Search results
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[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
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[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
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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
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[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
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NIEUHOF, Jean, and Jean LE CARPENTIER (translator).
L’ambassade de la compagnie orientale des provinces unies...
Leiden, Jacob de Meurs, 1665.
Lavishly illustrated first French edition of Nieuhof’s travels through China from 1655 to 1657.
£3500
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[ROUSSEAU, Pierre.]
Considérations sur le théatre de l’opéra. Novembre 1822.
[Paris,] de l’imprimerie de Rignoux, [1822].
Very rare proposal for a new opera house in Paris by the architect Pierre Rousseau (1751–1829), annotated by the author and accompanied by an autograph letter.
£475
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SCARRON, Paul.
Le Marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite à la haste. Comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée a Paris.
[Leiden, Elzevier], 1656.
First Elzevier editions, very rare, of these two plays by Scarron, pirated after the text of the first editions printed in Paris. A finely bound volume with excellent Elzevierian provenance.
£800
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VERLAINE, Paul, and Léon LEBÈGUE (illustrator).
Fêtes gallantes.
Paris, F. Ferroud for the Librairie des Amateurs, 30 July 1913.
Limited edition on vélin teinté d’Arches, numbered 430 of 500 copies, with etchings by Lebègue. First published in 1869, Verlaine’s Fêtes gallantes are here exquisitely printed and illustrated by Léon Lebègue (1863 – 1944) and finely bound by Flammarion.
£750
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[GALEN.] STEPHANUS.
Stephani Atheniensis philosophi explanationes in Galeni priorem librum therapeuticum ad Glauconem, Augustino...
Venice, Giunta, November 1554.
First edition of Agostino Gadaldini’s Latin translation of Galen’s medical treatise Ad Glauconem and of Stephanus’ commentary upon it, enhanced with his own scholia.
£950
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MASTER B.F.
Three very large historiated initials cut from a set of choirbooks.
Italy (Lodi), early sixteenth century.
Three extremely fine initials by the enigmatic artist known as Master B.F., one of the most inventive and accomplished illuminators of the Italian High Renaissance. They come almost certainly from a magnificent set of about twenty choirbooks belonging to the Olivetan monastery of Santi Angelo...
£150000
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[ROUSSEL DE LA TOUR, Claude Pierre GOUJET, and Abbé MINARD, editors.]
Extraits des assertions dangereuses et pernicieuses...
Paris, Pierre-Guillaume Simon, 1762.
First edition of this systematic selection of Jesuit writings intended to demonstrate the many dangerous ideas endorsed by the Order, arranged under headings including probabilism, simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, astrology, idolatry, perjury, homicide, and regicide.
£1500
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[VERACI, Gaetano.]
Nuova cicalata sopra la coda in forma di lettera responsiva alla Signora N.N.
[S.l., s.n,. c. 1770.]
Second edition, extremely rare and significantly expanded, of this highly suggestive, mock-academic panegyric on the ‘tail’.
£850
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FENOUILLOT DE FALBAIRE, Charles-Georges.
Le fabricant de Londres, drame en cinq actes et en prose; représenté à la Comédie...
Paris, chez Delalain, 1771.
First edition of a London-set play by the French dramatist and contributor to the Encyclopédie, Fenouillot de Falbaire (1727–1800), illustrated with five fine plates after Gravelot.
£250
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ST JOHN, Spenser Buckingham.
Life in the Forests of the Far East.
London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1862.
First edition. A richly illustrated account of pioneering expeditions on the island of Borneo, by St John (1825-1910), who had been introduced to Sir James Brooke (the ‘White Raja’) in 1847, when Brooke was visiting England. St John ‘was quickly caught by Brooke’s charm and accompanied him as...
£850
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MARVIN, Charles.
The Russians at Merv and Herat and their power of invading India …
London, W.H. Allen & Co., 1883.
First edition of this work on the Russian threat to India by Charles Marvin (1854-1890), ‘the most widely read writer on Anglo-Russian matters of his day’ (Hopkirk).
£875
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ANTIPHONAL,
with neumes, containing antiphons, responses and versicles for Trinity Sunday, the Octave of Pentecost, Sundays after...
Germany, 1st half of 12th century.
Two bifolia from a notably early antiphonal.
£5000
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[CARDUCCI, Giosuè, Olindo GUERRINI, et al., editors.]
...
Bologna, 19 April [– 29 June] 1874.
Very rare complete run of this short-lived satirical magazine against the pro-government newspaper Il Monitore, produced by a group of young liberals from Bologna including the poets Giosuè Carducci and Olindo Guerrini.
£1000
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RISLEY, Herbert Hope, Sir et al.
The gazetteer of Sikhim. With an introduction by H. H. Risley ... Edited in the Bengal Government...
Calcutta, printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press, 1894.
First edition of this comprehensive survey of Sikkim, in northeast India (bordering Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and West Bengal), which had become a princely state of British India in 1890. The chapters cover, inter alia, the region’s history, geography, laws, geology, agriculture, vegetation, butterflies,...
£2500
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CALMET, Antoine Augustin.
Commentaire litteral sur tous les livres de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament. Les deux livres d’Esdras,...
Paris, Pierre Emery, 1712.
First edition of the commentary on the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, and Esther by the French Benedictine Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672–1757), from the library of the last male descendant of the distinguished Colbert family.
£450
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MAGRE, Maurice.
Les trois métiers de Jeannet. Les bons tours d’Yan.
Paris, Hachette (Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles), [s.d. (but 1911?)].
Two scarce children’s stories, published as part of Hachette’s ‘Bibliothèque des écoles et des familles’.
£125