De Veer's Diarium Naticum - THE BARON STUART DE ROTHESAY–SIR THOMAS

THE BARON STUART DE ROTHESAY–SIR THOMAS PHILLIPPS–PHILIP ROBINSON–FRANK STREETER EXAMPLE DE VEER, Gerrit (ca. 1570–ca. 1598). Diarium nauticum seu vera descriptio Trium Navigationum admirandum, & nunquam auditarum, tribus continuis annis factarum, à Hollandicis & Zelandicis navibus, ad Septentrionem, supra Norvagiam, Moscoviam & Tartariam, versus Catthay & Sinarum regna: tum ut detecta fuerint Weygatz fretum, Nova Zembla, & Regio sub 80: gradu sita, quam Groenla[n]diam esse censent, quam nullas unquam adijt... Auctore Gerardo de Vera Amstelrodamense. Amsterdam: Ex Officini Cornelij Nicolaij (Cornelius Claesz), 1598. First Latin edition. Here is what AI says it’s worth: $80,000. Cost: Purchased at Christie’s 17th April 2007, lot 513 - $57,600. Folio in 4s (12 9/16” x 9 5/16”, 319mm x 236mm): binder’s blank, A-L4 (L4 blank) [$3 signed; –A1]. 44 leaves; foll. 1 2-43, blank leaf. With 32 in-text etched-engraved plates (roughly half-page), one full-page (I1v, signed by Baptista van Doetecum). Bound in later (early XIXc; final free end-paper watermarked 1811) tree calf. On the boards, the gilt armorial supralibros of Sir Charles Stuart, Baron Stuart de Rothesay. On the spine, five panels separated by gilt rolls. Title gilt to brown morocco in the second panel. Marbled end-papers. Edges of the text-block speckled blue. With a celadon scalloped silk marking-ribbon. Presented in a green cloth clam-shell box with a green morocco spine label gilt. Boards splayed. Some rubbing to the extremities. Transverse crease to the text-block. Scattered mild foxing. Mild dampstain to the bottom edge of K3-L4, not affecting the text. Altogether a lovely copy. With the ink shelfmark and pencil “MHC” of Sir Thomas Phillipps on the verso of the first free end-paper. Gerrit de Veer (ca. 1570–ca. 1598) was the carpenter on the ship captained by Willem Barentsz (for whom the Barents Sea between Norway and Russia is named), whose goal was to find a northern passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The northern European powers, who would obviously benefit from the shortcut, sought the route but it was not successfully navigated till the late XIXc. Barentsz led three voyages, and on the third the ship was trapped at Novaya Zemlya (Nova Zembla in the title) and crushed by ice. The crew made camp for ten months and survived on seal and polar bear. Barentsz among others died, but Veer, who kept an illustrated diary, was rescued with eleven of his crewmates. The “nautical diary” (in Latin; the Dutch original was published in the same year) is a classic work of Arctic exploration, as informative as it is sensational. Subsequent explorers have found the remains of the sailors’ settlement, and found a great deal of truth in Veer’s accounts. The present volume has passed through illustrious hands. The binder, Baron Stuart de Rothesay (1779–1845), served as Britain’s ambassador to Russia (where much of the account takes place). His library was disbursed by Sotheby’s in 1855. Sir Thomas Phillipps was then the next owner (perhaps with Quaritch as middle-man); Phillipps was the most famous sufferer of bibliomania, and one of the greatest of all book-collectors. His discreet “MHC” (Middle Hill Collection; Middle Hill was his seat in Worcestershire) belies the magnitude of his library. His collection was disbursed over a century, finding its way eventually into the collection of Philip Robinson, who from 1946 came into large portions of Phillipps’s books. Robinson’s own library was disbursed by Sotheby’s London in two parts, the second part being exclusively Chinese; the present item was from part I (23 June 1988, lot 284). Finally the volume passed into the collection of Frank S. Streeter (purchased at his sale, Christies New York, 15 April 2007, lot 513), who died in 2006. Son of the legendary Americana collector Thomas Streeter, Frank served for nearly 30 years as John Hay Whitney’s financial advisor and then his executor. His own collecting interest skewed towards navigation and voyages. Adams V-316, Alden & Landis 598/113, JCB (3) I:369, Tiele 1130 (Memoire bibliographique sur les journaux des navigateurs nierlandais, Amsterdam: Muller, 1867; reprinted, Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1960).

Estimation:€53,652.06

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