PONTIFICAL-MISSAL,

Use of Luçon, in Latin, with readings for the Fourth Week of Lent and Holy Thursday in the Temporal;

France (Paris), late fourteenth century.

A rediscovered leaf from the Missal of Etienne de Loypeau, bishop of Luçon, with a miniature by the so-called Master of Death and border decoration attributable to the ‘A Master’ of the Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry.

£17500

[SPINELLI.]

Illuminated arms of the Spinelli family of Florence.

Italy (Florence), c. 1460s.

Florentine border decoration of very high quality from what must have been a luxurious manuscript produced for a member of the wealthy Spinelli family. Sadly there is no indication of the contents of the parent manuscript, nor have we been able to identify a likely candidate, but ruling just visible...

£3000

[LE NOBLE, Pierre, and Eustache LE NOBLE (attributed).] 

Les Amours d’Anne d’Austriche, Epouse de Louis 13. ...

‘A Cologne, Chez Pierre Marteau, 1696’ [France, early eighteenth century]. 

An early manuscript copy of a salacious – and treasonous – history arguing that Louis XIV was the illegitimate child of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Richelieu, bound with four engravings. 

£850

MIRANDULA (or MIRANDOLA), Ottaviano. 

Illustrium poetarum flores. 

Antwerp, Joannes Bellerus, 1563. 

A remarkable copy, with numerous and eloquent contemporary annotations and additions in a French hand, of a scarce edition of an extremely popular collection of quotes and passages from classics of poetry, published by the renowned Flemish printer and composer Joannes Bellerus (Jean Bellère,...

£1950

LE CLERC, Sébastien, the Elder. 

Figures de la passion D. N. S. Iesus Christ presentées à Madame Madame de Maintenon, par...

Paris, chez G. Audran graveur ordinaire du Roy, [early 1700s]. 

Scarce later issue of this wonderful suite of engravings depicting the Passion of Christ by the noted engraver Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714), running from Christ’s arrival in the Garden of Olives to the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles. 

£675

[MONTANUS, Arnoldus.]

Ambassades mémorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des Provinces Unies, vers les empereurs du Japon....

Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1680.

First edition in French of an important and influential study of Japan by the Dutch theologian and historian Arnoldus Montanus, based on eyewitness accounts from two Dutch East India Company (VOC) missions to Japan in 1649 and 1661.

£4500

HUGO, Victor.

Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].

Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.

First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.

£7500

HUME, David.

Histoire de la maison de Tudor sur le trône d’Angleterre … traduit de l’anglois par Madame B***.

Amsterdam [i.e. Paris], 1763.

A very fine set of the first French edition of Hume’s history of Tudor England.

£600

[EROTICA.] 

Pencil drawing of a woman in eighteenth-century hunting dress. 

[France, early nineteenth century?] 

A fine erotically-charged figure study of a woman in rather masculine eighteenth-century French hunting dress, seemingly pleasuring herself for the gratification of the viewer.

£6500

NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández. 

Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.  Descripcion...

Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676. 

Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689). 

£4750

[CHANSONS.]

Manuscript collection of arias, chansons, and romances, including pieces by Bianchi, Bruni, Paisiello, Beauvarlet-Charpentier...

c. 1795.

A fascinating manuscript collection of French songs, both operatic and popular, compiled in the years after the Thermidorean Reaction and the execution of Robespierre.

£2400

[WALLOON CHURCH AMSTERDAM.] 

Ordres et reglemens de la maison des orphelins, des vieillards, et des vielles femmes de l’eglise...

Amsterdam, David Pierre Humbert, 1772.

Very rare set of regulations governing the charitable house for orphans and the elderly founded by the Walloon Church in Amsterdam in 1631, with manuscript additions updating the lists of its male and female governors up to 1795.

£1450

[MURAT, J.-B. de.] 

La destinée d’une jolie femme, poème érotique, en six chants, par J.B… de M… 

Paris, Langlois for Mongie, An XI (1803). 

First and only edition, very scarce, of this humorous moralising tale of love and loss in verse, intended for a female readership and hidden under the ‘transparent veil’ of erotic poetry. 

£650

MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus.

Les Mistères d’Isis, opéra en quatre Actes. Representé à Paris au théâtre des Arts. Paroles de...

Paris, chez Sieber père … [1801?]

First edition, scarce, printing much of the score Die Zauberflöte (1791) for the first time, albeit in the distorted form of a pasticcio by Ludwig Lachnith, adapted to the tastes of contemporary Paris with a new text by Étienne Morel de Chédeville. The full unadulterated score was not published...

£4250

[MURDER.]

Arrest de la cour du Parlement, qui condamne Pierre Guyon, jardinier, à étre rompu vif ... dans la Place du Pilory...

Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1778.

Very rare decree documenting the crimes and punishment of one Pierre Guyon, a murderous gardener from Poitiers; a case of green fingers turning blood-red.

£175

[LAW.]

Loci communes iuris civilis. Ex mendis tandem, et barbarie, in gratiam studiosorum utiliter restituti. Addita sunt praesumptionum...

Lyon, Sebastien Gryphius, 1545.

Scarce civil law compendium edited by the German jurist and professor of law at Marburg, Johann Oldendorp (1480-1567), with the help of his student Michael Boldewan, comprising pithy definitions and maxims arranged alphabetically from ‘absentem’ to ‘vox servi’, drawn from legal authorities such...

£300

PEETERS, Jacob.

L’Atlas en abregé, ou nouvelle Description du monde, tirée du meilleurs auteurs de ce siècle …

Antwerp, chez l’auteur, 1692.

First edition of a charming atlas, the best-known production of Jacob Peeters (1637–1695), a Flemish engraver and publisher from an artistic family – his brothers Jan and Bonaventura were both artists. The map of the Americas shows California as an island; the allegorical engraved title features...

£2500

SPON, Jacob.

Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant, fait aux années 1675 et 1676 par Jacob Spon docteur medecin...

Lyons, Antoine Cellier, 1678.

Very rare first edition of ‘one of the most important accounts of travels in the Levant, and the first description of Athens which was systematic, detailed, and trustworthy’ (Blackmer).

£4750

SIMONETTA, Bonifacio.

De Christiane Fidei et Romanorum Pontificum Persecutionibus.

(Colophon:) Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, 1509.

A beautiful copy of the second edition of Simonetta’s principal work, from the library of Christian VI (1699–1746), King of Denmark and Norway, and containing an early yet intriguing reference to the New World.

£4500

[QUESNAY, François].

DU PONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, editor. Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus...

First edition of the ‘Bible’ of the Physiocrats and one of the most important and original works on political economy to be published before the Wealth of Nations. The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...

£37500