Bible

1750 · ABC_46048 — The Hague 1750. 128mo or possibly 96mo in 4s 4.5 x 3 x 1 cm. Anthoni de Groot and sons Contemporary gold-tooled calf sewn on 2 cords each board with a frame of single fillets with a rozette as centrepiece and a smaller stamp inside each corner each of the 3 spine compartments with 3 concentric circles and a triple fillet above and below altogether 13 impressions of 3 stamps gilt edges. Title page in red and black with a woodcut vignette an open book on a shell with decorations 7 full-page 3.3 x 1.6 cm! woodcuts depicting important scenes from the Bible 1 as frontispiece and 1 opening each of the 5 “books” and the appendix each “book” and the appendix with a headpiece built up from typographic ornaments followed by a drop-title in red and ending with a typographic ornament in red as a tailpiece. Set in roman type with incidental italic. 80 pp. First and only Dutch edition deluxe issue with the title page and 12 other pages printed in red and black of De Groot’s “thumb Bible” one of the curious miniature books printed in the Netherlands in the mid-18th century in a tiny roman type 37 mm/20 lines or 5.5 point as a curiosity and collector’s item or to be used as a Bible in a dollhouse. The text is an abstract or summary of the contents of the Bible in five books and an appendix containing a prayer incipit: The illustrations and ornamental headpieces all in miniature and in the present deluxe issue also the printing in red and black make the book a show piece for the skill of 18th-century Dutch printing enhanced here by the contemporary gold-tooled miniature binding. Abkouda records De Groot offering this edition in five kinds of bindings and unbound at prices ranging from 4 to 30 stuivers so he probably commissioned bindings from several binders. The present copy is probably what he calls a “Frans bandje” 9 stuivers. We have not identified the bindery of the present copy but its three stamps are: a rozette 14 mm an ornament with a base like a flower bud and a row of 6 dots decreasing in size extending from it 12 x 4 mm and 3 concentric circles 4 mm.The backstrip is damaged with the calf split at the front hinge but the front board is still secured by the sewing supports and the head and foot chipped but otherwise in good condition with the tooling on the spine still clear and the boards in good condition with only a couple tiny scuff marks and a small faint water stain and internally good.l Abkouda Naamregister app. 2 1750 p. 85; Adomeit Thumb bibles C15 “32mo”; Poortman Bijbel en prentI p. 248 & II p. 281 “32mo”; STCN 7 copies; Storm van Leeuwen Opmerkelijke boekbanden 93 this ed. in a different binding; Storm van Leeuwen Dutch decorated bookbinding II pp. 76-77 & III items 557-560 on p. 541 “64mo”; this ed. in a different binding; cf. ; Welsh Bibliogr. of miniature books 998; cf. Louis W. Bondy Miniature books 1981 p. 37 De Groot’s 1750 French ed.; not in Darlow & Moule; for Anthoni de Groot: Joop W. Koopmans Early modern media and the news in Europe 2018 chapter 7; John A. Lane Early type specimens in the Plantin-Moretus Museum 2004 pp. 134-135. ABE CAT Bibles Sermons & Psalmbooks hardcover