Proef van Letteren, welke gegooten worden in de Nieuwe Haerlemsche Lettergietery van J. Enschedé

THE MOST IMPORTANT TYPE SPECIMEN PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 18^TH CENTURY

Large 8vo (212x127 mm). Ornamental frontispiece engraved by A. van der Laan after Taco Hajo Helgersma, title page with engraved vignette by A. van der Laan, engraved portrait of Johann Enschedé by C. van Noorde, 2 engravings of the statues of Lourens Janszoon Coster and Adrianus Junius, [32] pp. of introduction, engraved portrait of Johann Michael Fleischmann by C. van Noorde dated 1769, [74] leaves of specimens printed on recto only (includign the often missing ‘Canon Hebreeuwsch'), engraving of another statue of Coster by A. van der Laan after Jelgersma, [4] leaves of supplement with additional specimens printed on recto only (Oude Hollandse letteren zynkde eerstellingen der Boek-Drukkonst), 8 pp. (Lyst der Pryzen), engraved folding view by C. van Noorde of the interior of Enschedé's typefoundry workshop, dated 1768. The preface is printed in Fleischmann's cursive script. Title page and each page within a woodcut border. 19^th-century half morocco, richly gilt spine, marbled pastedowns. On the front pastedown bookplate Andrzeja Awiuszewskiego, on the front flyleaf verso bookplate W. Kutkiewicz printed in red, and on the frontispiece later ownership entry. A very good copy.

First edition of this beautiful type specimen sample book showcasing the designs of the type founder Johann Martin Fleischmann. Fleischmann worked for the Enschedé type foundry from 1743 onwards and created antique typefaces and Gothic letters. The former were of great importance in the development of printed typefaces, particularly the ‘Enschedé typeface' he designed, which strongly influenced the development of printing types in England.

“This is a very interesting and fine specimen-book of all the characters then in the Enschedé foundry. It contains finely-engraved copperplate portraits of the printer J. Enschedé; Junius, the propagator of the Koster legend; another of the celebrated type-cutter, Fleischman; and one of Koster, all being by C. van Noorde. It also gives the view of the two statues of Koster and Junius which Enschedé placed in his own garden, and which still remain there. At the end is a large view of the principal room of the foundry. The titles of the founts are given in Dutch, French, English, and German” (Bigmore & Wyman).

The book includes specimens of music types, capital letters, exotic fonts (Greek, Arabian, Hebrew and Armenian), typographical ornaments and black-letter types of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. J.M. Fleischmann died just before the publication of the book, and his work and merits are described at length in the foreword by J. Enschedé.

“Fleischman, a German, was employed by the Enschedes in the eighteenth century to cut types for their foundry, and his signature is found beneath many fonts shown in their specimen-books. In his hands their output was somewhat changed, though not much bettered. His types are singularly devoid of style, and usually show a drift toward the thinner, weaker typography which was coming in Holland as everywhere else. But Fleischman's work was much the fashion in the eighteenth century, and it made such excellent fonts as Van Dyck's appear hopelessly obsolete. In 1810, when Didot type was the mode, Van Dyck's matrices and types were, without much thought, thrown into the meltingpot -a “gesture” no doubt regretted by later members of the Enschedé family. Various books and broadside specimens of types and ornaments were published by the Enschedés. One of the earliest books was the Epreuve des Caractècres, qui se fondent dans la Nouvelle Fonderie de Lettres d'Isaac et Jean Enschedé à Haarlem. Augmentée & perfectionée jusquà lìAn 1744. The preface alludes to the abilities of Rudolph Wetstein as a printer and type-founder, and mentions that the Enschedés bought his foundry in 1743; Wetstein having died the year before. The Greek types are mentioned with special pride; and the deep cutting of counters, and the solid way in which the types are constructed to escape wear, are emphasized. The roman and italic types shown are all old style. In 1768, the Enschedés published an elaborate specimen called Proef van Letteren, welke gegooten worden in de Nieuwe Haerlemsche Lettergietery van J. Enschedé, prefaced by a portrait of Enschedé and other engravings. An introduction, dated Haarlem, 1768, and signed by J. Enschedé, is printed in a very ugly cursive script letter -a fearful decline from the splendid cursive fonts in use a hundred and fifty years earlier. This is followed by a portrait of J.M. Fleischman, their type-cutter. Then begins a series of types -capital letters in roman and italic of a very Dutch and ugly cut, a series of shaded capital letters, and a great variety of faces of roman and italic types, in some of which the size of the body of lower-case letters is unduly large in proportion to the capitals. Many of the types that we come upon which look more “modern” (some of them being as we should now say “condensed”) were cut by Fleischman -whose name appears beneath them. He uniformly extracted all interest from his fonts, partly through lightening the cut, which gave monotony of colour, and partly by his large, round lower-case letters, made more rolling in effect by shortening the descenders in a very modern way. The smaller types are extremely dull in colour, though here and here we find fonts with a good deal of movement, cut by Van Dyck. Fleischmann's black-letter is tortured and fanciful, and does not stand comparison with Van Dyck's simpler and finer black-letter, still less with early Flemish gothic fonts. Fleischmann's music, both in round notes and square, is also shown. The caractère de finance, an unattractive script, was cut by Rosart. Beyond these fadedlooking characters comes a page of fine old civilité. There is an interesting collection of Greek fonts, and the assortment of ligatured characters which supplement them should be examined. There are Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, and other exotic types by various hands, and the specimen closes with ornaments which are mostly flat renderings of current English and French designs. Every page in the book is surrounded by type borders, many of them ingeniously contrived […] Two pages of splendid old Dutch black-letter fonts and a folding view of the Enschede foundry at Haarlem close a representative eighteenth century Dutch specimen” (Updike).

Bound with: Verzeichnis der werthvollen Bibliothek des Königl. Hof-Kalligraphen u. akad. Künstlers Ernst Schütze. Manuscripte, Schreibebücher, Ornamentwerke, zu verkaufen durch J.A. Stargardt. Berlin, 1861. Pp. [4], 54, [2]. Enchedé's work is listed here under no. 567.

Kelly, 27; LGB II, 469 (Enschedé) and 610 (Fleischmann); Bigmore & Wyman, I, p. 202; Updike, II, pp. 37-39; Lane & Lommen, Letterproeven van Nederlandse gieterijen/Dutch typefounder's specimens, pp. 10, 69, 104, and 235; Berlin Kat., 5372.

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