's own work, Wolgemut's, or an unnamed journeyman's has been argued by named scholars for decades and has never been settled.What is certain is what the object itself shows: a plain, unrubricated, uncolored copy of an edition that other surviving copies show hand-colored, sometimes at the press and sometimes decades later by a private owner. The difference between those two kinds of copy is a real, documented, and frequently mismarketed distinction, and this copy's plainness is itself evidence. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1493** The Nuremberg printing house of Anton Koberger `[documented]` (origin) Printed in Nuremberg; the Latin edition was completed 12 July 1493. Bibliographic estimates of the Latin print run range from about 1,300 to about 1,500 copies depending on the source, of which roughly 400 are thought to survive. - **1493-1981** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is documented for this copy across a span of roughly four hundred and eighty-eight years. Nothing in the Metropolitan Museum's public record or in the other sources consulted for this record identifies an intermediate owner, sale, or location. - **-1981** George Khuner `[documented]` (collection) The Museum's credit line names this book as part of The George Khuner Collection. No acquisition date, source, or biographical detail about Khuner was found in the sources consulted; his ownership is documented only by the Museum's own credit line, not independently corroborated. - **1981-present** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (gift) Gift of Mrs. George Khuner, 1981. Accession number 1981.1178.29, object ID 356792, Department of Drawings and Prints. Marked public domain in the Museum's own open-access data. - **undated** Art Bookbinding Studio `[documented]` (rebinding) The Museum's constituent record credits the Art Bookbinding Studio as binder, meaning the volume was rebound at some point after 1493. No date is given for the rebinding, and no part of a binding contemporary with the printing is recorded as surviving. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **2020-12-11** Bonhams, - Estimate: USD 200,000 - 300,000 - With premium: USD 437,813 (premium-inclusive total) - A different copy from the one described in this record: a hand-colored Latin first edition in its original first Nuremberg binding, sold at Bonhams' Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in New York and announced by the house as a new world auction record for the Nuremberg Chronicle. Bonhams' own press materials state a single total of USD 437,813 realized against the estimate and do not separate a hammer price from the buyer's premium; this record does not invent a split its source does not provide. Not a sale of the Khuner copy, which has no recorded auction history. ## Open questions - Which, if any, of the Chronicle's roughly 1,800 woodcut impressions were designed or cut by the young Durer rather than by Wolgemut, Pleydenwurff, or an unnamed journeyman? Argued by named scholars for decades, unresolved, and not answerable from any single copy in the absence of a signature. - Where was the Khuner copy between its printing in 1493 and its appearance in George Khuner's collection by 1981? No owner is documented for that span. - Who was George Khuner, and when and from whom did he acquire this copy? No public biographical account was found in the sources consulted for this record. - When was the Khuner copy rebound by the Art Bookbinding Studio, and does any part of an earlier binding survive in the Museum's files even if not on the book itself? - Was the Khuner copy ever intended for hand-coloring or rubrication and left unfinished, or was it always meant to remain plain? Nothing in the Museum's public record answers this. - Does the accession number 1981.1178 correspond to a larger group gift from Mrs. Khuner, and if so, what other objects did it include and are their present locations documented? ## Sources - [1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for Liber Chronicarum, object 356792, accession 1981.1178.29, The George Khuner Collection, Gift of Mrs. George Khuner, 1981. - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object 356792 (accession number, dimensions, isPublicDomain flag, constituents including Art Bookbinding Studio, credit line, and the ten photographs of this copy examined for this record). - [3] Wikipedia, 'Nuremberg Chronicle', for the print run estimates, the financing contract, the Durer apprenticeship dates and lack of scholarly consensus, and the six-ages structure. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with Rucker's or Wilson's bibliographic monographs on the Chronicle. - [4] Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library, 'The Printing of the Nuremberg Chronicle', for Koberger's press scale, the paper requirement, the printing schedule, the alternative print-run estimate, and the named scholars in the Durer debate (Panofsky, Sladeczek, Wilson, Fussel). - [5] Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, online exhibit 'Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493', for the Prothro B-03 copy's hand-coloring, its late-sixteenth-century date, and the identification of Hartmut XIII von Kronberg and Margarete Brendel von Homburg from the coats of arms added to the coloring. - [6] Bonhams, press release, 'World Record for Extremely Rare Hand-Colored First Edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle', for the 11 December 2020 sale result and its description as a new world auction record. - [7] Bonhams, press release, 'Extremely Rare Hand-Colored First Edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle at Bonhams Fine Books Sale in New York', pre-sale announcement, for the estimate and the lot description. - [8] Wikipedia, 'Michael Wolgemut', for biography, workshop scale, the Durer apprenticeship, other major works, and the 1516 Durer portrait. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a scholarly monograph on Wolgemut's workshop. - [9] Wikipedia, 'Hartmann Schedel', for biography and his personal library. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a scholarly edition of Schedel's library catalogue. - [10] Wellcome Collection, catalogue record for Liber chronicarum, Copy 1, shelfmark EPB/INC/5.f.6, for the binding, hand-coloring, manuscript marginal notes, the William Morris Kelmscott House bookplate, and the December 1898 Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge acquisition. - [11] Bayerische Staatsbibliothek / Munich Digitization Center (MDZ), collection page for the Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel, for the identification of Schedel's own annotated copy and the added Etzlaub Rom-Weg map. - [12] Boston Athenaeum, 'Liber Chronicarum, Nuremberg, 1493', for the 1847 purchase and the Bromfield Fund. - [13] Secondary literature on Durer's 1516 portrait of Michael Wolgemut, for the text of Durer's own inscription recording his master's age and death, as widely published in translation. - [14] Wikipedia, 'Anton Koberger', for his biography, press scale, employee count, title count, his godfathering of Durer, the Haller Madonna commission, and the near-immediate pirated editions. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a scholarly study of Koberger's press. - [15] Letterform Archive, 'This Just In: The Nuremberg Chronicle', for the block-reuse figures (53 city-view cuts for 101 places, 96 portrait-type cuts for 593 named figures, an average of six uses per block) and the 2001 Taschen facsimile of the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek copy. - [16] Citizendium, 'Nuremberg Chronicle', for the reported original retail price (2 gulden unbound and uncolored, roughly three times that bound and colored) and its comparison to the period cost of about 120 pounds of beef. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a documented period price record. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.