"Livre des figures, peÿsages, animaux et autre [sic] dessins fait [sic] par moy L[aurence]ce Van Uxem.

Album 4to (17 x 22,5 cm) of 154 drawings with grey wash or watercoloured.

Mod. three-quarter leather, marbled paper covers, gilt orn. spine with raised bands, red spr. edges.

Very charming album containing finely executed drawings. It opens with a ms. title within ornamented frame and with two female allegories on sides (Fame and Abundantia), followed on a second leaf by the allegory of Fame bearing on her banner the title of the album in Dutch. The drawings depict mainly women and men (nobility, "métiers rue", musicians, religious men, lawman, presented sometimes in different situations: reading, walking, drinking, etc.), portraits of goddesses and allegories (with ms. identification) and of children (some with ms. captions: "Petit Ecolier grand vendengeur", "La marodeuse des fleurs", "le Denicheur de merle", one showing a girl who dropped her basket and broke all the eggs in it). L. Van Uxem also drew landscapes, city views (incl. Italians), monuments, animals, fishermen and scenes at sea, winter scenes, also with people ice-skating reminding Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and 3 ff. of blasons with heraldic terms. The sketchbook ends with a drawing figuring a skull with the sentence "Pensé [sic] à la mort" above. The Harvard Library holds an album of drawings "Emblèmes et devises" dated of 1796 by L. Van Uxem of whom nothing is known.