De Zilverdistel 1914-1922

Van Royen’s attempt in July 1913 to acquire a private type from Enschedé failed, but shortly afterwards when he became acquainted with William Anton Engelbrecht (1874–1965), he seized the chance to set up his own private press. Engelbrecht was a partner in the Rotterdam shipbroker firm Wambersie & Son, active in the iron-ore trade and shipping. He developed the same broad interests and administrative responsibilities as Van Royen. Their meeting in September 1913 stemmed from their interest in Willem Witsen.

Van Royen wanted to loan a painting from Engelbrecht’s collection for an exhibition. He also hoped ‘to inspect your Chaucer by Morris’. Engelbrecht would expand his collection of private press books over the next few years. Early January 1914 he bought the Zilverdistel edition of Baudelaire. Halfway through the year they discussed the beginning of a private press and in ­August Engelbrecht assured Van Royen that ‘the transportation of the press from England to the Netherlands will go very well and also will be easy to insure against loss through all marine and war risks’. The ‘disruptive circumstances’ of the First World War, which had just broken out, were no reason to abandon the plan.

Engelbrecht became his patron. In mid-September 1914 Van Royen ordered an Albion press from Payne & Sons through Lucien Pissarro, who also had one. ‘With this it was possible that details could be added’ which would enhance the freshness and purity of the work. ‘In Holland and Germany these particulars are unknown’. The adjustments were perhaps related to the tympan and the form. 

The press weighed 1200 kg and Van Royen’s brother Rudolf calculated that ‘whether that thing will sag through the ceiling’. The composing and printing rooms were arranged on the top floor of Van Royen’s house at 43 Van Boetzelaerlaan in The Hague: the composing room in a small side room, the press in the large adjoining balcony room at the rear of the property. The floor was reinforced with a 4 cm thick framework. The type weighed 800 kg. Van Royen formulated detailed instructions for the setting up of the press which in December 1915 ‘with great interest from the neighbourhood [was] hoisted into the house’.

Portretfoto van W.A. Engelbrecht, uit: Persoonlijkheden in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in woord en beeld: Nederlanders en hun werk. Amsterdam, Van Holkema & Warendorf’s U.M., 1938, p. 437. KB: LHO AW.B 11 NL PERS. (KB)

The garden of 43 Van Boetzelaerlaan, The Hague, photograph, 1916; standing on the balcony in front of the printing room are A.F.A. (Gusta) van Royen-Saltet and her three children: Uus, Beatrice and Sebald. Private collection. (MM)

Photo of the house front at Van Boetzelaerlaan 43, The Hague, 1915: H.A.F.A. (Gusta) van Royen-Saltet, daughter Uus and J.F. van Royen stand at the window on the first floor. Private collection. (MM)

The financing was simply arranged. Wambersie would reimburse the costs made by Van Royen with cheques. Engelbrecht paid for the purchase and installation of the press and two new types. The costs amounted to approximately 5800 guilders from which Engelbrecht received nothing in return. A written agreement was lacking, but his involvement remained undisputed even after the death of Van Royen. When the heirs donated the press with archive to the Dutch state, Engelbrecht’s name stood in the deed of donation.

S.H. de Roos designed the Zilver type and Pissarro the Distel type (cut by Edward Prince); the Amsterdam Type Foundry cast both types. The Distel type, based on Carolingian script and Italian incunabula, was intended as ‘a powerful, as it were, youthful type’ for publications of medieval religious songs and literature from the Golden Age (a reference to Van Eyck’s older publishing programme). ‘De Roos’ type’, he wrote to Engelbrecht, who was kept informed of every detail, ‘is more modern (though relying on the most beautiful renaissance scripts such as Jenson and Ratdolt)’ and would be used for the ‘new writers’ that is to say, ‘Shelley, Keats, Browning’.

As with Enschedé, Van Royen threw all his knowledge and ideas into the struggle to design the type. He commented on their drafts in dozens of letters to De Roos and Pissarro. Both designers expertly handled the ‘fuss over such a type’.

De Roos’ type was delayed partly because the working drawings were sent by the foundry in March 1915 (the punches were to be engraved in Germany) and ­became lost. Consequently, Van Royen suddenly had spare time that he filled ‘with the printing of Novalis by Enschedé, our last book there’. In November 1915 the first of the Zilver type arrived at Van Royen’s, ‘It’s magnificent! So I am thus burning to finally get going with composing and printing’. The Distel type was not ready until late 1916.

Printer’s device for De Zilverdistel, designed by ­Lucien Pissarro, 1917. Proof with corrections in ­pencil by J.F. van Royen and print from the electrotype after corrections. Private collection. (MM)

Friedrich von Hardenberg genannt Novalis, Die Gedichte. Im Haag, De Zilverdistel, 1915, p. 12-13. MM: B 002 D 020. (MM)

On 22 November 1915, Van Royen was as happy as a child when he first set a text in Zilver type: ‘Last night at 6 o’clock was an historic moment!’ He hand printed a proof which, although he described it as ‘very imperfect’, he felt ‘looked like a page from an Italian incunable’.

Finally he printed one book for De Zilverdistel in Distel type, Suster Bertken (colophon April 1918, ­published in July 1918) and four in Zilver type: Over boekkunst en De Zilverdistel (colophon 28 March, 1916, published in June 1916); J.H. Leopold’s Cheops (colophon July 1916, published August 1916); Shelley’s Prometheus unbound (colophon May 1916 to November 1917, published in March 1918); and Willem Kloos, Verzen (colophon September 1919, published July 1920). Van Royen began Kunera Pers in 1922 and later printed - exactly the opposite in terms of type choice – four books in Distel type and one in Zilver type. (PvC)