Bloemaert, Abraham
Gorinchem 1564 – 1651 Utrecht

Artis Apelleae, liber hic, studiosa juventus, Aptata ingenio fert rudimenta tuo: [centred:] Prima Pars. Hoc duce carpe viam, membratim tota figura Discitur, his gradibus scandere ad alta dabit.

[Amsterdam], ‘Nicolaus Visscher excudit, Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et Westfrisiae’, [after 1682]

oblong folio (285 × 350 mm), 160 ff., a series of engravings numbered 1–160 (versoes blank), organised in eight equal parts of twenty prints with divisional title-prints in Dutch and Latin.

contents part 1 (print 1) title transcribed above, with additional lettering Abrahamus Bloemaert inventor. | fredericus Bloemaert filius fecit, a pure engraving supplemented by two chiaroscuro tone blocks cut in wood and printed in light and dark ochre (darker tone block 304 × 225 mm); print 20 a pure engraving supplemented by one chiaroscuro tone block printed in light ochre (tone block 190 × 151 mm), the other prints line engravings. Part 2 (print 21) lettered Het Tweede Deel | Abrahamus Bloemaert inventor | fre: Bloemaert fecit | Nicolaus Visscher excudit. Cum Privilego Ord. Hollandiae. Part 3 (print 41) lettered Het Deerde Deel | Abrahamus Bloemaert inven: | fre: Bloemaert fecit | Nicolaus Visscher excudit. Part 4 (print 61) lettered Het Vierde Deel. | Quarta pars. | Abrahamus Bloemaert | inventor. | fre: Bloemaert sculp: | N: Visscher excudit. | Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et Westfrisiae. Part 5 (print 81) lettered Quinta pars. | Het Vyfde deel. | Abrahamus Bloemaert | inventor. | fre: Bloemaert filius sc: | N: Nischer exc: | Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et Westfrisiae. Part 6 (print 101) lettered Sexta pars. | Het Seste Deel. | Abraham Bloemaert inven: | fre: Bloemaert sc. N: Visscher exc. | Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et Westfrisiae. Part 7 (print 121) Pars Septima | Het Sevende Deel. | Abrahamus Bloemaert Inventor. | Fredericus Bloemaert fecit | Nicolaus Visscher excudit | [above:] Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et Westfrisiae. Part 8 (print 141) Pars Octava. Het Achtste Deel | Nicolaus Visscher Excudit, Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et Westfrisiiae | [above:] Abrahamus Bloemaert inventor. | Fred. Bloemaert sculpsit.

In addition to the numerals 1–160, some prints have additional designations: print 20: F ; 21: *1 ; 40: G ; 59: *c ; 60: D ; 74: B ; 75: E ; 76: H ; 80: * b ; 91: * f ; 93: ** b ; 95: ** g ; 96: ** f ; 105: * g ; 106: * e ; 110: * d ; 113: * h ; 115: ** e ; 122: * 2 ; 123: * 3 ; 124: * 4 ; 125: * 5 ; 136: ** m ; 138: * k ; 140: C ; 141: ** a ; 142: ** 4 ; 145: ** h ; 146: ** d ; 148: ** 2 ; 149: * l ; 150: ** 5 ; 153: Verscheyde Dieren | Seer Naturlijk Afgebeeld | door Abraham Bloemaart de Vader | en gesneden door Frederic Bloemaart de Soon | Uÿtgegeven bÿ Nicolaus Visscher met Privilegie | ** 1 ; 156: ** 3 ; 158: * 6 ; 160: ** y .

paper the principal watermark is a crowned es­cutcheon (height 50 mm) charged with a Strasbourg Lily (observed in plates 1, 21, 23–24, 27–29, 31, 34, 36–40, 81–100); also: arms of London (quartered shield, height 60 mm), countermark dp (plates 2–19, 101–120, 141–160);¹ crowned escutcheon (height 75 mm) charged with a Strasbourg Lily (plate 20); crowned escutcheon (height 68 mm) charged with a Strasbourg Lily, countermark cursive aj (plates 22, 25–26, 32–33, 35);² crowned escutcheon (height 65 mm) charged with a Strasbourg Lily, beneath initials dp (plate 30); arms of London (with sword promi­nent in first quarter­ing, height 55 mm), countermark iv (plates 41–80, 121–140).³

provenance French booktrade (clipping from an uniden­tified catalogue, circa 1920, item 37) — Pierre Bères, his sale by Pierre Bergé & Associés, ‘Pierre Berès: 80 ans de passion. 5ème Vente. Fonds de la librairie Pierre Berès. Des incu­nables à nos jours, 3ème partie’, Paris, 13 December 2006, lot 511.

An exceptionally well-preserved copy, with these minor defects: light creases in the sheets at begin­ning and end of the volume, very occasional dust-soiling or staining along top edges, some prints lightly spotted with ink while still at the press (nos. 42, 53, 58, 65, 72, 75, 77, 79, 122, 130).

binding contemporary Dutch vellum over paper boards; covers decorated in blind with a blind panel, floral ornament at each corner, and centre-piece.

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An early issue of Abraham Bloemaert’s widely disseminated model book for student draughtsmen, presenting figure compositions and studies of the parts of the body, and a dozen similar examples of domesticated animals. ‘In almost every large col­lection of old master drawings, there are drawn copies – by ama­teurs as well as starting professional art­ists, but mostly anonymous – after single leaves or parts of Bloemaert’s influential Teken­boek’.⁴

The work was conceived jointly by Abraham and his son Frederick (circa 1616–1690), in the late 1640s, in an attempt to exploit the large stock (more than 1600 sheets have sur­vived) of Abraham’s drawings. A group of drawings, including some connected to paint­ings dating from the 1620s and 1630s, was assembled, and for the purpose of sty­listic unity recopied by Abraham in a uniform technique, apparently within a brief period of time (four draw­ings are dated 1648 and one 1650).⁵ Frederick then set about engraving these drawings (mostly in reverse), numbering the matrices con­secutively, and publishing them in instal­ments from about 1650.

Instead of a systematic course of instruction, such as his friend Crispijn van de Passe had presented in La prima parte della luce del dipingere (and two fur­ther instalments, Amsterdam 1643–1644), in which similar plates are combined with a didactic text, Abraham Bloemaert offers a loosely-organised collection of visual models with no theo­retical ex­position in the form of a text. In the first three of its eight parts, a sequence is followed: studies of heads, hands, and limbs of the body, progressing to entire figures, and finishing with a print (or prints) of reli­gious figures. The remaining five books have no apparent organisation, except that the nudes and animals are grouped together, and it may be the publication commenced without a definite plan established from the start.

By 1656 or 1658, Frederick had completed and published six instalments of twenty plates, each instalment preceded by a title-print in Dutch and Latin with legend fre: Bloemaert fecit et excudit (or similar).⁶ He subsequently engraved two more fasci­cules, enlarging the drawing book to eight instal­ments (160 plates). About a dozen of these forty new plates are further studies of heads, hands, and legs; eight plates are nudes; and the rest are putti, figure compositions, and all the animals.⁷ Since no impres­sions bearing Frederick’s excudit are known, it is assumed he never published the new prints himself. The impetus to enlarge the work seems rather to have originated with the publisher Nicolaus ii Visscher (1649–1702).

Visscher had taken over the family business from his father Nicolaus i in 1679 and he con­tinued to operate it until his death in 1702. In March and September 1682, he was granted privileges by the States of Holland and West-Friesland to publish maps and prints. Before that date, he issued an ‘interim edition’ of the Bloemaert drawing book, replacing Frederick’s et excudit with his own name on the 120 original matrices, and adding a sev­enth fascicule of twenty newly-engraved prints.⁸ In 1682 Visscher brought out the so-called ‘second edition’, containing 160 prints organised in eight fascicules, and now protected by a privilege.⁹

The title of the Prima pars (plate no. 1), showing a student draughtsman, is a combined engraving and chiaroscuro woodcut: the copper matrice prints the line, one woodblock superimposes the half-tone (sparing the lights), and another woodblock the shadows. In the first edition, six other engravings had been similarly printed, with either one or two chiaro­scuro tone blocks cut in wood (plate nos. 20, 40, 60, 74, 75, 76). For Visscher’s second edition, an additional en­graving was given this special treatment (plate no. 140), and at some point the eight copper matrices to be printed with tone blocks were lettered A–H.¹⁰ In our copy, however, only the title and plate 20 (‘Kneel­ing Saint in prayer’) have tone back­grounds added. The copy in the National Gal­lery of Art is identical in this respect;¹¹ we presume both copies represent a later issue of the prints after the deterioration or loss of most of the wood blocks. We have yet to trace a copy of Visscher’s edition in which all eight possible chiaroscuro plates are pre­sent (see provi­sional census below).

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In 1722, the matrices passed into the possession of Louis Renard, who reorganised and renumbered them, and published them as Artis Apellae thesaurus at Amsterdam in 1723 in association with Bernard Picart — and refused thereafter to have any reprints made.¹² The matrices eventually were acquired from Renard by Reinier and Josua Ottens, and published in 1740 as Oorspronkelyk en vermaard konstryk teken­boek. What began as a collection of teaching models for students became, in the editions pub­lished by Reinier and Josua Ottens, nearly a century later, a costly work aimed at collectors, among whom there was strong, ongoing interest in Abraham Bloemaert.

While copies of the Ottens editions quickly found secure homes in libraries, the earlier editions – like most books of instruction – seem to have been thumbed out of existence. All that can be located of Frederick Bloemaert’s first edition are a fragment of one hun­dred prints (five fascicules) in Paris,¹³ and five complete copies (six fascicules, 120 plates), in London,¹⁴ Los Angeles,¹⁵ New York,¹⁶ Oxford,¹⁷ and Rotterdam.¹⁸

Visscher’s second edition is also rare, and complete copies with all 160 prints in good state of preserva­tion, like the present one, are almost unknown. Of the copies of Visscher’s edi­tion located in public collections,¹⁹ only the one in the National Gallery of Art like ours contains all 160 prints

● Amsterdam, Universiteit van Amsterdam, OF 80–16. Incomplete: lacks plate 1, according to ‘Short Title Catalogue Netherlands’ database.

● Chicago, University of Chicago, f ND653.B6B61. Incomplete: lacks plates 47, 92 (supplied in photocopy from Metropolitan Museum of Art copy of the first edi­tion); without part 8 (plates 141–160). Seven chiaro­scuro prints are present in this set (plates 1, 20, 40, 60, 74, 75, 76; plate 140 is an engraving only). In a modern cloth binding.

● Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 740.7 B65a. Incomplete: lacks plate 40 (supplied in photocopy from University of Chicago copy cited above). Seven chiaro­scuro prints are present in this set (plates 1, 20, 40, 60, 74, 75, 76; plate 140 is an engraving only). In a modern cloth binding (exlibris of Algernon Capell, Earl of Essex, dated 1701, on verso of title-page).

● Princeton, Princeton University Library, Oversize ND653.B6A2q. Incomplete: ‘ t.p. and possibly some plates missing’ and ‘some plates mounted, apparently from a different ed.’, according to library Online Public Access Catalogue. Seven chiaro­scuro prints are present in this set (plates 1, 20, 40, 60, 74, 75, 76; plate 140 is an engraving only).²⁰

● Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, 1972.30.1. Apparently complete: 160 engravings, 26.9 × 28.6 cm, (according to Gallery website). Two chiaroscuro prints are present in this set (plates 1, 20). In a contemporary plain vellum binding.²¹

● Williamstown, Clark Art Institute, ND653.B53.5a 1650. Incomplete: lacks plate 153, according to library Online Public Access Catalogue. Three chiaroscuro prints are present in this set (plates 1, 20, 60). Formerly in the library of Julius Held.²²

No modern reprint of any edition exists.

further references Charles Le Blanc, Manuel de l'amateur d'estampes (Paris 1854), i, p.380; F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch & Flemish etchings engravings and woodcuts ca. 1450–1700 (Amsterdam 1950), ii, p. 86, nos. 36–155 (as 120 plates, none reproduced; fragments in the J. Wünsch and von Nostiz-Rieneck sales are cited)