FRANCQ VAN BERKHEY, Johannes le.
Zinspelende gedigjes, op de geestige printjes ge-etst door Pieter de Mare, na de teekeningen van mejuffrouw Christina Chalon.
Leiden, Frans de Does, 1779. 4to. With an engraved portrait of the author and 32 etched illustrations by Pieter de Mare after Christina Chalon. Splendid contemporary (late 18th-century) gold-tooled red morocco, with a smooth spine, bound by the so-called Second Dissertation Bindery (Leiden ca. 1780-ca. 1794; Storm van Leeuwen IIA, pp. 350-358). Both boards show two gold-tooled connected floral frames (all the same roll) with 4 corner pieces on the inside of the inner frame and a large lozenge shaped centrepiece built up from multiple impressions of 3 different floral stamps. Further with a gold-tooled spine and board edges, marbled endpapers. 32 pp.
€ 3,500
Rare and beautiful picture book for children based on a collection of drawings by Christina Chalon (1748-1808). They were made in the style of Adriaan van Ostade, and most drawings relate to children, showing children walking with their parents, being carried by grown-ups, crowding around neighbours who are standing, talking, or sitting in front of their houses, children playing games, etc., but also included is a farmer on a chair smoking his pipe. A first edition was published in 1779, both in quarto and in octavo, and a second edition appeared in 1793; all editions are rare.
The title page and the outer edges of the leaves show some minor browning, some occasional faint foxing, but overall the leaves remain bright and clean. Finely bound large paper copy of a beautifully illustrated late-18th-century work. Arpots, 248; Buijnsters, BNK, 1456; NNBW 4, pp. 615-618.; Scheepers II, 804; STCN 24081486X (2 copies, both lacking illustrations).
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