Amenissimae aliquot regiunculae… [Set frontispiece]/Frontispice van boek met 26 landschapsetsen.

Beschrijving

Frontispiece to a set of 26 etchings with various landscapes. Plates were reworked over time. An old city gate at the center with two figures walking towards the opening; ’the city walls have crumbled to the point that the portal seems superfluous, merely signifying a liminal boundary to the landscape beyond’. The title, on the top of the gate, reads: ‘AMENISSIMAE ALIQUOT REGIUNCULAE, A / I. VELDIO DELINEATAE, ET A NICOLAO IO: / HANNIS PISCATORE IN LUCEM AEDITAE.’ ‘The text/image juxtaposition may be intended as a play on the words “amoenus” (pleasant) and “estra moenia” (outside the walls) or “a/ab moenia” (from the walls), where one finds such pleasant places.’ [quotations from Robert Fucci, ‘Arcadia Unbound: Early Dutch landscape prints and the Amenissimae aliquot reginculae of 1616 by Jan van de Velde II’, in Art in Print, vol 4, nr. 5 (2015), p. 4]. Signed at bottom: ‘CJVisscher excudebat’; on the top of the door: ‘Eerste Deel’. From the collection of Giuseppe Storck (1766-1836) [L.2318]: ‘G. Storck a Milano 1798. / In St.o 4572. No. 12 (16 crossed over) s2’.