Highly important work on shipbuilding showing all facets fo this trade, with 208 beautifully contemporary hand coloured plates. It is also one of the first extensive flag books. The treatise was one of the most used sea manuals at the time, but today is very rare, especially in such fine contemporary colouring. Although there are very few copies of it left as is (we have only been able to trace three other copies in sales records and five in libraries), most of them lack the third volume. The present copy, however, is complete.
Niewe Hollandse scheeps-bouw is an essential primary source for the terminology and practice of shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age. It details everything one would need to know about ships, shipbuilding, rigging and maritime flags. The first plate gives a very detailed image of a three-masted ship (including the parts under water) and its rigging, with more than 150 elements keyed with letters or numbers to the list on pages 4 to 8. The second volume contains multiple double-page plates with cross sections of various parts of a ship, as well as plates depicting the tools of the trade, which helps one understand the ship-building process. It also contains a short section on compasses and navigation. The majority of the plates, however, show maritime flags. In fact, both the second and third volume were added because the first was missing a number of flags. The section of flags, spread out across all three volumes, is very extensive. It includes the flags of numerous cities and countries across the world, as well as signal flags.
Carel or Carolus Allard (1648-1709) was a Dutch publisher and engraver. He is primarily known for his maps and atlases. He not only published the present work, but also wrote it and most likely engraved all the plates. The first and second volume of the work were first published in 1695. The present copy is the second edition, extended with the supplementary third volume published in 1705. The work was later also translated into Russian (1708) and French (1719).
The title-page is slightly browned and has been reinforced along the upper margin, the title-page and first leaf have both been reattached with a strip of paper in the inner margin, plate 29 of volume 1 has been restored in the lower outer corner, without affecting the image. Overall in excellent condition. Cat. NHSM, p.744; Hoogendoorn, Bibliography of the exact sciences in the Low countries, ALL01.1.2; STCN 400395371 (5 copies); WorldCat 456775227, 740253674 (4 copies).