Fine edition of this extensive and lavishly illustrated description of the city of Cleves and its medicinal springs, with ten beautifully engraved plates. The text, which consists of a large poem, is written by Pieter Langendijk (1683-1756), one of the most important and famous Dutch playwrights and poets from the 18th century. He visited the city of Cleves and its medicinal springs around 1744 in order to improve his declining health, especially his sense of sight. The poem is heavily annotated, providing a "real" description of the city, based on the works on Cleves available to Langendijk at the time.
The plates are engraved after drawings by the well-known draughtsman Jan de Beijer (1703-ca.1770), who lived in the lower Rhine area for many years, especially in Cleves and Emmerik. He made numerous drawings of the area between 1732 and 1746; the drawings in the present work are dated 1745. They were engraved by Hendrikus Spilman (1721-1784) in 1746. The plates - all in very fresh and clear impressions - include a magnificent general view on Cleves, the castle, the "Butterberg" with the amphitheatre and the statue of the Iron man, the Eltenberg, the medicinal springs, and the castle of Moyland in the surroundings of Cleves.
Three issues are known of the present work, but as they have all been printed in the same year, it is unclear which is the first. According to the note to the binder at the end, the work was printed in quarto format so that the plates would not have to be folded. However, the text was set in such a way that the work could also easily be trimmed to the size of a large octavo, as was more common for the genre. The present copy has retained its quarto size and has been untrimmed, resulting in very large margins.
The boards have been rubbed, the joints are somewhat weakened, but the structural integrity of the binding is still intact, the title label on the spine is nearly gone. The leaves are slightly browned around the edges, with small stains throughout. Otherwise a beautiful untrimmed copy in good condition. Meijer, Pieter Langendyk, pp. 137-147; NNBW, pp. 764-768; Romers, J. de Beijer, nrs. 1421-22, 1434, 1424, 1342, 1431, 1427, 1359, 1387, 1426 and 1437; STCN 153214570 (5 copies, 1 without plates).