Kern des Bybels.The Hague, Anthoni de Groot and sons, 1750. 128mo (or possibly 96mo) in 4s (4.5 x 3 x 1 cm). Title-page in red and black with a woodcut title-vignette (an open book on a shell, with decorations), 7 full-page (3.3 x 1.6 cm!) woodcuts depicting important scenes from the Bible (1 as frontispiece and 1 opening each of the 5 “books” and the appendix). Contemporary gold-tooled calf.

80 pp.First (and only Dutch) edition (deluxe issue with the title-page and 12 other pages printed in red and black) of De Groot’s “thumb Bible”, one of the curious miniature books printed in the Netherlands in the mid-18th century, in a tiny roman type (37 mm/20 lines or 5.5 point), as a curiosity and collector’s item or to be used as a Bible in a dollhouse. The text is an abstract or summary of the contents of the Bible in five books and an appendix containing a prayer (incipit: The illustrations and ornamental headpieces, all in miniature, and in the present deluxe issue also the printing in red and black, make the book a show piece for the skill of 18th-century Dutch printing, enhanced here by the contemporary gold-tooled miniature binding. Abkouda records De Groot offering this edition in five kinds of bindings (and unbound) at prices ranging from 4 to 30 stuivers, so he probably commissioned bindings from several binders. The present copy is probably what he calls a “Frans bandje” (9 stuivers). We have not identified the bindery of the present copy, but its three stamps are: a rozette (14 mm), an ornament with a base like a flower bud and a row of 6 dots (decreasing in size) extending from it (12 x 4 mm) and 3 concentric circles (4 mm).The backstrip is damaged, with the calf split at the front hinge (but the front board is still secured by the sewing supports) and the head and foot chipped, but otherwise in good condition, with the tooling on the spine still clear and the boards in good condition, with only a couple tiny scuff marks and a small faint water stain, and internally good.l Abkouda, Naamregister, app. 2 (1750), p. 85; Adomeit, Thumb bibles C15 (“32mo”); Poortman, Bijbel en prent,I, p. 248 & II, p. 281 (“32mo”); STCN (7 copies); Storm van Leeuwen, Opmerkelijke boekbanden 93 (this ed. in a different binding); Storm van Leeuwen, Dutch decorated bookbinding II, pp. 76-77 & III, items 557-560 on p. 541 (“64mo”; this ed. in a different binding; cf. ); Welsh, Bibliogr. of miniature books, 998; cf. Louis W. Bondy, Miniature books (1981), p. 37 (De Groot’s 1750 French ed.); not in Darlow & Moule; for Anthoni de Groot: Joop W. Koopmans, Early modern media and the news in Europe (2018), chapter 7; John A. Lane, Early type specimens in the Plantin-Moretus Museum (2004), pp. 134-135.