Hans Holbein the Younger | The Images of the Old Testament, Lyons, 1549, first edition in English

Hans Holbein the Younger

The Images of the Old Testament, Lately Expressed, Set Forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche, with a playn and brief exposition. Lyons: Iohan Frellon, 1549

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, small 4to (195 x 125 mm), text in English and French, woodcut device on title, another variant of woodcut device on recto of final leaf, 94 in-text woodcut illustrations and one full-page with 4 portrait-medallions depicting the Evangelists, eighteenth-century calf, tooled in blind, spotting and soiling, sympathetically rebacked retaining substantial portion of spine

The English translation is based on the 1539 Latin edition, while Gilles Corrozet's French text is a revision of the second edition of 1547 (see Mortimer). The wood engravings were executed by Hans Lutzelburger.

PROVENANCE:

Lord John Townshend PC (1757-1833), Whig Politician: armorial bookplate to front free endpaper; by descent to William Townshend: ownership inscription to front pastedown dated April 1851 and inkstamp to rear pastedown

LITERATURE:

STC 3045; Brunet III, 253 ("plus rare que les autres"); Harvard French 283