Vredeman de Vries [part I]

Hans Vredeman de Vries was an architect, engineer and designer whose influence becomes clear through the prints made after his compositions and their numerous re-editions. The range of his designs is large, from pure ornament with strapwork, interlaced bandpatterns and grotesques, to furniture, gardens and fountains, orders and details of architecture and a two-part book on perspective. The total number of prints amounts circa 600. The collaboration between Hans and his son Paul on a book of architecture and the strong influence Hans had on his son's work made it necassary to include prints after Pauls designs, bringing the total number of prints to circa 685. Also included are descriptions of the circa 180 German, Italian and French copies of their plates.

The catalogue of the prints is based on Mielke's not illustrated dissertation to which new information has been added about editions and copies, notably six new prints among which the only autographed woodcut of the Antwerp Town Hall in its urban setting and the design for an ideal Renaissance town. The influence of Vredeman's designs on his contemporaries and on successive generations of artists has been recognised but the illustrated catalogue presents for the first time the full scope of his oeuvre and may stimulate new discoveries in the fields of cartography, decorative arts, architecture and gardens.

The introduction presents Vredeman de Vries printed oeuvre and discuss the approach of editions. In an extensive bibliography the history of the interest in the different aspects of the careers of Hans and Paul Vredeman de Vries will be documented and an index will give access to all the engravers, publishers, dedicatees and other persons named in the catalogue.

The catalogue of the prints after Vredeman de Vries offers: the standard numerical sequence for all prints after Hans and Paul Vredeman de Vries, listed in chronological order, with references to previous catalogues and literature, illustrations of all the prints, clear descriptions of the differences in states especially between editions, mention of all known etched or engraved copies, repositories of impressions per state mostly corresponding to editions and reference to inventory numbers and shelf-marks in printrooms and libraries, information about the collation for the bound volumes, reference to all known preparatory drawings, mention of plates in inventories of publishers Pieter Baltens, Hieronymus Cock's widow and Theodoor Galle's widow and indices of engravers, publishers, dedicatees and authors.

Compiler: Peter Fuhring
Editor: Ger Luijten
ISBN: 978-90-75607-10-9
292 pp.

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