Repraesentatio Belli, ab successionem in Regno Hispanico ... / Der Spanische Successions-Krieg ... &c
Decker, Paul
Augsburg. Jeremias Wolff. c.1715
Sold
Decker’s rare suite of engravings - unsophisticated in a contemporary binding - illustrating the battles of the War of the Spanish Succession.
Decker’s suite depicts the battles of the complex series of engagements that became known as the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714). Prompted by the death of the last of the Spanish Habsburg Kings, the childless Charles II, and with a shifting group of alliances and a field of warfare that included not only Continental Europe and the Mediterranean, but also the Caribbean and North America, the War of the Spanish Succession has a case to be a true world war. In part an attempt to check French hegemony, the war featured a number of outstanding victories for the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, including Blenheim, although the war was ultimately, at best, indecisive.
Each of Decker’s magnificent plates features a single engagement, depicted in the central portion of the plate, the whole image surrounded with a decorative border composed of architectural, allegorical and armorial symbols and motifs in the Baroque manner and a descriptive text concerning the battle. Many of the plates feature an additional small vignette of the battlefield keyed to the descriptive text and illustrating the placement of the armies and the key figures involved.
It is a measure of the importance attached to Decker’s suite that the painter Ignaz Preissler used Decker’s plates as the basis for the decoration of an important tea service and garniture now (at least partly) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York (see ‘Repraesentatio Belli, ob successionem in Regno Hispanico ... A Tea Service and Garniture by the Schwarzlot Decorator Ignaz Preissler’ by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger).
‘Such commemorative series were considered works of art as well as encapsulations of recent events and were highly valued by collectors of the period, who acquired them for their libraries or print cabinets.’ (Maureen Cassidy-Geiger).
Decker’s suite is very rare outside Germany: COPAC lists copies at the British Library and V & A only, while KVK lists copies at the Polish National Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Université de Charles de Gaulle (Lille) in France and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; the only traceable copy in North America is at Brown University.
[PROVENANCE: Hand-coloured armorial bookplate to front pastedown with the text: 'JEHAN DE MAILLY' and 'Sceau de Jean de Mailly / Sr. de Belleville Enseigne de / la Compe de M. de Mailly / Chev. de l'Ordre du Roi, quittance / du 2 Juin 1567'].
[Berlin 103 (incomplete)].
Decker’s suite depicts the battles of the complex series of engagements that became known as the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714). Prompted by the death of the last of the Spanish Habsburg Kings, the childless Charles II, and with a shifting group of alliances and a field of warfare that included not only Continental Europe and the Mediterranean, but also the Caribbean and North America, the War of the Spanish Succession has a case to be a true world war. In part an attempt to check French hegemony, the war featured a number of outstanding victories for the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, including Blenheim, although the war was ultimately, at best, indecisive.
Each of Decker’s magnificent plates features a single engagement, depicted in the central portion of the plate, the whole image surrounded with a decorative border composed of architectural, allegorical and armorial symbols and motifs in the Baroque manner and a descriptive text concerning the battle. Many of the plates feature an additional small vignette of the battlefield keyed to the descriptive text and illustrating the placement of the armies and the key figures involved.
It is a measure of the importance attached to Decker’s suite that the painter Ignaz Preissler used Decker’s plates as the basis for the decoration of an important tea service and garniture now (at least partly) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York (see ‘Repraesentatio Belli, ob successionem in Regno Hispanico ... A Tea Service and Garniture by the Schwarzlot Decorator Ignaz Preissler’ by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger).
‘Such commemorative series were considered works of art as well as encapsulations of recent events and were highly valued by collectors of the period, who acquired them for their libraries or print cabinets.’ (Maureen Cassidy-Geiger).
Decker’s suite is very rare outside Germany: COPAC lists copies at the British Library and V & A only, while KVK lists copies at the Polish National Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Université de Charles de Gaulle (Lille) in France and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; the only traceable copy in North America is at Brown University.
[PROVENANCE: Hand-coloured armorial bookplate to front pastedown with the text: 'JEHAN DE MAILLY' and 'Sceau de Jean de Mailly / Sr. de Belleville Enseigne de / la Compe de M. de Mailly / Chev. de l'Ordre du Roi, quittance / du 2 Juin 1567'].
[Berlin 103 (incomplete)].
Folio. (442 x 296 mm). Engraved allegorical title with Latin and German text and 56 double-page engraved allegorical plates. (Sheet size: 435 x 560 mm). Contemporary reverse calf (worn), banded spine in 7 compartments with remains of gilt decoration, marbled endpapers, red edges.
#40463
