De Gheyn II – The Excersize of Arms – Antique Engraving (Sold)
Amsterdam, 1608
1565 Antwerp - 1629 The Hague
These wonderful 400 year old images show Dutch Riflemen – Musketeers or Fusiliers – demonstrating how to use the arquebus, the forerunner of the musket or rifle. The engravings were made for The Excersize of Arms or Wapenhandelinge, the most influential military manual of the 17th Century. The work was published in Amsterdam by Robbert de Baudous in 1608. Each image appears to be a real portrait of an individual Musketeer.
Jacob de Gheyn II, also known as Jacques de Gheyn II was a Dutch painter and engraver. The 17th century military manual The Exercise of Armes from which these engravings come is his best known work.
De Gheyn was first trained by his father, Jacob de Gheyn I, a glass painter, engraver, and draftsman, and later studied under the great Dutch master Hendrik Goltzius.
Copperplate engravings
Dimensions: Platemarks: 19 cm X 25.5cm / Approx 7.5 X 10 inches.
Paper Size: Sizes vary (Most are approx 23 x 31 cm or 9 X 12 inches)
Period annotation written in French. The book spread widely throughout Europe as the most universal guide to using muskets when they were first introduced.
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