RUBENS, PETER-PAUL (1577-1640) - BEREY, CLAUDE-AUGUSTE (1660-1730). La Gallerie du Palais du Luxembourg peinte par Rubens, dessinée par les S. Nattier, et gravée par les plus illustres graveurs du temps. Dédiée au Roy. Paris, Duchange, 1710.
Large folio (645x470 mm. binding). Engraved title (Berey), 25 engraved plates (of which 3 double-page, 1 plate with tear to margin, slight foxing). Engraved by Loir, Audran, Picart and Simonneau a.o.
Contemporary calf binding, spine renovated, partly worn. Bookplates of Hammer, Axel Widstrand and Sigrid and Frank Bensow. Interesting ownership inscription by Katherine Blount regarding the price of the binding, paper and prints, dated 1715.
Cohen-de Ricci 915. First edition. Plates, after Rubens, take the form of an allegorical history of the life of Catherine de Medici
Provenance: Katherine Blount (died 1753), wife of Sir Thomas Pope Blount [1670–1731], the second baronet); Christian Hammer (1818-1905), silversmith and avid collector; Dr. C. Axel Widstrand (1866-1956), renowned Stockholm print collector whose print collection was among the largest in Sweden and once totaling over 40,000 work. It forms the core of the graphics collection at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Frank Bensow (1883-1969), distinguished civil engineer as well as a major in the Swedish Army, serving in the Road and Waterway Construction Service Corps. He amassed his collection of more than eight hundred sheets of Old Master prints over several decades. Bensow assembled an encyclopedic collection, not unusual for connoisseurs like himself during the early to mid-20th century golden age of print collecting. His acquisitions devote particular attention to many of the important artistic movements of the centuries that the collection spans as well as the key artists and schools of each era.
