A WOMAN'S ALBUM AMICORUM FROM THE GOETHEZEIT, 1802-1810. Oblong 8vo., 18 x 12 cm. (88) pp, including approximately 50 entries as well as 7 colored ink sketches, 2 bistre ink sketches, 1 pencil sketch, and 1 hand-colored engraving laid down. Bound in contemporary gilt- and black-stamped white silk over boards, with owner’s initials and date on cover. Charming example of a woman’s album amicorum bound in white silk, maintained before and during the Napoleonic invasion of Saxe-Coburg in 1806. Frau Dressel (probably née Müntzer, judging by the entry from her brother on the final leaf) seems to have been resident in Coburg, with many entries also from nearby towns including Eisfeld, Bayreuth, and Kulmbach. Between 1806 and 1807, French soldiers occupied Coburg as Napoleon oversaw the creation of the pro-French ‘Confederation of the Rhine’. The present album bears no trace of this tumult, and is instead fully imbued with the Romantic pastoralism of the Goethezeit: the entries are often accompanied by a written motto or sketched ‘symbol’, and the more elaborate illustrations depict what was seen as the aesthetic ideal of the period – namely, small stone structures in a woodland setting, often acting as an ‘Andenken’ or memento.