Cours des Pays-Bas. Gallery of portraits. ca.... Lot 3

[Cours des Pays-Bas. Gallery of portraits]. ca. 1650. 263 engraved portraits of which 7 in colour, 8 double plates [Plan of the fortifications around Breda, The recapture of the town of La Bassée in Flanders in 1642, 3 double plates on the barony of Breda, a folding plan of the fortifications of Porto Calvo and surroundings (Pernambaco, Brazil), 2 double plates of the naval battle of the Downs (1639)]; in one large folio volume of 324 ff. folio, 6 pp. of handwritten alphabetical tables of names and about 50 blank ff. in-fine; bound in contemporary brown calf, spine ribbed and decorated. (some wear and tear). Framed in red ink on both sides of the 324 leaves. The portraits, engravings of various sizes, are glued in these frames and have a reserve of sometimes several pages for biographical notes for each character. Leaves 48 to 63 are the Statutes of the Order of the Golden Fleece, followed by "S'ensuivent certaines additions et altercations" until 1531. Where the names of characters are not given in their portraits, they have been handwritten. Few handwritten entries in this exceptional gallery of portraits from the first half of the 17th century. Ex-libris Dubois de Foisseux.