Folium Librorum Vitae Deditum. Jaargang 1

On a counterproof edition of the plates of Rumphius, Amboinsche rariteitkamer, preserved in the Library of the royal zoological society ‘Natura Artis Magistra’ in Amsterdam by W.S.S. van Berthem Jutting (Zoölogisch Museum, Amsterdam)

In the Library of ‘Natura Artis Magistra’ there is a large folio volume containing the front plate and the 60 numbered plates (height of sheets 51 cm, width ofw sheets 24 cm) of the Amboinsche Rariteitskamer by G.E. Rumphius in counterproof (contr'épreuve), all hand-coloured, but without a single word of text. The leather binding of the volume is 18th century work. The back is decorated with gilt ornaments and with the title ‘Ambonse Rariteyt Kaemer’ (orthography differs from the official spelling).

I have carefully compared these counterproofs with the plates of the normal Rariteitkamer, editions 1705, 1711 and 1741, the plain copies as well as the coloured one. This has led me to the following conclusions:

a.	The counterproof plates are naturally duller than the normal plates.
b.	In some plates of the counterproof a weak ink-line demarcates the margin of the original copper plate (Naturally the blind ‘en

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	relief’ frame of the copper plate is missing, because the counterproof is a print from a print, and not from a copper plate).
c.	The plates have been coloured more or less similarly to the normal copy of the Amboinsche Rariteitkamer (1705) in the Library of the above mentioned institute which has been coloured by Maria Sibylla Merian (see Rouffaer & Muller, Rumphius Bibliography, 1902, Rumphius Gedenkboek, p. 199, footnote 1). In cases where the animals (especially among Crustaceans) are drawn with incomplete antennae, because the copper plate was too limited for such long appendages, the missing parts of those limbs are supplied in colour beyond margin of the original plate. The same procedure has been applied for completing side shadows.
d.	All explanatory lettering and other text in the plates has been eliminated in order to avoid their appearance in mirror image. In the top ornament of the front plate where in the Dutch editions of 1705 can be read ‘De Amboinsche Rariteitkamer door G.E. Rumphius’ and at the base of this plate in left and right lower corners and ‘Jan Goeree del.’ and ‘Jacobus d Later fecit’ and below the whole plate ‘'T Amsterdam, Gedrukt bij François Halma Boekverkoper 1705’, all this text has been taken away. In the same way all numbers of the plates I-LX and all explanatory letters and figures, A, B, C, etc. and 1, 2, 3, etc. and also the explanation of the pieces of ambergris (plates LIII and LIV) have been erased.

The clue for the solution of what may have been the origin and further development of this counterproof can be found in the plates LV and LVI, figuring various ornaments of store onyx. In the normal 1705 edition of the Amboinsche Rariteitskamer these plates are numbered Fol. 286 resp. Fol. 288 (i.e. the indication for the binding opposite pages 286 and 288) in the left upper corner and LV resp. LVI in the right upper corner. Both the lower corners bear no indications.

In the normal 1741 edition and in the Latin edition (1711) ‘Fol. 286’ and ‘Fol. 288’ in the left upper corner is missing, but it is evident that it has been taken way and that the copper plate has been repaired in that spot. In the right upper corner is added an N, so that the full indication there is now N. LV resp. N. LVI. In the right lower corner the plates are marked iii resp. kkk (all plates of these aditions bear the signature from a-z, aa-zz, aaa-ooo).

In the counterproof all indications at the top of the plates have been taken away and likewise the lettering of each single object of plate LVI. These explanatory letters which were surrounded by cross-hatchings, have been erased, together with their imme-

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diate entourage. In this way small, square, white blanks originated which makes a rather curious effect. There is one thing, however, which the printer of the counterproof has forgotten to erase, namely the iii resp. kkk in the right lower corner of these plates. These indications now appear in reverse in the left lower corners.

From these statements it can be concluded that the counterproof has been prepared after the edition of 1741, and that the plates of h is edition have been used and partly transformed to avoid the reverse lettering. Dr. H. van de Waal, professor of History of Art and Director of the Printroom of Leyden University, with whom I discussed this matter, gave it as his opinion that all the text elements which would show up badly in a reversed plate have been carefully hammered or scratched away from the copper plate.

As Maria Sibylla Merian died in 1717 she cannot have been the artist who illuminated this counterproof volume, but it is not impossible that one of her daughters, or one of her pupils dit it.

The reason for making the counterproof is undoubtedly to acquire plates in which the shells are represented in the normal, dextral, position. This is, of course, a more natural condition than that in the normal Amboinsche Rariteitkamer where several plates (pl. XX, XXIII, XXIV, XXVI-XXX, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXIX) figure sinistral shells. In his zeal to obtain plates with dextral shells the maker of the counterproof has, however, shot beyond his aim, for the plates which were right in the normal edition (pl. XIX, XXI, XXII, XXV, XXXI, XXXII, XXXV-XXXVIII) are now reversed!

The author of the above lines would be very much obliged if anyone who knows of the existence of other counterproofs of the Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, plain or coloured, will communicate to her where these are preserved and in what details they may differ from the normal plates of this book.