Hollande

Oblong quarto. Pp. 22 (text). Plus 50 plates printed in various techniques, some in colour, each preceded by a leaf of captions and explanations, with interleaving tissue guards. With 34 text illustrations. Pictorial title-page printed in colour. Hardcover, bound in the original illustrated cloth, gilt. In fine internal condition. Overall an excellent copy, with all plates in exceptionally fine state of preservation. ~ Major General F. J. van Lier's copy, with his entry and signature to front flyleaf. Noteworthy is the technique in which the fine plates in this book are produced. The monochromatic plates are printed in collotype, one of the most accurate and attractive methods of photomechanical tonal printing processes. Highly skilled and expensive process, it cannot produce more than a limited number of impressions. It has been used for single-sheet prints and luxury portfolios, and since the 1950s has been abandoned by all except a few small specialist firms. The colour plates are not chromolithographs as it is sometimes erratically assumed. At the end of the 19th century the term "chromotypograph", implying colour printed from raised metal, as type is, was used for colour prints which made use of metal relief blocks. It is indeed the process used in this book; the colour plates were printed from etched metal blocks, a relief method rather than planographic. [Descriptive text Copyright Librarium, The Hague]