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The set is sold
1603-1605 / Unrecorded
1st edition of the “Florilegium” by De Passe:
Altera Pars
known from it’s later edition as a
companion volume to the “Hortus Floridus” of Crispijn De Passe Junior
(1593-1670). The “Florilegium” was of ornamental rather then medical use,
representing flowers for their beauty only.
A complete
pre-edition of proof plates from the most famous of all early gardening
books.
In published form the plates had Latin text on the versos, this is a proof set.
The only known complete proof set !
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Attributed to Crispijn De Passe Senior (1564-1637)
This attribution is based on the history of the plate and the estimated date
of publication 1603-1605. Crispijn the younger was too young then (born 1593) to
be involved in the creation of this set. I believe the quality of this work also
points to the head master himself rather then to the workshop.
Some different opinions have been meeting over the past decades and been
described in by Robert Gerard in Print
Quarterly, Vol XIII, no. 4, December 1996, p. 363, ff, and in The Print in
Stuart Britain, Antony Griffiths, The British Museum, 1998, no. 82, p. 134.
Cognocite lilia agri quomodo cresant, non laborant, neque nent : attamen
dici vobis ne Salomonem quidem in universa gloria, sua fic amic tum fuissevt,
vnum et his. Matth :6.cap
A wonderful unique suite of the fashionable flowers of the early Dutch Golden Age.
Complete suite of the 61 plates
showing 119 flowers + 1 title within elaborately worked cartouche,
The flowers are numbered 1 - 119. All except one ( number 53) showing two
flowers on each sheet.
All except one in the exceptional rare and early proof state with the number but
before the text captions and before the text on the backside.
(unrecorded edition from 1603-1605). One sheet (21-22) with the captions and with the Latin text on the backside (that
one edition from 1614).
some twenty plates show besides the flowers also small animals like
butterflies and birds.
Measures ca. 127 x 206 mm on
plate border
Sheet 170 by 270 mm
(10.75 x 7.5 inches, plate mark 8.25 x 5 inches)
See the
tiny scratches and good plate tone. See detail of the watermark of the moon
man.
The detail and freshness of this impression is remarkable.
Prints in superb early impression quality.
____________
'One of the
most valuable books of the family [van de Passe] was the Hortus Floridus of
Crispin van de Passe the Younger,
perhaps the most accurate and artistic, as well as extensive, delineation
of flowers published during the seventeenth century ...'
(Hind. 'Engraving in England.' Vol.II, p.245)
Here referring to the later 1615 edition who contained the plates of Crispin the Elder as well as Crispin
de Younger.
On auction here is a set of the most absolute rarity of the first state,
no other copy is known in this complete early proof state impression.
Price on request