[DCRM-L] Advice re late edition of engravings

[Noble, Richard]

I am faced with rather a rather badly cataloged volume containing Jan van
der Straet's series of engravings *Venationes* and *Vermis sericus*. They
are bound together, and were printed at the same time in the same manner:
chine-collé, the thinner paper rather grey, the mounting paper thick laid
stock. The *Vermis sericus* plates are in their final state, with the name
of the publisher, Philippe Galle, crudely scratched out in all six plates.

Given the method, these have to be 19th, or *perhaps* late 18th-century
strikes (though the plates have held up reasonably well). They're in an
early 20th-century binding,  but dirt on the first page indicates that this
was a re-binding, done by B.H. Blackwell, as dealers or for the purchaser
of our volume (in 1929, for $80...).

There is no one record in OCLC for these publications that corresponds to
this description, though some refer to "mounted" prints, which could
indicate in some cases an ignorant description of chine-collé. But apart
from that, is there any point in worrying about this being an "issue" or
"edition" worthy of its own record? Even if not technically so, there are
so many dups at this point that it hardly matters, and at least I have a
shot at describing then with some degree of precision.

(I do note that the Folger has cataloged its copy of *Vermis sericus* with
a note "Printed on wove paper", a clear hint that these plates met paper a
couple of centuries after they were engraved. DFo hasn't gone further than
that in distinguishing their copy from others, which one could hardly do
anyway based on records alone.)

I presume that, since these are monographs with title pages, they have to
be treated as books, with additional apparatus to account for their graphic
qualities.

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
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