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MAGNIFICENT PLATES OF AMSTERDAM CITY HALL
& MAP OF AUSTRALIA WITH TASMAN'S DISCOVERIES
CAMPEN, Jacob van. Afbeelding van 't Stadt Huys van Amsterdam, in dartigh coopere plaaten, geordineert door Jacob van Campen; en geteeckent door Jacob Vennekool.
Amsterdam, Frederik de Wit, ca. 1664.
WITH: QUELLINUS, Artus. Prima [-Secunda] Pars Praecipuarum Effigierum ac Ornamentorum, Amplissimae Curiae Amstelodamensis.
Amsterdam, Artus Quellinus, 1655 (vol. 1) & Frederik de Wit, 1668 (vol. 2). 2 works in 3 volumes. Large folio (44.5 x 28 & 42.5 x 26 cm). The Van Campen with engraved title-page and 24 engraved architectural plates (2 full-page, 17 double-page and 5 larger folding) lettered A-Z (including W but not J & U), including plans, elevations and sections. The Quellius with 2 engraved title-pages, engraved privilege, 2 engraved lists of plates, and 100 engraved plates illustrating details of the sculpture and decoration (92 full-page, 6 double-page & 2 larger folding) lettered in 2 irregular series A-T & A-X with more than one plate for many letters and 4 unlettered, plus an engraved portrait of Artus Quellinus, not always included. Contemporary parchment.
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Two complementary and magnificently illustrated works on the famous Amsterdam City Hall. According to the STCN both are first editions (Van Campen in its second or third issue, and Quellinus with part 1 in its first issue and part 2 in its second issue). The Van Campen was first issued by Danckertsz. in 1661 and part 2 of the Quellinus by Quellinus himself in 1663. Though separately published, the two works were often bound together or mated to each other. Van Campen's 24 plates, engraved by Danckert Danckertsz. and his father after drawings by Jacob Vennekool, show plans, elevations and sections of exteriors and interiors of the city hall, built mostly in the years 1648 to 1655 and used since 1808 as the Royal Palace of the Kings and Queens of the Netherlands. His letterpress text gives a description of the building with reference to the plates. Quellinus had been responsible for most of the sculptural work for the city hall. His 100 plates show these sculptures, friezes and decoration in great detail. They were engraved by his brother Hubertus Quellinus and printed in Artus Quellinus's house. The two largest folding plates, each comprising three sheets and more than 165 cm long, show the ... at the top of the west and east facade. These and the two double-page plates without letters were not included in the first issue of volume 2, appearing for the first time in the present second issue. The portrait is not called for in the list of plates and is not always included.
Plate O of the Van Campen shows the extraordinary cartographic mosaic floor of the Brugerzaal with its magnificent map of the world in 2 hemispheres. The map incorporated Tasman's discoveries, including his second voyage, which remained otherwise unpublished until the end of the century, showing Tasman's recent discoveries in Australia and Tasmania, and depicting California as an island. This engraved representation is all that is left of this cartographical work of art. Wear caused by people walking on the mosaic meant it had to be restored about a hundred years later. When in turn this restoration was damaged the two hemispheres were filled in with plain marble slabs without pictorial representation.
The City Hall is the most famous and last major work by Van Campen (1595-1657), the greatest architect of the Dutch Golden Age. He began work on the design in 1640 and though it opened in 1655, it was not actually completed until 1665. Constantine Huygens called it the eighth wonder of the world. Van Campen came into conflict with city officials and left Amsterdam in 1654, when Daniël Staelpaert took over the work on the building. Since Vennekool, who engraved the plates for the first volume, worked closely with Van Campen, and since his drawings were published even before the building was completed, they may reflect Van Campen's plan more closely than the finished building itself. They also, of course, show it before the alterations made at various times in later years.
The typefounder and punchcutter Christoffel van Dyck drew the lettering for the doors of the city hall's offices, so it's poetically appropriate to find his Kleene Kanon (189 mm/20 lines or about 27 point) roman and italic type used for Danckertsz.'s dedication. The confusing designation of the Quellinus plates, with letters repeated several times, the same letters used in the two volumes, and some plates without letters, has baffled both seventeenth-century binders and modern bibliographers, in spite of the list of plates in each volume. In the present copy, plate L for volume 2 and the 2 large folding plates for volume 2 are bound in volume 1, and the two double-page plates without letters are bound where plate L should have appeared in volume 2.
With several small tears, occasionally slightly affecting a plate, but still in very good condition. The largest folding plates show several false folds, and one end leaf in the Van Campen is detached. The portrait, not always included, has been cut down and mounted on a blank leaf, with one corner of the frame cut away. First editions of two works on the Amsterdam City Hall, with magnificent engravings.
