Basnage, Jacques; illust. Romeyn de Hooghe

Le grand tableau de l'univers, ou l'Histoirie des Evenements de l'Eglise, depuis la Creation du Monde jusqu'à l'Apocalypse de S. Jean. Representée par des Tailles douces. Expliqués par des Remarques Historiques, Theologiques & Morales. Avec les Annales de l'Eglise & du Monde. depuis la Creation jusqu'à la Mort des Apotres, & un Abregé de la geographie sacrée. Par Mr. Basnage, Pasteur de la Haye. Huitiéme [sic] Edition

THE TOLLEMACHE–MAMOURIS COPY 
WITH A FINELY-COLORED TITLE PAGE 

 

Amsterdam: Jaques Lindenberg, 1714.

Folio in 4s (14 ½” x 9”, 370mm x 230mm): 2 binder’s blanks: π-2π¹ 3π² (3π2 backed) *-******² *7¹ *8¹ A-C⁴ D-E² F-R⁴ S² T-Z⁴ Aa² χ¹ ₂*-****² ₂*****¹ ₂A-G⁴ ₂H² ₃A-N², binder’s blank [$3 signed; –C1, V3, ₂E3; D2 signed “D3”, E2 signed E3, Y2 mis-signed “Y3”]. 172 leaves, pp. [36] (dedication, subscribers, half-title, explication of the engraved title, title, eighth edition advertisement, privilege, blank, 24pp. preface, 3pp. index, explication of creation), pp. 1-22 24-27 30-177, [20] (New Testament (“Suite du grand tableau…”) fly-title, explication of the engraved title, 18pp. preface), ₂1-62, ₃1-52. With 88 engraved plates: 2 portrait frontispieces (Trip and Basnage), 2 engraved titles (Old Testament, which is hand-colored and heightened gilt, and New Testament), 5 double-page maps (with letterpress verso), 1 double-page view (of the Temple) and 78 single-page plates, most with two half-page plates, of which 4 (p. 1, p. 9, p. 176 and p. ₂61) are integral with the text; plus many engraved plates (most half-page, some vignettes; the head-piece and vignette of 2π1^v (the verso of the half-title) both hand-colored and heightend gilt) throughout the text.

Bound in contemporary red-and-black mottled calf in a “standard Basnage binding”[1] front-and-back viz. a gilt central vignette with an allegorical scene: three “tongues of fire” within a triangle emanating beams of light (Pentecost) above Christ at left (holding the cross) and Moses at right (holding the tablets) perched atop an armillary sphere supported by two angels with the motto “LIBERA NOS A MALO” wrapping around it; below, an angel at right offering the keys to a recumbent man chained wrist-and-ankle to rocks and roped at the neck by a winged demon holding a pair of spears; the whole flanked left-and-aright by floral scrollwork. The central vignette is set within a panel made of two gilt scrollwork rolls and four gilt corner-ornaments at the inner panel’s corners. On the spine, six raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. Paste-paper paste-downs. All edges of the text-block mottled black.

Rubbed at the extremities with bumps to the upper fore-corners. Boards just starting at the head. Internally very good indeed, with good margins and many preserved lower deckle-edges. Double-page view of the Temple evenly tanned. The odd spot of foxing and some small closed tears. Richly-colored title-page (and verso of the half-title, as usual) and the dedication-subscriber leaf inserted. The plate opposite p. 175 given the quire-signature “BB” in ink manuscript.


The 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, the most elaborately-illustrated incunable, took a form of historical writing from the medieval period and applied the benefits of the printing press and its ability to integrate text and image. Chronicles, in contrast to narrative history, prioritize the order of events over other considerations such as causality or comparison. Indeed, the final section of the present volume is a chronicle — “Annales” referring to a year-by-year (annual) accounting — reflecting the work done in the late XVIIc to pin down biblical events to exact years, a highly-scientific endeavor whose leading exponent was Archbishop Ussher (the 1650 Annales).

Jacques Basnage (1653–1723) was born in Rouen and emigrated to Rotterdam — and, by 1709, The Hague —after the rescission of the Edict of Nantes, being a Calvinist. In 1690 he published a history of the Reformed Churches and then of the Netherlands more generally and even of Jewish antiquities (continuing the work of Josephus). In 1704 he took Henricus Vos’s 1703 Alle de voornaamste historien des Ouden en Nieuwen Testaments, which had been illustrated by Romeyn de Hooghe (1645–1708), keeping the illustrations, and supplementing (in places supplanting) Vos’s text with his own historical account of the Bible as well as analysis of de Hooghe’s engravings (Brunet notes that the present edition “contient d’autres gravures que le précédent” viz. the 1704 edition; the designation of this edition as the “huitiéme” is unexplained). Unlike the Nuremberg Chronicle, in which woodcut images were compatible with letterpress text and so could be run through the press together, the Grand tableau (and its predecessors) had to be run through the press twice: once for the engravings and then again for the text. It belongs to the lineage of biblical exegesis, chronicles and perhaps most aptly emblem books — although it is unusually sophisticated for this latter.

The elaborate binding — especially the allegorical central device — is associated with other examples of this work that have come to the market: several examples of the present edition as well as of the 1715 Dutch edition (‘t Groot waerelds tafereel). It is perhaps to be derived from the 139^th figure (p. ₂61), which contains many of the same elements: the three pentecostal flames, the armillary sphere, the angel bearing keys (albeit wielding them against a chained dragon). It is ultimately an allegory of revealed wisdom banishing wicked ignorance.

Purchased at the Christie’s New York sale of the library of Dr. and Mrs. Constantin Mamouris (19 October 2023, lot 150). Dr. and Mrs. Mamouris assembled a large collection of fine and decorative bindings in their New York home. The lot notes include the provenance of the Tollemache family (pron. TOL-mash; from their sale, Sotheby’s London 14 June 1965, lot 47: £160), more specifically the library of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. The Barony was created in 1876 and part of their library was sold by the father of the present (5^th) Baron, John Edward Hamilton Tollemache. The purchaser at that sale was Marlborough Rare Books, which still trades. The volume was again offered for sale in 1981 (Christie’s New York 20 November 1981, lot 312: $1,200).

Brunet I.691; Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe as Book Illustrator 100.

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[1] A locution built on analogy to “the standard Civitates binding” that was used on many contemporary examples of Braun and Hogenberg’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1570–).

Item #JLR0563

Price: $12,000