Gerard Brandt / Sebastiaan Stoopendaal / Joseph Mulder - Het leven en bedryf van den heere Michiel de Ruiter - 1691

Gerard Brandt - Het leven en bedryf van den heere Michiel de Ruiter (...) Met schoone koopere plaaten verciert - Amsterdam, uyt de Drukkerye van P. en J. Blaeu / voor Wolfgang, Waasberge, Boom, Van Someren, Goethals, 1691 - [12] + 1065 pp. + index - blind-stamped parchment (borders, medallions); spine with large raised bands, blind stamping and handwritten title - 33 × 23 × 9 cm (FOLIO)

Condition: very good / fine - very neat, original binding with very solid joints (rare!) (piece of edge and small piece of top corner scuffed); very neat, solid and compact block with original endpapers; very neat, crisp and white pages! (a few small spots, print Zee-slag Kijkduyn lacks bottom right corner, small to large tear in bottom of folds in other prints, print Plymuyden very neat, otherwise as new!).

Note: the pictures are a bit dark, this is caused by twilight when they were taken; in reality the paper is very white!

Complete ‘Met schoone koopere plaaten’

With the 7 etchings by Sebastiaen Stoopendaal and one etching by Joseph Mulder.
Includes the following copper engravings:
- Zee-slag by Plymuyden
- De stadt Nyborg
- De stadt Algiers
- Stadt en Revier van Rochester, Chattam
- Zee-slag by de Kykduyn en Kelder (very large: folding)
- Zee-slag by Eylande Sicilien
- Lyk-statie
- Grafsteede

Beautiful plates: very sharp and dark prints, very detailed!
Unique copper engravings of naval battles. The pictures provide a good impression.

The book contains a wealth of maritime information, including extensive descriptions of naval battles.

Original copy.
Beautiful and smooth parchment.
Very crisp and white paper!

Rare edition ‘uyt de Drukkerye van P. en J. Blaeu’!

Including the often missing title engraving and the portrait of Michiel de Ruyter. Both are rare, very beautiful and neat!


Brandt’s magnum opus. The most important biography of the Dutch naval hero Admiral Michiel Adriaansz. de Ruyter (1607-1676).


Alden & Landis 687/21; Cat. NHSM, p. 843; Sabin 7405; for the author: NNBW VI, cols. 184-187.


Michiel de Ruyter was the greatest Dutch naval hero. De Ruyter gained several victories against the French and English, the best known being the Battle of Chatham. This was one of the worst defeats of the English.

In 1681, five years after Michiel de Ruyter's death, his son Engel de Ruyter approached the Amsterdam minister Gerard Brandt with the request to write the biography of his father. Brandt was a well-known biographer who wrote the biographies of Joost van den Vondel and Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, among others. He accepted the assignment and was given access to a large number of documents, ship's logs and other sources from De Ruyter's estate.

For this book Brandt used several original documents from the Ruyter's son, friends and acquaintances and official government documents. It is not a complete overview and Brandt, who worked on the biography for years, interviewed numerous contemporaries of the admiral. Brandt died in 1685. His two sons completed the biography, which was published in 1687. Engel himself had been dead four years at that time, but Michiel's widow, Anna van Gelder, received the first copy of the book.