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Scene showing the execution of conspirators in the attempted assassination of Prince Maurits

HONDIUS, Hendrick (I).
[Tweede basuyne. en t boosdoens heylige wraeck-spiegel ...].
[Netherlands, Hendrick Hondius (I), 1623]. Broadside (51 x 26.5 cm). Two separate leaves, one with the engraving (plate size 14 x 17.5 cm) and the other with letterpress verses (37 x 26.5 cm), originally assembled to form a single broadside. The leaf with the engraving lacking the letterpress heading with the title and the letterpress psalm in 2 columns that flanked the engraving. Mounted on a paper support. With a second copy of the text leaf loosely inserted.
€ 650
An engraved view of the first round of executions of conspirators in the attempted assassination of the Dutch stadtholder, Prince Maurits of Orange-Nassau, planned for 7 February 1623. The letterpress leaf originally mounted below the engraving contains a long verse in two columns associating the conspirators with satan and Prince Maurits with god, and below it three shorter verses in three columns in the voices of the Fatherland, the head of state (Maurits) and Justice. Prince Maurits and the Dutch Republics greatest statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, had worked together for twenty years and shared power in spite of differences in their style and views, but in the religious disputes between Protestant groups Oldenbarnevelt supported the moderate Remonstrants and Maurits the strictly Calvinist Counter-Remonstrants, and the strife expanded into a bitter dispute over the power of Church and State.
The broadside nowhere mentions Hendrick Slatius, who had fled but was captured in March and executed on 23 May, so it may have been published before his execution. Oldenbarnevelts younger son Willem escaped to Brussels with two other men. Hendrick Hondiuss Hh monogram, with a note of the privilege for the publication, appears in the blast of wind coming out of the trumpet. Muller notes under his no. 1479 that of the many prints concerning this conspiracy, the two "triumfbazuinen" (1485 and 1486) are the rarest.
With the letterpress title above the engraving in the upper leaf and the text of the psalm on either side cut away, as noted, and a second copy of the leaf with the letterpress poems extra added. Slight foxing at the foot of the text leaf. Tear in the lower left corner of the leaf with the engraving, not affecting the pictorial image. Slight wear along the fold of the text leaf. Otherwise in good condition Muller, Historieplaten 1486 ("very rare"); Orenstein 24.
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