BOOKPLATES CHRONOLOGICALLY
The seventeenth century begins--German plates--William Marshall--Lord
Littleton--Huet, Bishop of Avranches.
In 1604 Egidius Sadeler of Munich engraved for Arnold von Reyger a plate
which is both signed and dated. At the top of the plate is the Latin
motto “Ad Deum Refugium,” and in another part of the plate are the
letters “Z. G. M. Z.,” standing for “Zu Gott meine Zuflucht,” the German
version of the Latin motto.
In 1619 Hans Hauer designed and Hans Troschel engraved a characteristic
and very elaborate _ex libris_ for Johann Wilhelm Krep von Krepenstein,
of Nuremberg. Both designer and engraver were natives of Nuremberg, the
former born in 1582, and the latter about six years later.
In about the year 1623 Raphael Sadeler engraved a bookplate in three
sizes for the Electoral Library of the Dukes of Bavaria at Munich. He
also engraved a plate for the Elector Palatine’s libraries in
Heidelberg and in Rome.
Raphael Sadeler and his elder brother Jan, and their nephew Gillis or
Egidius Sadeler, were all skilful with the graver. Raphael was born at
Brussels in 1555, and with his elder brother travelled through Germany,
producing many engravings, and afterwards settling at Venice. Egidius,
the nephew, was born at Antwerp in 1575; taught by his uncles Jan and
Raphael, he lived to far surpass his teachers. After spending some time
in Italy, he was invited to Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II. He died at
Prague in 1629.
In 1640, or a little earlier, William Marshall engraved a bookplate for
Edward, Lord Littleton, born in 1589 at Munston, in Shropshire, his
father being Sir Edward Littleton, Chief Justice of North Wales, and his
mother being a daughter of Edmund Walter, Chief Justice of South Wales.
From Christ Church, Oxford, Littleton, in 1608, entered the Inner
Temple. On his father’s death, in 1621, he became Chief Justice of North
Wales. In 1625 he became member of Parliament for Leominster. He became
counsel to the University of Oxford, Reader to the Inner Temple, and
Recorder of London. In 1634 he was made Solicitor-General. In the
meantime his great learning and high character made him much respected,
and the City Aldermen sent him a courteous gift of two hogsheads of
claret and a pipe of canary. Next, he became Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas, and soon Lord Chancellor. In February, 1641, he was created Lord
Littleton of Munston. Happily for him he died young, as in those stormy
times he was too just a man to be a good party politician. It is
interesting to note that on May 21st, 1644, he was commissioned to raise
a regiment of foot soldiers, consisting of gentlemen of the Inns of
Court and Chancery and others, himself becoming colonel. The great Lord
Clarendon wrote of Littleton as a “handsome and proper man of a very
graceful presence, and notorious for courage, which in his youth he had
manifested with his sword.”
Above all, Littleton was incorruptible, winning, and keeping the respect
of such opposite men as Clarendon and Bulstrode Whitelocke. Here we get
a glimpse of his library, as it is recorded that when the Commons seized
his books Whitelocke interceded and got the books given into his own
care, so that, as he expressed it, “when God gave them a happy
accommodation” he might restore them to rightful hands. The arms on the
bookplate are the arms of Lyttelton of Frankley.
Littleton’s first wife was a daughter of John Lyttelton (spelt as you
please) of Frankley, Worcestershire. Littleton died at Oxford on August
27th, 1645, and is buried in Christ Church Cathedral.
Not the least interesting point about this Littleton plate is that it
was engraved by William Marshall, a name or initials found on such a
great number of portraits and other book illustrations of this period.
Not very much is known about him. The dates of his works range from 1591
to 1649.
A characteristic German plate, dated 1645, is, by the good authority of
Warnecke, the work of the engraver Raphael Custos of Augsburg, eldest
son of Dominicus de Coster, painter and engraver, and grandson of Pieter
De Coster or Balten, poet and painter. This plate, engraved for Wilhelm
and Clara Krep von Krepenstein, embraces the coats-of-arms of the small
number of thirty-one ancestors.
“curæ numen habet justu move 4° eneid.
inde cruce hinc trutina armatus regique deoque
milito disco meis hæc duo nempe libris
ex libris Petri Maridat in magno Regis
consilio Senatoris”
are the inscriptions on the plate here illustrated of Theophilus Raynaud
or Raynald, born in Piedmont, and died at the age of eighty in Lyons on
October 31st, 1663. He was a learned Jesuit, and a most untiring student
all his life, but, unlike most inveterate readers, he was bitter and
morose of temper. Perhaps this was caused by his reading excesses, as it
is told that he thought fifteen minutes almost too much to give to any
meal. His portrait is in his: “tractatus depileo, cœterisque capitis
tegminibus tam sacris quam profanis. D. D. Petro de Maridat, in magno
Regis Christianissimi Consilio Senatori dicatus.” Under the portrait is
the shield-of-arms, as on the bookplate, and above it the motto:
“Dextera Domini fecit virtutem.” Below is: “Non potuit cœlum Capiti par
addere, tegmen, Hoc Cœli effigiem perficientis erit.” The engraving is
signed “L Spirinx fecit.” Nagler gives Ludwig Spirinx as an engraver
born at Lyons or Dijon, and working in Brussels from about 1640 to 1660.
Coming once more to Nuremberg, there is the 1674 plate engraved by D.
Krüger for Colonel Georg Christof Volckamer. There is no inscription on
the plate, which shows a cherub sitting on a hill and holding a
shield-of-arms. The colonel was not content to choose between helmet and
coronet; he has elected to have both.
One of the many plates of which the engraver is not known is that of
Franz Ludwig Anton Freiherr von Lerchenfeld-Prennberg. The shield is
borne on two flags crossing one another. At the foot of the plate is
engraved “Ex Libris, Francisci Ludovici,” etc., giving all the owner’s
titles. He was Chamberlain of the Munich High Court of Appeal.
A well-known plate is that of Pierre Daniel Huet, Bishop of Avranches,
and probably the best-remembered holder of that ancient See, and tenant
of the famous Bishop’s Palace. He was Bishop of Avranches from 1689 to
1699, but, born at Caen in 1630, he was already, in 1650, a renowned
savant, and twelve years later founded the Academy of Sciences at Caen.
He did not become a priest until he was forty-six years old; but all his
life he was an enormous reader, and gifted with a wondrous memory. Of
course he wrote books as well as reading the lore of others.
At Avranches visitors, calling for advice from their bishop, were told
“He cannot see you, he is studying”; and in vain they claimed that they
wanted to see a diocesan who had finished his studies.
The plate was engraved in four sizes for the Jesuits’ College in Paris,
to which he gave his library in 1692. As he spent the latter years of
his long life with the Paris Jesuits he was not long separated from his
books, and lived ninety-two years, so that none might say that in him
much study had produced a weariness of the flesh.
In 1692 another library, left this time by will, and accordingly, too,
another _ex libris_, came to the Jesuits of Paris, and from a friend of
Huet, Gilles Ménage. Like Huet, his appetite for study was vast and his
memory unfailing. Born at Angers in 1613, he died in Paris in 1692. Thus
he spent some eighty years among the shrewd litterateurs of that day,
and the following conversation need not be taken as a sign of want of
veracity on his part. Angers seems, like Crete of old, to have had a
lying reputation. He, asking a lady to define untruthfulness, received
for reply, that as for defining lying she did not quite know, but liar
she would define as “Monsieur Ménage!”
It will be seen how little it had yet become the custom for bibliophiles
to have bookplates. Neither Huet nor Ménage used _ex libris_ for
themselves, and to this day no bookplate of Molière, or Racine, or La
Fontaine, or of many other leaders of that age has been found.
After about 1650 a change is seen in the styles of French _ex libris_.
Helmets go out of use, and, for lack of better ideas, coronets are
assumed, often by those who had not the faintest right to them. The
square shield, in time, gives place to the oval form.