Idée générale d'une collection complette d'estampes

[Heinecken, Karl Heinrich (1706-91).] Idée générale d'une collection complette d'estampes. Avec une dissertation sur l'origine de la gravure & sur les premiers livres d'images. [16], 520, [32]pp. 32 engraved and woodcut plates, engraved text illustration on leaf R5v, occasional small woodcut illustrations. Leipzig and Vienna: Jean Paul Kraus, 1771. 201 x 120 mm. Mottled calf ca. 1771, gilt spine with leather label, front hinge cracking, rear hinge tender, light wear. Some foxing and toning throughout, but very good.

First Edition of the first systematic guide to collecting prints, block books and the earliest printed books. Heinecken, a German art historian, art collector, librarian and diplomat, was director of Dresden's Kupferstich-Kabinette, an independent museum of prints and drawings established in 1560; he also owned one of the finest private collections of early engravings and woodcuts. Heinecken's work is exceptional among other eighteenth-century guides to collecting in the number and quality of its illustrations, which include 32 engraved and woodcut plates reproducing images from early Italian, French, Flemish, German and English works. Bigmore and Wyman, Bibliography of Printing, pp. 310-320.