Information
WITH EXCELLENT ORIGINAL WATERCOLOUR DRAWINGS OF BIRDS & FLOWERS
[SCRAP ALBUM]. [BYLANDT, Willem Johan Anne Isidore van?]. [Pictorial Scrap Album].
[The Hague?], ca. 1872. Royal 4to (30.5 x 26 cm). 2 volumes. A scrap album containing ca. 750 items, nearly all pictorial, mostly engraved and lithographed (many hand-coloured and a few colour-printed) but including about 35 excellent original watercolour drawings (flowers, birds, fruit, landscapes, etc.), also cut out and pasted in the album. Contemporary half red roan (sheepskin), marbled sides.
| Orders and Information | € 3500 |
A Dutch pictorial scrap album, assembled ca. 1872 and coming from the Van Bylandt family (Counts of Bylandt), containing about 750 items, including about 35 original watercolour drawings. The flower and bird drawings are excellent, but the only clue to the artist is a partly illegible pencilled note to a drawing of a cow, which indicates it was drawn from life by L. D. van (den?) ... at Twickel estate near Delden (Overijzel): "deze koe is geteekend door L D v d ...|van[?] een leevend exemplaar ... het|Buitengoed het Wikkel ... Delden." In 1831 this estate came by marriage into the possession of the family Van Heeckeren, and Willem Johan Anne Isodore van Bylandt (1808-1884), later Count of Bylandt, married a Van Heeckeren in 1848. Van Bylandt was born in Munich, and the album shows a mixture of (mostly) Dutch and German fragments. It also includes an uncancelled 7 Kreuzer postage stamp of the Deutsche Reichs-Post, the second-highest valued stamp in their first series, introduced on 1 January 1872 and in use through 1874 (Michel, Briefmarken-Katalog, no. 26). Another possible clue to the compilor is a tiny oval fragment drawn in black ink with the initials "JS" and two joined hearts, surrounded by foliage and flowers and the inscription "unit - pour|toujour." Although the album shows a wide variety of items, the emphasis is on natural history (flowers, birds, insects, animals) and people (including costumes). Some of the engravings date from the eighteenth century. Each volume contains 24 leaves of thick cardboard, covered on both sides with Dutch laid paper (watermarkend: "D & C Blauw" = horn on a crowned shield above "D & C Blauw," in the general style of the earlier Voorn, Noord-Holland 181, or "Blauw & Blauw" = horn on a crowned shield above "B & B") and attached by paper hinges to stubs. The fragments are pasted on both sides of these leaves.
With three leaves detached and one small fragment torn loose from its page, but still in good condition. Binding rubbed. A nineteenth-century Dutch scrap album including excellent watercolour drawings of birds and flowers.
