Collection d'Imitations de Dessins d'après les Principaux Maîtres Hollandais et Flamands, Commencée par Ploos van Amstel, Continuée et Portée au Nombre de Cent Morceaux ... par C. Josi
Ploos Van Amstel, C. & Josi, C
Amsterdam / London etc. 1821–1828
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Ploos van Amstel's rare and mysterious engravings, from the edition limited to 100 sets published by subscription.
The art dealer, engraver, publisher and connoisseur, Jacob Cornelius Ploos van Amstel (1726 - 1798), developed a highly-accomplished and secret technique for the reproduction of artists' work, a technique that has never been equalled. The controversial methodology, confined to his workshop and known plausibly only to himself in its entirety, was lost at his death.
Ploos had developed the technique as early as 1770 when he issued a series of 46 plates. The plates created such interest that Ploos was required to demonstrate his technique - printing a plate after Ostade - in public at Haarlem. Ploos was granted a privilege stating that 'his figures were neither engraved, nor etched, nor hammered on copper, but were produced by means of ground varnishes, powders and liquids; that he did not colour his prints by hand, but printed them entirely, not with water-colours, but with oil-colours'.
After Ploos' death in 1798, his relative and apprentice Christian Josi proposed the publication of Ploos' work from the collection he inherited. Established as a print dealer in Soho by 1821, Josi was able to begin publication of the current work in parts.
'One of the most important collections of engravings ever published … Apart from the fact that it is one of the most important productions in the history of illustration that has ever appeared, mention must be made of the unusually interesting preface, packed with anecdotes of eighteenth-century collecting and collectors, with examples of current values and fashions, that combine to give it a unique appeal.’ (Abbey).
[Abbey Life 211; Brunet IV, 726; see Martin Hardie, English Coloured Books, pp. 57 - 61].
The art dealer, engraver, publisher and connoisseur, Jacob Cornelius Ploos van Amstel (1726 - 1798), developed a highly-accomplished and secret technique for the reproduction of artists' work, a technique that has never been equalled. The controversial methodology, confined to his workshop and known plausibly only to himself in its entirety, was lost at his death.
Ploos had developed the technique as early as 1770 when he issued a series of 46 plates. The plates created such interest that Ploos was required to demonstrate his technique - printing a plate after Ostade - in public at Haarlem. Ploos was granted a privilege stating that 'his figures were neither engraved, nor etched, nor hammered on copper, but were produced by means of ground varnishes, powders and liquids; that he did not colour his prints by hand, but printed them entirely, not with water-colours, but with oil-colours'.
After Ploos' death in 1798, his relative and apprentice Christian Josi proposed the publication of Ploos' work from the collection he inherited. Established as a print dealer in Soho by 1821, Josi was able to begin publication of the current work in parts.
'One of the most important collections of engravings ever published … Apart from the fact that it is one of the most important productions in the history of illustration that has ever appeared, mention must be made of the unusually interesting preface, packed with anecdotes of eighteenth-century collecting and collectors, with examples of current values and fashions, that combine to give it a unique appeal.’ (Abbey).
[Abbey Life 211; Brunet IV, 726; see Martin Hardie, English Coloured Books, pp. 57 - 61].
2 vols. Folio. pp. (6), xxxiv, 54. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Ploos van Amstel, and 49 facsimile plates (tipped onto 47 mounts); pp. (82) and 56 facsimile plates (tipped onto 55 mounts). Each plate with manuscript attribution in pencil. Contemporary full brown calf by T. Armstrong with his discreet oval label to front pastedown, boards with elaborate decorative tooling in gilt and blind, turn-ins with decorative gilt tooled border, banded spines with black morocco title labels and gilt tooling in five compartments gilt, rebacked, greenish glazed endpapers, a.e.g.
#20353
