AMSTERDAM

Letter: 1p., 8vo. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. 34 lines of text. A playful (stoned?) communication. He thanks him for 'giving me the Sahara right up to the North African Coast', and explains his plans for making the area 'fertile by piping into it water from the Mediterranean'. He asks him to forward 'photocopies of this letter' to Alec Natas ('a very powerful electrician'), and to Linda Talbot. There are also references to 'Marion', Ivan Katzen, 'Lord Levy' and 'the Imperial Dentist, Sol Philips'.

The seven engravings are on 8vo leaves extracted from the volume. All roughly 12 x 15cm, in text. All in good condition, on lightly aged paper. They comprise: 'OUDE NIEUWE-BRUG' (p.625), 'KOLVENIERS DOELEN' (p.665), 'STADS WAPEN | ofte Artellery-Huysen.' (p.668), 'OUDE STADTS HERBERGH' (p.673), 'NIEUWE STADTS HERBERGH' (p.675), 'SCHEEPS-KRANEN' (p.711), 'GESCHUDT en KLOKGIETERY' (p.721)

Most of de Lairesse's plates were, as the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings notes, 'originally published by Nicolaes Visscher, who published a collected edition under the title "Opus Elegantissimum" in c.1675. The BM holds an album bound in vellum containing the Gerard Valck edition of 'Opus Elegantissimum', a selection of numbered etchings by Lairesse and 13 unnumbered etchings and mezzotints by other printmakers (Valck, van den Berghe and Blooteling) after Lairesse'.

8vo, 3 pp. Bifolium on laid paper. Fair, aged and lightly-creased. 'Composed in Lexicon, designed by Bram de Does in 1992. 250 copies printed by Offsetdrukkerij Jan de Jong, Amsterdam. | Presented to the members of The Wynknyn de Worde Society on the occasion of the International Luncheon Meeting 21 September 1995.' The facsimile of the letter, by 'Jan', dated 'Heemstede 12 March 1947', is on both sides of the first leaf. Biograpical printed text by Dreyfus on recto of second leaf, the verso of which is blank.

Paper dimensions roughly ten and a half inches by eleven and a half; print dimensions eight and a half inches by ten and a half. Aged and with three inch strip, roughly half an inch wide, torn away from surface of print in top left-hand corner. Depicts a crowded and rather grand hall, containing a long horseshoe-shaped table around which are crowded connoisseurs of both sexes contemplating engravings and illustrated books or engaged in discussion. Arti et Amicitiae is an Amsterdam society of artists and art lovers, founded in 1839.