Nederlands vreugde offer op het altaar des vaderlands

Amsterdam: Johannes de Vogel, March 1814

1 broadsheet  |  513 x 433 mm

First and only edition, and only recorded copy, of this fifteen-stanza broadsheet poem.  ¶  Dated 26 March 1814, the broadside commemorates the recent arrival of William I, Prince of Orange, as Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands. Napoleon’s 1813 departure from the Dutch provinces had left a power vacuum. As a result, William had been invited to return to lead the country a year earlier. His inauguration ceremony took place in Amsterdam on 30 March 1814, and the present broadside was likely produced to celebrate the occasion.  ¶  An instructive tour of typography to boot, incorporating roman letter, two italics (one very modern in character), an early shadowed display type, woodcut lettering (one letter cut backwards), column divisions assembled from type ornaments, all within an ambitious illustrated woodcut border.

CONDITION:  Printed on a single sheet of laid paper, preserving deckled edges and with plainly identifiable tranchefiles.  ¶  Some marginal dampstaining, only barely touching the woodcut border; creased across the middle; very light wear to the edges.  ¶  A noteworthy survival of finely produced political ephemera.

Item #96