BURG, Hermanus van den.
Verzámeling van uitgekórene zin-spreuken, en zinnebeeldige print-vercieringen, eertyds, op bevel van den aller doorlugtigsten Keizer der Russen, Peter Alexis, of de Gróte, getékent en gesnéden ...
Haarlem, Johannes Marshoorn, 1743. 4to. With engraved frontispiece, with Tsar Peter the Great's medallion portrait surrounded by 8 emblems, and 840 emblems on 140 engraved plates, the facing pages to the left with captions in Dutch, short proverbial phrases in Latin, French and German, and two-line verses in Dutch by Van den Burg. Contemporary half calf. [8], 281, [1 blank], [10] pp.
€ 7,850
First and only edition of Van den Burg's revised edition of the first Russian emblem book. The original emblem book was published in the Netherlands in 1705 as Symbola et Emblemata, with captions in Russian, German, Dutch, etc. It was published as part of a deal by Tsar Peter the Great granting the Dutch merchant Jan Tesing the right to print books in Holland for sale in Russia. The emblems were copied from Daniel de la Feuille's Devises et emblems anciennes et modernes and Devises et emblems d'amour, themselves based on the classic emblem books by Camerarius, Heinsius, Saavedra, Cats and Vaenius. The first genuinely Russian edition was published in 1788. This edition by the Dutch poet Hermanus van den Burg (1682-1752), uses the original plates and replaces most of the captions, including the Russian, by new two-line verses in Dutch.
Binding heavily rubbed. With a stain and a few small clean tears in the inner margins of 7 leaves, otherwise internally in very good condition. Landwehr, Emblem Books Low Countries 92 (cf. 786); Praz, p. 292 (cf. pp. 509-510); STCN (8 copies); cf. Hippisley, The First Russian Emblem Book.
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