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View full screen - View 1 of Lot 204. Henry Holland | Herωologia Anglica, [Arnhem, 1620], nineteenth-century russia gilt.

From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft

Henry Holland | Herωologia Anglica, [Arnhem, 1620], nineteenth-century russia gilt

Lot Closed

December 12, 01:22 PM GMT

Estimate

1,500 - 2,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft


Henry Holland


Herωologia Anglica: hoc est clarissimorum et doctissimorum aliqout [sic] Anglorum qui floruerunt ab anno Christi M.D. usque ad presentem annum M.D.C.XX. Vivae effigies, Vitae et Elogia, duobus tomis. [Utrecht]: Crispijn van de Passe and Jan Jansson of Arnhem, for Henry Holland, 1620


FIRST EDITION, 2 parts in one volume, folio (300 x 188mm.), engraved title (incorporating a map of England and a view of London), woodcut initials and tailpieces, slip containing additional printed text pasted to foot of O5v ("a sanguinolento Papista interfectus", referring to John Bale), 65 engraved portraits and 2 engraved monuments (most printed in the text, 3 printed as plates, including the tomb of Elizabeth I which has been cut to plate mark and mounted), nineteenth-century russia tooled in gilt and blind, gilt edges, inner dentelles, lacking two leaves "post prefatio", title-page remargined, a few repaired marginal tears, substantial tear to L2 affecting portrait of Robert Cecil, extremities slightly rubbed, joints repaired


The bookseller and printer Henry Holland (1583-c. 1650) made his name with two books of historical portraits, including Herωologia Anglica. This work consists of portraits and biographies of Tudor and Jacobean monarchs, noblemen, ecclesiastics and courtiers (including Thomas Cromwell and Francis Drake). A "Protestant pantheon" (Roy Strong), Holland's work also depicts religious reformers and martyrs, beginning with Henry VIII and ending with Thomas Holland, one of the translators of the King James Bible.


LITERATURE:

Hind, Engraving, II, 145-162 ("The most trustworthy series of English portraits published up to that time"); Lowndes II, 1089; ESTC S119103; STC 13582; STCN 05357429X


PROVENANCE:

Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, sale, 19 December 1898, lot 500, bought by William Carr, bookplates on upper pastedown, extract from sale catalogue and receipt of purchase from Sotheby's on lower pastedown, with a manuscript note, probably in Carr's hand, "In this copy, the number of the engravings is complete & the impressions are unusually good. It is said to have been the Sunderland Library copy" (though the Sunderland copy was bound in vellum)

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