VAN MANDER Karel Het Schilder Boeck waerin Voor eerst de Leerlustige-Jeught den gront den Edele Vrye Schilderkonst in verscheyden deelen wort voor-gedragen

Second and definite edition he first theoretical book on Dutch painting, drawing and printmaking.

Het Schilder-Boeck (The Book of Painters), originally published in 1604 in a slightly different version, was written by the Flemish Mannerist painter and writer Karel van Mander (1548-1606). In publishing this book, the ‘Vasari of the Netherlands’ – who had actually met the Italian historian in Florence in 1571 – wished to highlight the excellence and originality of painters from the northern European schools, somewhat overshadowed by the success of Giorgio Vasari’s Vite, which gave pride of place to Italian painters. The fourth part – the most important section of the book – devoted to Flemish and Dutch painters, is divided into two parts: artists who died before 1604 (almost 96 biographies, 71 chapters, ff. 121-181) and those who were active at the same date (more than 40 biographies, 23 chapters, ff. 182-213). A few painters and writers – Ciriaco de’ Pizzicoli, Facio, Giovanni Santi, Rogier, Ghiberti, Vasari, Lampronius, Lambert Lombard and above all Lodovico Guicciardini – had partially explored the field of Northern painters before the publication of Van Mander’s volume, but it was with this “fundamental work” (see Schlosser) that the real, systematic and detailed historiography of the painters of the Northern schools was born.

“L’importance de Van Mander est d’avoir été le premier qui ait vraiment imité et donné vie dans le Nord au modèle italien, connu depuis longtemps dans le domaine historique ; il est en même temps le premier exemple de l’influence croissante de Vasari en Europe. Ce Flamand est un représentant typique de ce “maniérisme” hollandais des romanistes dont la particularité, semblable à celle de leurs contemporains italiens. Pour lui, tout salut vient de l’Antiquité et de l’Italie ; il montre en termes fort clairs que le voyage à Rome est indispensable – exigence qui est restée en vigueur depuis lors – et son propre exemple renforce sa déclaration.

Pour ce petit-fils du gothique, le Moyen Âge à complètement disparu, il est totalement oublié, alors qu’il était resté à moitié vivant pour les Italiens, tout au moins à l’âge héroïque de leur XIVe siècle. Toutefois, Van Mander n’est rien moins qu’adorateur servile de la doctrine et de la forme italiennes ; il conserve son originalité nordique et flamande, comme en général ces “romanistes” dont la juste appréciation nous a été clairement donnée par notre Heidrich, trop tôt disparu… Tout aussi caractéristique de ce Flamand de naissance, l’énergie qu’il déploie en face du dogme florentino-romain du disegno, devant lequel certes il s’incline avec respect, pour insister sur la couleur vénitienne en tant que partie essentielle de la peinture – c’était sans doute une opinion qui lui tenait à cœur” (see Schlosser).

An exceptional copy, enriched with the complete suite of 71 engravings by Hondius.

It consists of the engraved allegorical title –Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipue Germaniae Inferioris Effigies-  printed in The Hague, followed by an allegorical plate dedicated ‘Ad Philosographum’ and two typographical leaves, the first of which bears a printed dedication to Jeroen Cock; the next consists of a sonnet in Latin to the glory of lovers of paintings. This is followed by 68 portraits of Dutch and German painters; the suite ends with a plate illustrating a memento mori. The engravings of the portraits are accompanied by sonnets in Neo-Latin. Most of the engravings are folded and bear annotations of the period on the life of the painters in Dutch on the verso.

These notes are summaries of the lives of the painters based on Van Mander’s 1604 text. Some painters have no notes and correspond to those who are absent from the first version of the book. Thus, an amateur collected the portraits with the aim of inserting them in an edition of Van Mander, following the example of the illustrated editions of Vasari. This seems to be the fate of several copies:

“[…] We know that the copies of the second edition of Het schilder boeck were provided with portraits printed after the effigies Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris by Lampsonius in 1572, according to the wishes of the owners. Hendrik Hondius’s reprint of this series in 1618 was entitled Theatrum honoris. It may have been printed for consultation at the same time as Van Mander’s ‘Dutch Lives’. The Rijksmuseum also has a copy of Het schilder boeck from 1618, which is accompanied by copper engravings of Hondius’s portraits of the painter. ‘(Koot, Geert-Jan, ‘Selectie aanwinsten november 2020’,The Art of Information, 2020.)

In this regard, our copy follows a pioneering trend, since it was not until 1764 that an edition of the text was accompanied by portraits. 

Among the portraits are those of van Eyck, Momper, Albrecht Dürer, Jean Strada, Lucas van Leyden, Hieronymus Bosch, Johannes Holbein, Cornelius Visscher, Pierre Brueghel, Hubert Goltzius, Martin Voss, Vredeman de Vries, Paul Brill, Jacob de Gheyn and Abraham Bloemart, to name but a few. This important suite of engraved portraits is part of a project of the Courtauld Institute in London lead by Joanna Woodall and Stephanie Porras.

“The format of the Effigies, a series of artists’ portraits accompanied by Latin poems, is a distinctively Netherlandish form of ‘art literature’, forming an alternative to the biographies and academic art theory that were emerging in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century” (Courtauld Institute, Picturing the Flemish Canon).

A very fine, well-preserved copy.