A Conference on the Occasion of the Publication of Ina Kok: Woodcuts in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries

ILLUSTRATING THE EARLY PRINTED BOOK

Hes & De Graaf Publishers, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands (KB) and the Dutch Book Historical Society (NBV) are organising a conference on 12 April 2013 on the occasion of the publication of the long awaited revised edition of Ina Kok’s widely admired and groundbreaking dissertation on the woodcut illustrations in incunabula printed in the Low Countries between 1475 and 1501. The conference will be held at the Aula of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague.

Ina Kok, curator of City Archives and Athenaeum Library (SAB) Deventer, completed her Ph.D. on this subject in 1994. Even in its unpublished form and only available in a few copies, Kok’s dissertation already acquired the status of a standard reference work. The work will now be re-published in a totally new and updated English edition by Hes & De Graaf Publishers, with illustrations of all the woodcuts used in Dutch incunabula, fully reworked, revised, re-numbered and made much better accessible by the addition of extensive indexes. This edition will be indispensable for incunabulists, book historians in general and historians of medieval and early Renaissance art in particular. The books in this period often appeared without date and by meticulously comparing damages in the woodcuts Kok for example has been able to date more accurately c. 200 editions. Moreover, the work offers a magnificent overview of the imagery in the second half of the fifteenth century.

At the start of the conference, the book Woodcuts in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries will officially be presented. Afterwards internationally renowned expert speakers will present lectures on the world of the early printed book, their cataloguing and digitisation, and of course the woodcuts they contain. Speakers will be Paul Needham (Scheide Library, Princeton), Lotte Hellinga (British Library, London), Bettina Wagner (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München), John Goldfinch (British Library, London), Cristina Dondi (University of Oxford), Marieke van Delft (Koninklijke Bibliotheek), Truusje Goedings and Andrea van Leerdam (Utrecht University).

Exhibition

On occasion of the conference an exhibition will be showed in the famous book room of the Museum Meermanno | House of the Book. On view will be a selection of the finest woodcuts and illustrations in books from the collections of the museum and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

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>>> Hes & De Graaf Publishers

>>> Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague

>>> Dutch Book Historical Society (NBV)