CATS, Jacob

by Jacob Cats

£2,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

First collected edition of these beautifully illustrated emblem books by Jacob Cats, one of the most important author s of emblem books whose volumes still form one of the adornments of Dutch houses. Cats took inspiration from proverbs and everyday life, his realistic emblems form a counterpart to genre painting and supply interesting evidence for the history of costume (Praz p. 86). The work contains, each with separate pagination: Sinne ende Minnebeelden, (an expanded version of Silenus Alcibiadis ); Emblemata Di Iacobi Catsii, in linguam Anglicam transfusa, (an English verse translation of the foregoing sometimes attributed to Josuah Sylvester); Emblemata moralia et aeconomica, (with illustrations copied from Maechden plicht); the Latin text, with French translation, of the dialogue between Anna and Phyllis from Maechden plicht; Galathee ofte Harder Minne-klachte. Laudatory poems by D. Heinsius, A. Hofferus, J. Arcerius, I. Lyraeus, A. Roemers, I. Luyt, S. de Swaef, L. Peutemans, I. Hobius. Jacob Cats (1577-1660), seventeenth-century poet, moralist, and statesman, was one of the leading poets in the golden age of Dutch literature. His emblem books, which reflected a stolid Calvinist philosophy, exhorted readers to virtuous and industrial lives. Enormously popular, the books became the source of many well-known maxims and proverbs, giving him the title of Father Cats, a fond soubriquet still used by modern Dutch to describe him. He is best known as a poet and author of embl

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.