HEEMSKERK, Jan van.
Minne-kunst. Minne-baet. Minne-dichten. Mengel-dichten.
Amsterdam, Hessel Gerritsz, 1626-1627. 4 parts in 1 volume. Oblong small 8vo. With 4 separate titles, and 20 fine engraved plates, including frontispiece, by Pieter Serwouters.Modern vellum. [8], 446, [2] pp.
€ 9,500
Second edition, enlarged in text and illustrations, of one of the most attractive and rare Dutch songbooks of the early seventeenth century, not only because of the beautiful illustrations, fine printing, and oblong format, but also because of the charm and elegance of its poetry, which consists mainly of erotic love poems. It presents the example par excellence of the fine books intended to instruct and amuse the Dutch "jeunesse dorée". The book, containing the youth-poetry of Johan van Heemskerck (1597-1656), is divided into four parts.
The first contains a poetic adaptation of Ovid's Ars Amatoria, beautifully illustrated with 12 plates, including the frontispiece with the motto "sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus", by one of the gifted artists of the Golden Age of Dutch book illustration, Pieter Serwouters (1586-1657).
The second part, which is newly added to this second edition, is an adaptation of Ovid's Remedia Amoris, and is finely illustrated with 6 new plates by Serwouters.
The third part forms a collection of love songs inspired by the Canzonieri of Bembo, the Amours of Ronsard, the love poems of Ovid and Horace, but also contains much original work, and includes a long laudatory poem to the nymph Cloris, with a beautiful portrait by Serwouters.
The fourth part contains miscellaneous poetry, including love songs to the "nymphs" of Leyden, and a farewell song to the city of Leyden, where the author had studied, and where, within a circle of young student poets and artists, the typical Dutch genre of erotic poetry combined with intricate emblems of love was born.
With the bookplate of G.S. Overdiep on front pastedown. A fine copy. Cat. Muziekhist. Museum Scheurleer II, p. 72; Cat. Oudere Werken Ned. Lett., U.B., Amst., 307; Hollstein XXVI; Sale Cat. J.L. Beijers, Jan. 1959 (Coll. Versnel), 321; Sale Cat. Nijhoff, Oct. 1900 Coll. J.L. Beijers, 2132: "Hoogst zeldzaam"; Scheepers I, 286: "Hoogst zeldzaam"; Scheurleer, Liedboeken, 148; Serwouters 55.
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