The Enschedé type specimens of 1768 & 1773

Introduction and notes

A facsimile with an introduction and notes by John A. Lane


Stichting Museum Enschedé
The Enschedé font foundry
Uitgeverij de Buitenkant
Two volumes - slipcase

Contents

9 Preface
13 Acknowledgements
15 Introduction
25 The cutters of the types
33 The French issue
37 Collations
43 The plates
47 The types
91 The paper stocks
95 The printing of the specimen
103 Bindings
107 The copies examined
111 Census of copies
115 Bibliography
119 Colophon

Preface


In 1743, the Haarlem printers Isaac and Johannes Enschede purchased the typefoundry of Hendrik Wetstein. This was the beginning of a long and rich tradition of typefounding and type design at Joh. Enschede en Zonen that continues to our day, and that has given the firm a prominent place in the history of Dutch typography.
The 1768 “Proef van letteren” issued in Dutch and French by Johannes I Enschede is one of the high points in that history. It offers a selection of new and old types, some going back to the early beginnings of the printer's art. Enschede owned matrices and in most cases punches for the old types, while the new ones were cut by the most skilful craftsmen of his day. Among these was Joan Michael Fleischman, whom he speaks of extensively and with great esteem in his introduction.
The firm flourished in this period. Johannes I was an outstanding businessman but also proved himself an adept master of printing and typefounding. Moreover, he had a thorough and scholarly interest in the history of printing. He brought together a fine collection of Dutch and foreign books-productions of the early printers-and studied them in relation to the history of typography and typefounding. In this, he was also spurred on by his wish to keep up a tradition that went back to his predecessor Laurens Janszoon Coster, the legendary inventor of printing in fiftheenth-century Haarlem.
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