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VORSTERMAN BIBLE COMPLETE WITH FOLDING MAP & CA. 250 WOODCUTS
[BIBLE - DUTCH - VORSTERMAN]. Den Bibel. Tgeheele Oude ende Nieuvve Testame[n]t met grooter naersticheyt na den Latijnsche[n] text gecorrigeert. ... Met schoone figueren ghedruct, ende naerstelijck weder oversien. Item oock een schoone zeer profitelijcke tafel, ... Cum gratia et privilegio.
[colophon:] Antwerp, Willem Vorsterman, 1542. 2 parts in 1 volume. Folio (32 x 20 cm). With 2 title-pages, the first in red and black and each with a border of illustrative woodcuts; 1 folding woodcut map of the Holy Land after Lucas CRANACH (27 x 39 cm); a three-page calendar in red and black; about 250 woodcut illustrations in the text, 1 nearly full-page and 1 by Lucas VAN LEYDEN; the woodcut arms of the Holy Roman Empire with the Antwerp arms at the end; and hundreds of decorated woodcut initial letters and ornaments. Parchment with gold-tooled spine, ca. 1700.
| Orders and Information | € 12500 |
Rare complete copy of the 1542 edition of Vorsterman’s famous Dutch Bible, first published in 1528 and banned in 1546, richly illustrated with hundreds of splendid woodcuts. One of the first Bibles in the Dutch language, aimed at both a Catholic and a Protestant market. Complete copies are extremely rare, Hollander locating only 2 complete, 12 incomplete and 4 for which he has no details. Some of the woodcuts in the New Testament are printed from the same blocks as in Vorsterman’s first edition of 1528, including Lucas van Leyden’s St Peter (New Hollstein, Lucas van Leyden 216), while others in the New Testament first appeared in Vorsterman editions of 1529 and 1530. Those of the Old Testament were cut by Merten de Keyser for his French Bible of 1530 and acquired by Vorstermans before 1534, and De Keyser’s printer’s mark, with initials MK, appears in one woodcut on the title-page. The full-page woodcut shows the six days of creation, from a single woodblock with decorative borders around and between the scenes. Vorsterman’s Bible is also famous for its image of the “horned” Moses, which continued to appear in art for more than a century after the mistranslation that led to it was corrected. The Book of Psalms, with a drop title and a large illustration, begins a new series of page numbers.
The first complete Dutch Bible, printed by Jacob van Liesvelt, appeared in 1526. Based on Martin Luther’s German translation, it was popular with the Protestants but despised by the Catholic authorities. When Vorsterman brought out the second Dutch Bible in 1528, he went to great efforts to protect himself with the appearance of propriety, obtaining a privilege from the city of Antwerp (and from 1534 also a privilege from the Holy Roman Emperor), consent from the inquisitor, and claiming that the text had been corrected on the basis of the esteemed Complutensian Polyglot. For the most part, however, the text follows Liesvelt’s. Vorsterman’s Bible was a great success, and he published further editions in 1531, 1532 and 1534. The present fifth edition was the first of four that differ only in the dates in the colophons.
With several objects or figures in the woodcuts on the title-page highlighted in red, and with dated owners’ inscriptions of 1713, 1714 and 1715 on the flyleaves, one including detailed information and the price. Title-page detached and some leaves reinforced in the fold, some tears repaired in the folding woodcut map, some stains, a few marginal chips and tears, and one large hole and a few tiny worm holes in the gutter margin, not affecting the text. An important Bible, beautifully and extensively illustrated, rarely found complete.
