Beschreibung:

Hoogstraten, Samuel van. Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt. Verdeelt in negen Leerwinkels, yder bestiert door eene der Zanggodinnen. Ten hoogsten noodzakelijk, tot onderwijs, voor alle die deeze edele, vrye, en hooge Konst oeffenen, of met yver zoeken te leeren, of anders eenigzins beminnen. Rotterdam: François van Hoogstraeten, 1678
Only edition of a canonical treatise on seventeenth-century Dutch pictorial practices and theory, written to educate students, help teachers, and inform art lovers on what is good in art. The author (1627–1678) had entered Rembrandt’s studio in 1640 only thirteen years old, quickly absorbed his master’s aesthetic and theoretical lessons, training methods, and workshop practices, then in 1648 commenced a life of travel, living and working in Vienna, Rome, and London. The book is illustrated by twenty engravings (including four text illustrations), of which seven are signed “S.v.H.” (Hollstein, IX, p. 142). It was published by the artist and writer’s brother in the year of his death.
The binding on this copy was commissioned by the Teeken Akademie (Drawing Academy) of Middelburg from a local binder for presentation to a student at the annual General Assembly and prize-giving, on 9 May 1781. The practice of rewarding the best students with useful books in commemorative bindings originated in the Latin schools of Germany and Italy after 1550 (see lot 88). It was introduced in Middelburg in the early 1620s and adopted by the Drawing Academy soon after its foundation (1778). The earliest surviving prize-bindings commissioned by the Drawing Academy were awarded on 10 April 1780, a copy of Hoogstraten’s Hooge schoole der schilderkonst, to Jan Roeland Worrell (1763–1821), as primus 1st class in drawing, and a copy of Christian Wolff’s Kort begrip der grond-beginzelen van alle de mathematische weetenschappen (Amsterdam, 1745), to an unknown student (as often, the leaf identifying the recipient and his prize is torn out). These two volumes are now, respectively, in the Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, Middelburg (1086 B30; Storm van Leeuwen no. 939) and the University Library, Amsterdam (1 E 1; Storm van Leeuwen no. 940).
On 9 May 1781, Worrell received another prize, earning a copy of Gerard de Lairesse’s Het groot schilderboek (Amsterdam, 1707), as primus 1st class in sculpture (pleister); this prize-binding is preserved as well in Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, Middelburg (1086 B30; Storm van Leeuwen no. 942). The present volume, distributed at the same ceremony, lacks the leaf with dedicatory inscription; however, the names of two student prizewinners in 1781 are known from other sources: Jan Jacobsen Boluit, primus 1st class in architecture, and Pieter Larnbertus (van den) Eeckhout, primus 1st class in printmaking, and this volume likely belonged to one or the other. In 1782, the Academy distributed yet another copy of Hoogstraten, to an unknown student (see list below).
All five of these prize-bindings are in red goatskin with green onlays, a medallion on upper cover with the Academy’s motto “Vernuft en Vlijt” (Genius and Diligence), and on the lower cover a similar medallion, but lettered with the day, month, and year of presentation. All five are decorated from the same kit of tools, uniformly, apart from variations on the backs. The gilt-lettered signature “J. Dane” placed on the turn-in of a book printed at Middelburg in 1779 revealed the binder’s identity: Jan Dane, registered on 19 June 1755 in the Middelburg guild of printers, binders, and booksellers, and working there until his death on 22 November 1783. A successor bound a volume for the Academy in 1786 in a similar style, and from 1789 to 1806 another workshop was responsible for executing the Academy’s prize bindings (the “Drawing Academy Binder”). Hoogstraten’s venerable book continued to be a favored text, and copies of the 1678 edition were bound for the Academy ‘s prize-givings on 9 May 1782, 12 May 1784, 3 August 1791, 16 May 1798, and 14 May 1806.
Copies of Hoogstraten 1678 Gifted by the Middelburg Drawing Academy
(1) 1780, April 10: manuscript prize dedication, to Jan Roeland Worrell. Middelburg, Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, 1086 B 30.Goud en velijn. Middelburgse boekbanden van de 17e tot de 19de eeuw (Middelburg, 1992), no. L-42; Storm van Leeuwen, p. 589, no. 939.
(2) 1781, May 9: prize dedication removed. The volume offered here.Not recorded by Storm van Leeuwen.
(3) 1782, May 9: prize dedication removed (?). Piasa & Christian Galantaris, Bibliothèque d’un amateur: Précieux livres anciens, Paris, 7 April 2000, lot 194 (FF 34,000). Current location not traced.Storm van Leeuwen, p. 590, no. 943. 
(4) 1784, May 12: prize dedication removed. Hartung & Hartung, Auktion 104: Wertvolle Bücher, Munich, 14-16 May 2002, lot 1662. Current location not traced.Not recorded by Storm van Leeuwen. 
(5) 1791, August 3: prize dedication removed. Washington, DC, Folger Library, ND1130 H6 1678 cage.Not recorded by Storm van Leeuwen.
(6) 1798, May 16: manuscript prize dedication, to Laurens Johannes Aartsen; certified by the Academy’s drawing master, Abraham Meertens (1757–1823). Arthur Vershbow (1922–2012); Christie’s, New York, 20 June 2013, lot 550 ($5,000). Current location not traced.Not recorded by Storm van Leeuwen. 
(7) 1806, May 14: prize dedication removed. New York, Morgan Library & Museum, 76446 (purchased as the gift of Julia P. Wightman, 1980).Storm van Leeuwen, p.593, no. 964.
4to (198 x 150 mm). Roman type, with italic, 40 lines pulus headline, collation: *–**4 (-**4 blank) A–Z4 Aa–Yy4 Zz6 (-Z6 blank): 192 (of 194) leaves (lacking blanks **4, Zz6). Title-page printed in red and black, additional etched allegorical title-page, etched portrait of the author (with verses beneath by the author’s friend, Joachim Oudaan), 9 etched section-titles or section frontispieces, 5 etched anatomical plates (2 folding), four etched text illustrations. 
binding: Middelburg red goatskin (208 x 163 mm), 1781, by Jan Dane, with rectangular green goatskin inlay in the center of each cover, the upper cover lettered in gilt on a roundel “VERNUFT EN VLYT.” and lower cover similarly “ 5M / 17 — 81 / 9D.,” frame produced by a roll with 3 pearls and staves, gilt fleuron at outer angles of an inner frame and gilt fleurons tête-bêche at 4 sides, gilt swags of garlands in central green panel, interior dentelles, spine with 5 bands, compartments with gilt floral pattern, blue paper endpapers, edges gilt and simply gauffered. (Extremities lightly worn.)
provenance: Teeken Akademie, Middelburg (supralibros, a red wax seal over a paper cut-out on pastedown, lettered “Vernuft en Vlyt,” and showing a putto and the attributes of painting, sculpture, and architecture), given to — unidentified owner (sheet identifying the prize details and recipient torn out) — unidentified owner (twentieth-century sale catalogue or bookseller’s description, in French, tipped to endpaper, lot/item 2820) — Pierre Berès, Paris (Pierre Bergé & Jean-Baptiste de Proyart, Paris, Vente Pierre Berès: 80 ans de passion, 17–18 December 2007, lot 145), purchased by — Pierre et Michel Dreyfus, Librairie Valette, Paris (€4844; their Nouvelles Acquisitions, [2008], item 22, €9500). acquisition: Purchased from Pierre et Michel Dreyfus, Librairie Valette, 2008. 
references: STCN 840076398; for this and other Middelburg Drawing Academy gift-bindings, see Storm van Leeuwen, Dutch Decorated Bookbinding in the Eighteenth Century (‘t Goy-Houten 2006), passim.