Our catalogue for the TEFAF Maastricht 2010 (March 12-21)

We of Antiquariaat FORUM have said it many times before and we say it again: rare books are objects of art and can be just as special as a painting by an old master or an ancient marble statue. As a fellow book lover you probably feel the same, but it still isn’t the general perception of things. Luckily, awareness is growing. The prestigious international arts and antiques fair TEFAF Maastricht, for example, has launched a new section this year, the TEFAF on Paper. Of course, Antiquariaat FORUM has had the honour to be invited to participate in this prestigious event, and we will present an impressive selection of highlights from the history of the printed word. You can download our complete list of items here!

From March 12 to 21 you can find us in Booth 708 at the Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre (MECC), where we will be in the exclusive company of 262 other prestigious art and antiques dealers from all over the world, including Argentina, China and the United States. No doubt they will all bring their most beautiful treasures, but we of Antiquariaat FORUM are confident that our choice collection of books, atlases and manuscripts will not pale in comparison. Regular readers of our newsletter will certainly recognize a number of items in our TEFAF-catalogue, such as the Print-Bible of Peeter van der Borcht, Siebold’s Nippon, Jacob de Gheyn’s amazing Waffenhandlung von den Rören, and the Rumphius’ classic, illustrated and coloured by Maria Sibylla Merian. However, at the TEFAF we will also exhibit many highly interesting works you have not seen before in our online inventory!

Take for example the unrecorded early terrestrial and maritime atlases by Frederick de Wit, bound together with separate title pages. Both were published circa 1676 in Amsterdam and beautifully coloured by a contemporary hand. According to Rodney Shirley, the world map in the terrestrial atlas is “ one of the most attractive of its time. The brilliant scenes in the corners combine images of the four seasons, the elements, and the signs of the zodiac in a well-balanced and naturalistic way.” The world map in the maritime atlas has beautiful etched scenes combining allegorical and classical figures with representations of the four elements and scenes from contemporary life by the famous artist Romeyn de Hooghe, who may have executed the decorations in some of the other maps as well. Click here for a full description of this extremely rare work!

Another beautifully coloured atlas is the one by Gerard Mercator and Jodocus Hondius the Younger, published in 1633. L'Appendice de l'Atlas was planned as a supplement to Hondius’s 1628 French edition of Mercator’s Atlas, with maps produced since that edition, and contains a map of the world in two hemispheres with beautiful pictorial decorations, maps of the continents, numerous detail maps of various regions in England and continental Europe, a map of the Holy Land, 2 detail maps of the East Indies and 10 detail maps of regions in North and especially South America, including a map of Bermuda. A complete description can be found here!

In our TEFAF-catalogue you can also find a number of very interesting items that are not on our website, but will be on exhibition at the fair in Maastricht. These include Catlin’s North American Indian Portfolio, 38 partly unpublished letters by Franz Kafka, an autograph letter by Martin Luther, and a manuscript leaf from Das Kapital, by Karl Marx!

Full descriptions can be found on our website. Enjoy exploring and we hope to see you in Booth 708 at the TEFAF Maastricht!