CATS, Jacob (1577-1660). Alle de Wercken, Amsterdam, 1712, 2 volumes, folio, plates and c.400 engraved emblematic illustrations, contemporary calf. (2) Please see the full description below.

CATS, Jacob (1577-1660).  Alle de Wercken ... Ridder Oudt Raadtpensionaris van Hollandt. &c. De laatste Druk; waar on het Twee-en-Tachtig Jaarig Leeven des Dichters beneffens desselfs Slaapeloose Nachten, met Printverbeeldingen sijn verrijkt: nooit voor deesen soo gedrukt. Amsterdam: "By Nicolaas ten Hoorne, Weduwe van Gesybert de Groot ... [and others]", 1712. 2 volumes, folio (395 x 245mm). Half title in the first volume (only), 2 engraved frontispieces incorporating a central portrait of the author, 2 letterpress titles printed in red and black with engraved devices, with a further engraved portrait of the author, 2 engraved portraits of Anna Maria van Schurman, 6 engraved plates in the second volume, 3 of which double-page, and c.400 engraved emblematic illustrations in the text, most after Adrian van de Venne, initials and ornaments, printed mostly in double column (several leaves torn or with pieces torn away from margins, including a few with slight loss of text, but not affecting illustrations, the second vol. lacking all before the portrait of the author [i.e. blanks and/or endpapers], this portrait with marginal repairs, some plates and leaves lightly browned, some mainly marginal staining and spotting, sometimes quite heavy, a few darker spots and ink stains). Contemporary calf rebacked and recornered preserving old spine in 8 compartments decorated in gilt, one compartment with an old red morocco lettering-piece (the spine heavily rubbed, some scratching and flaking to the covers). Provenance: illegible old, possibly 19th-century, signature on the front pastedown of the second volume. A "collected works" of Jacob Cats was first published in 1655. The present set would appear to be a variant issue of those sold in the book sale held in these rooms on 16 July of this year (lot 324), a set which was also dated Amsterdam 1712 but had 6 different printers named in the imprint. The plates in the present edition are full of unsettling and macabre detail; the emblematic illustrations, true to form, are often just plain weird. cf. J. Bos & J. A. Gruys Cats Catalogus 6 (citing the edition of 1700); not in Brunet, Landwehr or Praz. (2)