Beschrijving
'Laurentius Costerus Harlemensis typogr. invent.' And with and eight-line caption (in Dutch and Latin).
Tone lithograph on wove paper, sheet size 326 x 448 mm. Copy in lithography by Theodor Brüggemann (1822-1888) after the engraved portrait by J. van Campen after Cornelis Koning.
In good condition, a dampstain in the lower right corner, and some foxing in the top right margin corner. Laurens Janszoon Coster, Coster also spelled Koster, (born c. 1370, Netherlands-died 1440?, Haarlem?), Dutch rival of Johannes Gutenberg as the alleged inventor of printing.Little is known of this early printer, whose last name means ‘sacristan,’ his title as an official of the Great Church of Haarlem. He is mentioned several times in records between 1417 and 1434 as alderman, tax assessor, and treasurer and is presumed to have died in a plague that struck Haarlem in 1440, when his wife is recorded as a widow.
