Author: PASSE, Crispijn de (the younger).
Title: Les abus du mariage | Misbruick des houwelycx | Misbrauch des ehlichen Standes.[Amsterdam], 1641. Small oblong 4to (15 x 19 cm). With engraved frontispiece, an etched plate, and 25 engravings in text (ca. 9.5 x 14 cm), each of the engravings showing 2 oval portraits of men and women, who sinned against the rules of marriage. The etching shows a cart drawn by two goats, a satyr as driver, and on the cart a joyful party of three women and two men. Modern half vellum.
Description: [45] ll.Extremely rare issue, including the text in German, of the first and only edition of a print series warning against the failures of marriage, showing 50 portraits of (adulterous) chambermaids, madams and pimps, merchants, steersmen, hostesses, priests, tailors, astronomers, philosophers etc., the whole divided into French & Dutch women and Spanish & Italian women. The plates are accompanied by trilingual farcical poems and followed by a farcical poem on adultery in Dutch, with accompanying etching. The series was published simultaneously in two issues, the less rare one with letterpress texts in French, Dutch and English (with the English title: The mistake off Matrimonij[!]), and the present with the English replaced by the German text, apparently during the press run. The watermark is vaguely like Heawood 135, 138 and 139, but at least sometimes with a single bend and with 3(?) initials below, difficult to read, possibly script “M J E”.The book is related in its design to De Passe's successful Miroir des courtisannes (1631) and Les vrais pourtraits de quelques unes des plus grandes dames de la chrestiente desguisees en bergeres (1640). With bookplate. One quire (F) includes the English instead of the German text. Some thumbing throughout, some faint water stains and a few occasional smudges, otherwise in good condition.l Brunet I, p. 22 (“rares et fort recherchés”, issue unclear); Franken 1372 (English issue); Hollstein XVI, p. 145, no. 188 (English issue); STCN (7 copies of the English issue, incl. 3 incomplete); not in VD17.

Keywords: [04F65CFF5112] ART & ARCHITECTURE|[6369B77AC038] LITERATURE & LINGUISTICS|[6369B77AC038] LITERATURE & LINGUISTICS -> [CB9F1A8B7F5C] Dutch Literature|