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The architectural features and sculpture showing the Amsterdam City Hall in full glory. With the magnificent engraving of the 1661 mosaic floor map of the world in 2 hemispheres, incorporating Tasman's discoveries not otherwise published for decades

[CAMPEN, Jacob van, Hubert QUELLINUS and Jacob VENNEKOOL].
Bouw schilder en beeldhouwkonst, van het stadhuis te Amsteldam, vertoont in CIX figuuren: ...
Amsterdam, Johannes Covens, Cornelis Mortier and Johannes Covens junior, [ca. 1758?, ca. 1767? or possibly 1772/83]. Large folio (49.5 x 30 cm). With the title-page printed in red and black with J. Covens & C. Mortiers engraved device by Bernard Picart ("JCCM" cypher monogram in a laurel wreath carried by 6 putti, dated 1730); 2 preliminary plates containing portraits of Jacob van Campen [by Lutma] and Arthus Quellinus by Henricus Quellinus; CIX (109) numbered engraved and etched architectural plates. All plates have French captions, some with laudatory verses below, and are described in Dutch in the letterpress text (pp. 3-15). Contemporary half red roan (sheepskin), brown sprinkled paper sides. 15 pp.
€ 5,500
A comprehensive collection of plates showing all architectural features and sculpture of the Amsterdam City Hall, since 1808 the Royal Palace, here in the Covens & Mortier firm's rare ca. 1780 issue with the engravings newly printed from the original copper plates from the years 1655 to 1664 and the text reissued from Leonardus Schenk's 1747 Dutch language edition, the whole with a new title-page. ''This version has not been seen'' (BAL). At least most of the plates were engraved for and first published in Jacob van Campen's masterpiece Afbeelding van 't stadt huys van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Frederick de Wit, 1664), Hubert Quiellinus's Prima [et secunda] pars praecipuarum ... curiae Amstelrodamenis (Amsterdam, Frederick de Wit 1655-1663) and Afbeelding van 't stadt huys van Amsterdam in dartigh coopere plaaten ... geteeckent door Jacob Vennekool (Amsterdam, Dancker Danckerts, 1661).
It includes the famous plate showing the extraordinary cartographic mosaic floor of the Burgerzaal of the Amsterdam City Hall, designed by Jacob van Campen, with a celestial map in the centre and the magnificent map of the world in 2 hemispheres on either side. The engraving was first published in 1661, and the map shows Tasman's recent discoveries in Australia and Tasmania, and depicts California as an island. Many discoveries from his second voyage remained otherwise unpublished until the end of the 17th century. The drawing of the floor was made by Jacob Vennekool who worked closely with Van Campen, and since his drawings were first 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.
Binding a little worn, untrimmed, otherwise in good condition. The Amsterdam city hall in full glory with all its architectural features and sculpture. BAL 132 note (description of 1719 French language ed. but citing Berlin Kat. & Kuyper for unseen "1730" Dutch ed.); Berlin Kat. 2236; Kuyper, Dutch Classicist architecture (Delft, 1980), pp. 212- 215 and note 25 (p. 318); STCN (3 copies); cf. for dating the impressum: Van Egmond, Covens & Mortier (2005), pp. 66, 83-88.
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