Thirty-four etchings by Gérard de Lairesse ('The Dutch Poussin'), including some of the designs collected and published in ''Opus Elegantissimum' by Nicolaes Visscher II, and republished by Nicolaes Visscher II and republished by Gerard Valck.

Most of de Lairesse's plates were, as the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings notes, 'originally published by Nicolaes Visscher, who published a collected edition under the title "Opus Elegantissimum" in c.1675. The BM holds an album bound in vellum containing the Gerard Valck edition of 'Opus Elegantissimum', a selection of numbered etchings by Lairesse and 13 unnumbered etchings and mezzotints by other printmakers (Valck, van den Berghe and Blooteling) after Lairesse'. BMPD also notes that almost all copies of 'Opus Elegantissimum' show differences in content and order: 'Timmers (p.83) records four editions of the plates: 1. with Visscher's address, 2. with Valck's added, 3. with the plates numbered, 4. with Schenk's address.' The 34 etchings are printed, side by side in pairs, on sixteen pieces of laid paper, mostly watermarked and of several different types. One of the pieces has been cut down irregularly to around 12.5 x 19.5 cm; the other fifteen pieces are untrimmed, and range in size from 16 x 26.5 cm to 13 x 24.5 cm, with the engravings themselves from 13.5 x 11 cm to 11 x 9 cm. The overall condition of the collection is good. The trimmed piece of paper is in good condition, on lightly-aged paper; the fifteen untrimmed pieces each carry minor traces from previous mounting on grey paper on their reverses; twelve of them are also in good condition, lightly-aged, while the other three (numbered 34, 37 and 38) are only fair, aged and grubby with a couple of closed tears. Each of the fifteen untrimmed pieces carries an engraved number in the bottom right-hand corner: 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46 and 49. Only five of the engravings have captions: 29, left: 'Debellare Superbos'; 29, right: 'Quia vidisti me Thoma Credidisti. | Beati qui non viderunt et Crediderunt. | Joani. C. 20 v 8'; 30, left: 'Sapientia Unigena Dei Maximi.'; 30, right: 'Beata Theresia.'; 46, left: 'IRA.'