[HERALDRY.]

Manuscripts relating to Low Countries nobility.

[Low Countries, mid-seventeenth century?]

A fine set of manuscripts relating to Low Countries heraldry and history compiled by a learned local antiquary.

£1750

BIANCONI, Giovanni Lodovico. 

Descrizione dei circhi particolarmente di quello di Caracalla e dei giuochi in essi celebrati opera...

Rome, nella stamperia Pagliarini, 1789. 

First edition of this handsome work on the Circus of Maxentius, this copy formerly in the possession of the great French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879). 

£1600

[PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.]

Iubileinyi Al’bom v pamiat’ stoletiia so dnia rozhdeniia poeta 1799–1899 [A Jubilee Album...

St Petersburg, A.F. Marx, 1899.

First edition of an album in celebration of Pushkin, published as a supplement in the literary magazine Niva.

£1500

GRUBBE, Margaret Julia Maria.

Archive of drawings, watercolours, and photographs.

England and Scotland, c. 1900 – 1960s.

A charming archive of the Suffolk artist Margaret Grubbe (1911–97), granddaughter of the painter John Seymour Lucas, comprising dozens of family photographs and over 150 of her drawings and watercolours, tracing her development as an artist from her childhood into middle age.

£1500

ZACHARIÄ, Just Friedrich Wilhelm.

Les quatre parties du jour, poëme traduit de l’allemand de M. Zacharie.

Paris, J. B. G. Musier fils, 1769.

First edition in French of this proto-Romantic poem on the times of day, splendidly bound with the arms of its dedicatee, the mentally ill Christian VII of Denmark and Norway.

£1500

PLINY the Elder.

Historiae mundi libri XXXVII, cum castigationibus et adnotationibus doctiss. & variis praeterea lectionibus ex...

Frankfurt, Claude de Marne and heirs of Jean Aubry, 1608.

First Frankfurt edition of Pliny’s Natural History, here bound as an enormous single volume with strikingly decorated edges featuring acorns and scrolls.

£1400

REFELL, A. 

Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...

Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865. 

First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...

£1250

DONI, Antonio Francesco.

Disegno … partito in piu ragionamenti, ne quali si tratta della scoltura e pittura; de colori, de getti,...

Venice, Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1549.

First edition of an important art-theoretical text by the polyglot scholar Anton Francesco Doni (1513–1574) on the Renaissance concept of disegno in contemporary sculpture and painting, a notable source text for scholars of Michelangelo and his lifelong rival, Baccio Bandinelli.

£1250

‘WOODLAND SKETCHES.

With poetical Selections …

Frome. 1836’.

A delightful illustrated manuscript commonplace of uncommonly coherent design, assembling relevant quotations from Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Cowper, Spenser, Coleridge, and others, alongside illustrations of ten British trees – Beech, Willow, White Poplar, Cedar, Elm, Pine, Oak, Birch, Yew,...

£1250

BELLARMINO, Roberto.

De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis liber unus. Adiunctis indicibus undecim, & brevi chronologia ab orbe condito...

Paris, Sébastien Cramoisy, 1658.

An uncut copy of Bellarmino’s bibliography of ecclesiastical writers, with extensive eighteenth-century annotations and additions.

£1250

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

[SOCIETY OF ARTISTS.]

A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Designs in Architecture, Drawings, Prints, &c. Exhibited...

Printed by Harriot Bunce, Printer to the Society. 1774.

First edition of the Catalogue for the selling exhibition of 1774. The Society of Artists emerged in 1760 as a loose association of artists, including Joshua Reynolds and Francis Hayman, who wanted greater control over exhibitions of their work than they experienced under William Shipley’s Society...

£1100

THOMAS, Dylan, and Sir Peter Blake, illustrator.

Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices.

London: Apple Litho (Bristol) Ltd. for Enitharmon Editions and Queen Anne Press, 2013.

De Luxe edition, number 61 of 100 copies with a signed print by Blake. This finely-produced edition was published to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas’s birth and celebrates the culmination of over twenty-five years of work by Peter Blake, one of the founding fathers of British Pop Art. The...

£975

CARDONNEL, Adam de.

Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland [I–II] …

London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Edwards … also by Edwards’s, in Halifax. 1788.

First edition, the very rare issue with the plates in sepia, printed directly onto thick wove paper.

£975

PERUCCI, Francesco.

Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.

Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.

First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....

£975

RAM RAZ. 

Essay on the Architecture of the Hindús … with forty-eight Plates. 

London, John William Parker for the Royal Asiatic Society, 1834. 

First edition, scarce on the market, of this pioneering and handsomely illustrated essay on Indian architecture by the linguist and lawyer Ram Raz (c. 1790–c. 1833). 

£975

CASAL, Ugo Alfonso.

A small archive of letters, photographs, and typescript material on his collection of Japanese lacquers.

[Japan and California, 1930–1955.]

A fascinating archive relating to the extensive Japanese lacquer collection of the Swiss–Japanese banker Ugo Alfonso Casal, including photographs, a 5370-item inventory of his collection, and several lectures on the history and production techniques of Japanese lacquerware.

£975

[PSALMS.]

Psalmi Davidis regis et vatis inclyti, a M. Antonio Flaminio & P. Francisco Spinula pietis elegantissimis, Latinis...

Antwerp, [(colophon:) Jan Verwithagen for Joannes Steelsius], 1559.

A collection of verse paraphrases of the Psalms, by the poets and humanist scholars Marcantonio Flaminio (1498–1550) and Publio Francesco Spinola (c. 1520–1567), bound for Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553–1617).

£975

[PSALMS.]

Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.

Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.

New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.

£950

[REYNOLDS, Joshua, Sir].

A Discourse, delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2, 1769 [also: October 16,...

London: Printed in the Year 1769.

First editions of seven discourses addressed by Reynolds to the newly founded Royal Academy, of which he was the first President.

£950