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Four exceptional knife-cut parchment devotional images with exquisite borders incorporating birds, butterflies, insects, snails, flowers and cherubs. They are by a known (though still anonymous) master Antwerp parchment cutter whose work is represented in only a handful of surviving examples. Magnification reveals the extraordinary cutting skills of this artist, which is far more sophisticated than the more familiar cutting by most makers of so-called ‘canivets’. Here the parchment is cut and modelled with almost sculptural techniques to provide bevelled edges to each cut, giving the parchment image almost the characteristics of an ivory cutting or an engraved plaque.
The scholar of paper and parchment cutting, Jan Peter Verhave, identifies these previously unrecorded examples as the work of an Antwerp master responsible for a virtuoso cutting of 1728 in honour the marriage of the mayor-president of Amsterdam, Jan Six II, to Anna Elisabeth van den Bempden and a handful of pieces depicting scenes from the life of Christ (Verhave, ‘Trouw en devotie’ in Knip-Pers, Nederlandse Vereniging voor Papierknipkunst, August, 2022). The work of this cutter has something in common with the recognised master of baroque paper cutting working in the same era, Frederik Hendrik van Voorst (1660-1736).
Nativitas Dommini; Le Scapulaire de la Vierge; Erecto Crucis; [The Circumcision, with painted miniature].
Nativitas Dommini (195 × 158 mm), incorporating the meeting of Mary and her niece Elisabeth
Le Scapulaire de la Vierge (200 × 150 mm) The virgin presents the protective scapular: the visible sign of devotion to the Virgin Mary, symbolizing the desire to live under her protection and to follow her example of humility, obedience, and service to God. The scapular was first granted in 1251 to the British Carmelite monk St. Simon Stock. The female saint is probably St. Theresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun (+ 1582).
Erectio Crucis (188 × 155 mm) after a print by Jacques Callot (1624/5), with corner medallions of the four evangelists.
[The Circumcision] (92 × 65 mm, with central medallion painting 34 × 25 mm).

First edition with the English text of the Preparatoirlyk plan, van een tractaat van commercie (Plan of a Treaty of Commerce) projected between Holland and the United States. Though never concluded it is important as one of the earliest treaty negotiations by the American nation after the Revolution. The plan had been secretly negotiated at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1778 between William Lee, American commissioner to Berlin and Jean de Neufville, an Amsterdam banker professing to act on behalf of the city and was to be concluded when England acknowledged America as a free nation. A detailed treaty it contains thirty four articles outlining terms of trade between the two nations, and the form of passports and certificates for ships. It is subscribed Jean de Neufville and Samuel W. Stockton, the American lawyer, diplomat and public servant who was later to serve as Secretary of State of New Jersey from 1794 to 1795. It is followed by transcriptions (also in Dutch and English) of the associated diplomatic correspondence. An edition of the Dutch text only appeared also in 1780 which Sabin (65110) refers to as the ‘Original edition’, though it is not clear on what basis.
The draft was inadvertently made public in 1780 when the vessel in which the bearer of it, Henry Laurens, South Carolina merchant, planter, and revolutionary leader who served as President of the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1778 was apprehended at sea by the English. The Plan was found among the effects he threw overboard on his capture and Laurens was imprisoned for treason. The treaty was not strictly illegal, but the British Government was able to construe it and other retrieved papers detailing Dutch financial aid to the rebellious American colonies as being equivalent to actual aggression. Although it was neither authorised nor sanctioned by the States-General nor by Congress, it served as a pretext for England’s declaration of war against the Netherlands.
It was handed to the Dutch Estates General by the British Ambassador, General Joseph Yorke, debated and published here as one of the Extracts of the resolutions of the Estates General of the Netherlands. Sabin 63286: ‘Official edition of the Preparatory Plan’ (projected 1778 at Aix-la-Chapelle), with the correspondence relating to it, as it was presented by the Chev. Yorke, as found with the papers of Mr. Laurens, to the Prince of Orange, and sent by the States General to the Provinces. The subscription of the Treaty is changed in all the reproductions — Müller’. Cf. Sabin 65110 for the original Dutch edition (two editions, also 1780).

A movie-enthusiast’s notebooks - filled with striking coloured portraits of male characters in films popular in the Netherlands, including Dutch-language versions of The Thirteenth Chair (1929 film); Madame Sans-gêne (1925 film); Maria Stuart (1927); The Trial of Mary Dugan (1931); Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, Shaw’s How He Lied to Her Husband; Jonson’s Volpone; Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Lear and Macbeth. The anonymous albums are numbered in pencil, suggesting they were part of a larger group.

Second edition (first, 1651) of this history of England up to the death of Charles I. It was translated into English as Florus Anglicus: or An exact history of England, from the raign of William the Conqueror to the death of Charles the I. By Lambert Wood gent (1656).

An attractive polyglot New Testament. Arranged in three columns of miniature type throughout, the French text is the Geneva version, the English text the Authorized version, and the Dutch text the States-General version. The engraved title is followed by the Estates General’s privilege leaf, dated 1683. This copy is from the collection of Quaker mathematician and teacher John Jackson of Warrington (1793-1875) bequeathed to the town of Warrington. British and Foreign Bible Society Library, Historical Catalogue of printed Editions of the Bible, 1450 (Polyglot), 626 (English), 3329 (Dutch), 3768 (French).