[BIBLE - DUTCH].
Biblia, dat is, de gantsche heylige schrifture, vervattende alle de canonijcke boecken des Ouden en des Nieuwen Testaments.
Leiden, widow and heirs of Johannes Elzevier, 1663. 3 volumes bound as 2, with the prints and maps bound in. Large folio (44.5 x 28 cm). The Elzevier Bible with an engraved allegorical frontispiece, 3 letterpress title-pages (the general title-page in red and black, the others for the New Testament and Apocrypha). Picart's wholly engraved print-Bible with an allegorical frontispiece, a half-title and 209 finely engraved Bible scenes (29 double-page) by Gerard Hoet, Bernard Picart, etc. Further with a series of 6 double-page engraved plates, namely 5 maps plus a plan of Jerusalem, all by Nicolaas I Visscher. Below the privilege from the city of Leiden, the city secretarys clerk Jacob vander Werve has authenticated the book by stamping the Leiden coat of arms and signing his name below it. Richly gold-tooled black goatskin morocco (ca. 1725) over bevelled wooden boards, bound and decorated by the so-called STAG BINDERY, Rotterdam. From the collection of Hendrik Adriaan or Hendricus Hadrianus vander Marck (ca. 1667-1726). [22], “468” [= 470]; [13], [1 blank], “167” [= 168]; [4], 77, [1 blank] ll. plus the print-Bible and maps.
€ 70,000
The famous and magnificent 1663 Elsevier edition of the 1637 authorized Dutch States translation of the Bible (Old and New Testament plus the Apocrypha), the only early edition of the Dutch States translation with the text in roman type instead of the traditional textura gothic. With Picart's folio print-Bible, Figures de la Bible (1720), the most sumptuous pictorial bible published in the Netherlands, here in the rare first edition, published by the artist himself, and the series of 6 maps and plans by Nicolaas I Visscher (1618-1679). The prints and maps are inserted in the relevant places in the Old Testament, New Testament and Apocrypha, with the New Testament and Apocrypha bound together to make the second volume. The whole is most luxuriously and splendidly produced, and bound by the so-called "stag bindery", active in Rotterdam at least 1693-1743, "the most important eighteenth-century bindery in Rotterdam and ... one of the most distinguished Dutch workshops in the first half of that century" (Storm van Leeuwen, IIA, p. 432). A truly unique piece, combining the best of all aspects of Dutch book production, Elzevier's printing (excellent presswork), Picart's engravings and a binding by a Rotterdam workshop undoubtedly the equal of Magnus.
Storm van Leeuwen notes that the book comes from the library of the great Dutch book collector Hendrik Adriaan vander Marck (ca. 1667-1726), though we do not find it in the 1727 auction catalogue of his library. It descended to the Tjeenk Willink collection. In very good condition, with some of the inserted prints and maps slightly browned and an occasional minor marginal defect. The bindings with a few minor scratches, a few scuffs on the board edges and the spines slightly worn, but still very good, most of the tooling fine. Magnificent set, complete with the two integral blank leaves. Biblia sacra 1663.B.dut.JElwidandheirs.a; Bijbel-tentoonstelling 1914, no. 653; Darlow & Moule 3321; Poortman, Bijbel en prent I, p. 154; Rahir 885; STCN 840822693; Willems 884; for the print-Bible: Poortman II, pp. 140-145; STCN 274059983 (4 copies); for the maps: Poortman & Augusteijn, chapter 27 (maps 118-123); for the binding: Jan Storm van Leeuwen, Dutch decorated bookbinding L805 & vol. IIA, p. 433, 438 (ill. fig. 178).
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