Jean-Baptiste Christyn - Les délices des Pais Bas - 1700

The Delights of the Low Countries, or General Description of its Seventeen Provinces, of its principal Cities & of its most renowned places in the situation in which they stand since the Peace of Ryswyk. Brussels: François Foppens, 1700.

Complete in 1 volume, octavo. Full contemporary brown calf binding, spine with raised bands ornamented with gilt compartments and lozenge-shaped fleurons, title-label in morocco.

Illustrated with a frontispiece and 28 folding plates.

A highly sought-after edition of this famous travel and topographical history guide devoted to the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces. Published in the wake of the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) which redrew the political map of Western Europe, this “New, corrected edition… and augmented with figures” offers a detailed description of the geography, institutions, monuments, and curiosities of the seventeen provinces.

The illustration is the bibliophilic charm: the work opens with the remarkable copper-engraved frontispiece by Jacobus Harrewyn, depicting the allegories of the rivers (the Scheldt, the Meuse) and of the provinces, and gathers a rich set of maps and architectural views folding plates engraved with great precision (Brussels City Hall, Antwerp City Hall, etc.).

Period binding in solid full calf, showing usual wear and rubbing to the heads, edges, and corners; the spine is split but firmly reattached. The gilding on the spine remains well preserved with its title piece. The interior is generally clean on period laid paper, with some scattered browning; the folding engraved plates are preserved in a fine, fresh state of printing.

The publication of this 1700 edition in Brussels is no editorial accident. Just a few years earlier, in August 1695, the French troops of Marshal de Villeroy mercilessly bombarded Brussels’ historic center, destroying more than 4,000 buildings around the Grand Place.

When Foppens printed these Delights of the Low Countries in 1700, the city was in the midst of reconstruction. The famous folding engraving of the City Hall of Brussels attained the status of an icon for locals and travelers: this Gothic masterpiece had miraculously survived the incendiary French bombs while the surrounding quarter had collapsed around it! The book thus became a symbol of pride and of the renaissance of the Netherlands in the face of Louis XIV’s wars.