[Pacis Antesignani sive Icones legatorum plena potestate instructorum, qui [...] ad pacem universalem constituendam Monasterium Westphalorum et Osnabrugam convenerunt [...] ad vivum expressae [...]].

Folio: 50 pl. (without title; 1st portr. trimmed, stained and mounted on paper, sm. tear in bottom corner of 2nd portr., faint dampstain at bottom corners of 2nd part of vol., some marg. thumbing).

19th-c. quarter sheep (rubbed, joints splitting, head & tail def.), sp. paper over boards.

Collection of 50 large and fine portraits of the principal delegates at the negotiations for the Peace of Münster (1648), in an oval medallion framework with their personal coat of arms and that of their sovereigns, and a caption at bottom. Several editions of this collection are known, published from 1648 (1st Antwerp, D. Middeler) to 1717, with the number of plates increasing from 33 to 131: the first ed. with a Latin title, the last one with a title in French. The portraits of our collection were published before the numbering of the plates (and hence early states). They are engraved by M. Borrekens (5), C. Galle (14), P. de Jode (17), P. Pontius (10) and C. Waumans (3) after the Ghent painter A. Van Hulle (1601-1674/1694). The last portrait of Franciscus de Andrada Leitao is unsigned. Van Hulle was sent to Münster in 1648 by the stadtholder Frederic Henry, Prince of Orange, to paint the portraits of the assembled plenipotentiaries. In 1652, he entered the service of Emperor Ferdinand III in Vienna.
Ref. Brunet V-1074.