Le grand théatre sacré du duché de Brabant [...].

3 vol., folio: [6]-176, [2]-177/394-40, [2]-212-[2]-134-14 pp.; 251 pl. (age-toned, occ. spotting,some marg. browning, some pencil annot.).

Contemp. vellum, blind-orn. covers, ink-titled spines with raised bands (soiling, joint split and tear on spine in vol. 2, joint starting to split in vol. 3). Copy with large margins.

Second French ed. (1st French 1729) of this important chorographic work on Brabant, an anonymous redesign of the "Groot Kerkelyk toneel" (1st Dutch 1727), largely based on C. van Gestel's "Historia sacra et profana archiepiscopatus Mechliniense" (1725), and often wrongly attributed to Jacques le Roy. Divided into 4 parts: the Archdiocese of Mechelen, Walloon Brabant and the dioceses of Antwerp and 's-Hertogenbosch. Abundantly illustrated with more than 250 pl. (full-page, double-page or folding), engr. by a.o. J. Harrewijn and R. Blokhuysen: 2 maps, 21 portraits, 83 views of abbeys, churches, castles and convents, and 145 pl. of funerary monuments, tombstones, stained glass windows, coats of arms, etc.; some engravings in text. Enriched with 6 19th-c. pcs: 2 ms. ff. with tombstone transcriptions (vol. 1) and list of Antwerp bishops (vol. 2), 2 portraits (Cardinal Sterckx, Archbishop Dechamps), 1 photocopy of Card. Sterckx's obituary, 1 drawing with picotis of coat of arms (flyleaf).
Ref. BB V:330-331. - STCN.
Prov. Van der Taelen (armorial bookpl.).