JUSTIN CROFT Antiquarian Books exhibiting at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair 2016 booth A33 Justin Croft Antiquarian Books Ltd, ABA, ILAB, 7 West Street, Faversham, Kent, ME137JE, UK,
[email protected] +44 1795 591111 mobile: +44 7725 845275 ECLIPSE OF THE SUN KING 1. [ALLARD, Carel]. Koninglyke Almanach: beginnende, met den aanvang der oorlogh, van anno 1701... waer in... de loop der zon der ongeregtigheid... door XVIII zinnebeelden in koopere plaaten vertoond word...; Almanach Royal. Commencement avec la guerre de l’an 1701. ‘Paris: Imprimerie Royale’, [but Amsterdam, c. 1706]. $4500 Small folio (319 × 200 mm), engraved title (in Dutch and French) and 18 plates (of which 12 are double page) with engraved or letterpress text, plus 6 additional plates loosely inserted, the called-for plates neatly mounted on guards in early (probably eighteenth-century) marbled wrappers. Former collector’s neat numbering to lower forecorners. Spine defective, a few plates slightly creased or dusty at margins. But overall very crisp and clean. FIRST EDITION of this collection of violently satirical plates directed against Louis XIV, Madame de Maintenon and Philip V of Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession, several linking their fortunes to solar eclipse of 1706. The plates are mostly by Carel Allard (1648-1709) and were etched and published separately as broadsides more or less simultaneously with the depicted contemporary events; and published as a collection c. 1706. Several of the plates have been attributed to Romeyn de Hooghe, though not securely. Both the broadsides and the collection are rare, held by only a few institutions.