Album of Drawings (103) Preparatory for the Engraved Illustrations of Quinti Horatii Flacci Emblemata, Antwerp, 1607

Variously inscribed by previous owners on opening leaves of the album. On the first leaf, in a nineteenth-century hand, in graphite, "Emblems by Otho Vaenius/ Original Drawings". On another leaf is a notation of the life of Van Veen in a relatively modern hand, in brown ink, probably copied from a nineteenth-century source. It begins: "At Rome was a disciple of Federigo Zucchero and acquired a delicate manner of pencilling, an agreeable style of colouring and a complete knowledge of chiaroscuro..." Below this (with the exception of the title which is written at the top of the page) is the following notation by Fairfax Murray in black ink: "Horatii Emblemata/ 103 drawings, the last a duplicate of a design./ The first ed. of the book would appear to be that printed at Antwerp by Verdusson in 1607. It has 103 plates but two of those figured are not here pp. 157 & 167, a[nd] there is one drawing in this colln. ["n" in superscript above period] not engraved./ It was printed many times. Brunet cites eds. of 1612, 1683, 1684, a[nd] 1777 under the title 'Theatre moral de la vie humaine' 1672 a[nd] 1678 also a Spanish Theatro moral etc. 1669, 1672 'Doctrine des Moeurs' 1646./ Brunet cites this last as having the same plates as the 'Emblemata' but they are reengraved, the originals being reversed a[nd] the copies like drawings."