Ernst H. Gombrich, Geburtstagsatlas für Max M. Warburg (5 June 1937) : first digital edition, edited by Elizabeth Thomson

In 1937, Ernst Gombrich, who had just joined the Warburgkreis in London, was commissioned to produce a private edition of the Bilderatlas. Geburtstagsatlas für Max M. Warburg for the 70th birthday of Aby Warburg' brother. The operation, conceived as a private gift, was probably initiated by Gertrud Bing and Fritz Saxl, or Max himself: the undertaking was intended to satisfy the family’s wishes as they continued to believe that the Mnemosyne project could be published. Preserved in two typewritten copies - one kept in London, the other in Hamburg - the Geburtstagsatlas, was for decades consigned to oblivion and still remains unpublished (see the dedicated page in The Warburg Institute website). Gombrich's modus operandi is very clear: he selects 24 panels (out of the 63 of the latest version of the Bilderatlas of 1929); removes many images from each of the panels; lays out the surviving images on a white background, in a well-balanced and hierarchical order, by modifying original formats and space relations; each of the 24 panels is furnished with a brief but condensed explanation of its main topics. Gombrich introduces his version of the Atlas with a short but charged premise; although a copy of the Einleitung to Mnemosyne to the Bilderatlas written by Warburg in 1929 is available to him, he firmly disassociates himself from it, both formally and conceptually. An analysis of Gombrich's Geburtstagsatlas throws light on the introduction to his theoretical reflections on Warburg that would be included in his seminal publication: Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography (London, 1970). Engramma 153 presents: a first digital edition of Gombrich's Geburtstagsatlas, from the collation of the two typewritten copies preserved at The Warburg Institute in London and the Warburg-Haus in Hamburg.