Sunday, February 03, 2008

Bibliographic APB

Do you know this book?

I seek information on a collection of forty-four engravings showing the history of the world in 425 vignettes (on forty of the engravings, the other four being profile line portraits of various important historical figures). These engravings are mounted on individual sheets and bound together in a book described in the original R.C. Waterston collection catalog as:
"Callot, Jacques. History from the creation of the world, etched by him, in 425 pieces; groups mounted on leaves. Octavo. Plates."

The vignettes are captioned in Latin and German, and are collected by millennium and then century; the final events depicted are the War of the Spanish Succession [1701-1714] and the Siege of Belgrade [1718?]. This seems to eliminate Jacques Callot (c. 1592-1635) from contention as the engraver, unless it's either a different Callot or Jacques was an extremely prescient fellow.

Unfortunately none of the plates are signed in any way that we have been able to discover, nor is there any title page or publication information of any kind. The 'headline' on the first plate of vignettes reads simply "Mill: Antiqvvs et Delectatvs".

Any information would be appreciated.

[NB: This query was originally posted in slightly different form on Ex-Libris back in June, sans images.]

[Update: Solved! See the comments below, and this post.]