Creator
Willem Vander Meer
Title
Catalogus variorum insignium et rariorum librorum, pia memoria, D. Guilhelmi van der Meer …
Coverage
Delft
Publisher
Bruyn H. Schinckel
Date
1609
Description
Although the library of the well-to-do Dutch attorney Willem Vander Meer (d. 1594) includes some rare and interesting books, its importance as a collection is eclipsed by the importance of this printed record of the 1609 sale, one of the very earliest book auction catalogues. Book auctions were a relatively recent Dutch innovation, and the earliest sale to be accompanied by a printed catalogue had been held just a decade before, in 1599. The catalogue of the 1609 Vander Meer sale complements extensive and significant holdings at the Club of printed book auction catalogues from England, France, and other countries, dating from the seventeenth century to the present day, and providing uniquely valuable data on private collecting and the book trade in early modern Europe.
Source
Purchased at auction in 2010 with the generous support of the Bernard H. Breslauer Foundation.