Home / Browse / Illustrated / Serie delle diverse specie di Bastimenti da Guerra e Mercantili che navigano nel Mediteraneo colle diverse posizioni di Vele e Manovre che sogliono farsi in Navigazione.
(SHIPPING)
Serie delle diverse specie di Bastimenti da Guerra e Mercantili che navigano nel Mediteraneo colle diverse posizioni di Vele e Manovre che sogliono farsi in Navigazione.
[together with two other groups of plates of shipping]
An extremely attractive collection of uncommon eighteenth-century engraved shipping prints. The first series is recorded in one copy only, with later colour, in the National Library of Scotland, and consists of an engraved title page, eight plates each with four broadside views of types of craft typically encountered in the Mediterranean, together with a single plate of an English 80-gun two decker "imbandierata", i.e. decked with flags. Lively images with good attention to masting and rigging, and a sense of accurate observation. Bound amongst these are four very finely engraved plates of single craft: Snow Inglese nel Sud di Plymouth; Nave Mercantile Danese; Nave Mercantile Suedese; and Brigantino Inglese - captioned in Italian and French, the work of Antonio Suntach after G. Tagliagambe. Suntach was a high quality reproductive engraver, who worked in Paris and Vienna and is best known for his stipple engravings from the works of such artists as Kauffman and Morland. Here, he is working fluently and cleanly in line from the work, "d'après nature", of an Italian artist, known only for these few images, but evidently a capable observer of maritime life. Suntach is also the engraver of the four port scenes (Nieuwe Veer; Maaslandsluis; Brill; and Helvoetsluys) by Dirk de Jong which conclude the volume.
Landscape folio (first series of plates 275 × 397 mm, the second 255 × 357 mm). Late nineteenth-century black crushed morocco, panel to the upper board with elaborate corner-pieces built up from various arabesque tools, centred on a small ship device, lower board with panel of foliate and quatrefoil tools. Engraved title page and 9 plates, two further groups of four plates, one of single ships, the other of harbour views. A little rubbed, particularly at the corners, plates with light browning and some, largely marginal, spotting, very good.
