Dichtkundige almanach, of keur van Heldenbrieven, Vertelzels, Theatrale en andere Dichtstukjes. Amsterdam: M. Schalekamp, [1795].
36mo (binding size 97 x 62 mm). 71, [1] pp. Title and text within type-ornament borders. Four double-page engraved plates, two signed by W. J. Strunck. Contemporary embroidered binding of beige silk over binder’s board, both covers with an outer wavy border of gold satin stitch enclosing a gouache and watercolor medallion under glass, each cover with a different scene, within an oval relief frame of goldwork, red thread and satin stitch, the medallion suspended from a ring hanging from a ribbon and flanked with sprigs, the design composed of couched and separate colored and gold pailletes, silver-gilt thread, purl and goldwork, spine plain with two silver-gilt rectangles, pale orange silk liners, preserving original wrappers of orange block-printed patterned paper with sprigs and dots, gilt edges. Loss of 5 sequins on upper cover and 3 on lower cover. Provenance: Robert de Beauvillain, etched bookplate by Charles Jouas.
A literary almanac in a possibly Netherlandish embroidered binding with watercolor miniatures. The painting on the front cover shows a young man wearing a tricorne standing jauntily in a mountainous landscape, and that on the rear cover two shepherds at dusk.
This “Poetic Almanac, or choice of Heroic epistles, Tales, Theatrical and other Poetic Pieces,” was published in Amsterdam, and sometimes also sold in Utrecht, from 1771 to the late 1790s. The almanac includes a 12-page tabular calendar with Saints’days, moon phases and eclipses, a schedule of the ringing of the Amsterdam city bells, and tales and poems, some adapted from classical mythology. The romantic double-page engravings by Strunck show Mirtil and Chloe (Daphne’s children), Hero and Leander (in a dramatic scene of roiling seas and lightning), a pastoral love scene, and a woman in a dungeon with snakes, illustrating the final poem, “Elane, Romance.”
OCLC locates a single copy of a different year in the US, at the Grolier Club; that copy, of the 1781 issue, is also in an embroidered binding, with a floral design and no miniatures. On Strunck, cf. Thieme-Becker 32:217.
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