Eschatologie

1593 · ST20495 — Amsterdam: Robert Robbertsz Le Canu 1593. FIRST EDITION. 192 x 140 mm. 7 1/2 x 5 1/2". 48 leaves fo. H2 and M4 blank. <br/> Contemporary stiff vellum smooth spine ink lettering on spine. WITH 15 HAND-COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS with eight woodcuts four in-text four full-page and SEVEN ENGRAVED FOLDING PLATES. Front pastedown with engraved bookplate of Vincent van Gogh cousin of the artist. USTC 423175. Vellum a little soiled occasional faint dampstains to head edge of text block leaves not as fresh as they once were insignificant fraying to edges of a folding plates and a few leaves one folding plate with two-inch tear to one corner not touching image two folding plates with short tears along central fold other trivial defects but still an excellent copy the text clean the coloring still rich and the binding solid.<br/> <br/> This is an intriguing and attractive piece of Dutch religious history stuffed full of engraved folding charts and calculations determining the moment the world will end; it also has a curious provenance as indicated by the charming engraved bookplate belonging to the cousin of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. Our author Robbert Robbertsz le Canu 1563-1630 was a Mennonite schoolmaster in Amsterdam whose scholarly output ranged from astronomy and maritime science to poetry and theology. In this work he uses the Jewish holidays and major biblical figures to build out a chronology of the world from Adam to Christ to the apocalypse with numerous charts illustrating the passage of time. Seven of these charts which vary in size and scale are illustrated with anonymous but attractively executed engravings of biblical events and have been hand-colored. This eschatological work is very rare: OCLC finds no institutional copies outside Europe and we could trace just two copies at auction in 1974 and 2001. The Friedlander copy in the latter year brought $6463 at Christie's-New York that copy is described as having eight folding tables while the 1974 copy had seven as does ours and as does the copy in the National Library of the Netherlands. Our copy is from the library of Vincent Van Gogh 1866-1911 the cousin of the painter by the same name. An art dealer and bookseller by trade he inherited his bookshop and gallery from his father Cornelis van Gogh 1824-1908 the brother of the artist's father. The two Vincents spent much time in the gallery growing up with the artist making numerous references to "Uncle Cor" in his letters noting the enjoyment he took in looking at the artworks and illustrated books in his uncle's shop; it is entirely possible that those books included the present volume. The bookplate itself contains a story of the artistic circles in which the Van Gogh family existed: it was executed by Marius Bauer 1867-1904 who etched four separate bookplates for our Vincent Van Gogh. The two apparently met when Bauer was drawing cartoons for Van Gogh's father's periodical "Kroniek"; Cornelis described Bauer as having "een goed oog voor de zotheid der dingen" "a good eye for the ridiculousness of things". That eye is evident in this amusing bookplate which depicts the bookseller as a haggard caricature hunched over his book with a magnifying glass an embodiment of how many a bookseller has felt on a bad day. Robert Robbertsz Le Canu] unknown