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Verzaameling van alle de huizen en prachtige gebouwen langs de Keizers

PHILIPS JACOBSZ, Caspar. Verzaameling van alle de huizen en prachtige gebouwen langs de Keizers en Heere-Grachten der stadt Amsteldam. Letterpress title-page, 2 pages list of householders, plus 24 double-spread engraved plates. Folio, 420 x 280 mm., bound in later tan half calf over marbled boards. Amsterdam: Bernardus Mourik, (1768). First edition of this rare and very important study of Amsterdam architecture, presenting detailed depictions of 1400 facades of homes and buildings along Amsterdam's major residential and business canals (the Heerengracht and Keizergracht). It is significant that the buildings are reproduced precisely as they appeared in the mid-eighteenth century. As the title indicates, this "Collection of all the houses and beautiful buildings along the Amsterdam canals" features etchings of the house fronts in a "mirrored" fashion. The buildings on the right bank of the "gracht" appear directly across from their respective building on the opposite side of the canal. The significance of the work is attested by the numerous facsimile reprints of it. The undated late eighteenth-century reprint (ca. 1790) can be detected by the presence of "J.B. Elwe" as the publisher's name in the imprint. Caspar Philips (1732-1785) was an etcher, engraver, illustrator, and surveyor, and author (he published several books on perspective). His Verzaameling is justly considered to be one of the great primary documents for the study of Amsterdam architectural heritage. With the rare list of householders. Vente Leonhardt ("Atlas van Amsterdam") 85.
  • $8,750
  • $8,750
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Notes in Hand. ORIGINAL PUBLISHER’S MAQUETTE.

ORIGINAL PUBLISHER'S MAQUETTE OLDENBURG, Claes. Notes in Hand. 50 archival folders (numbered 1-50), one for each image in the published work (London: Petersburg Press, 1972), consisting of developmental collages, working drafts with annotations, paste-ups, corrections and some drawings in the hand of Claes Oldenburg, accompanied by related imagery and texts for covers, miscellaneous documents, working documents and drafts for two rejected images (nos. "45" and "48") which apparently remain unpublished. Sizes vary: folders measure 405 x 320 mm, and are preserved in two black cloth protective boxes. S.n., n.d. (1969-1970). Original maquette for Notes in Hand, Oldenburg's best-known book and one of the primary examples of Pop Art in book form. The present archive remains the ONLY record of the creation of the book itself. There are as many as ten proposed variations for each page in the published version, with numerous additions, changes and emendations, both in drawing and text, in Oldenburg's hand. This ensemble of proofs follows Oldenburg's thought process along the stages of production. This archive was collected and preserved by the Petersburg Press, the publishers of Notes in Hand. The original drawings are in the collection of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, with the exception of no. 12, which is in the collection of Joseph Kosuth and Cornelia Lauf, and no. 50, which is unlocated. In the preface to Notes in Hand, Oldenburg describes how he created an entirely new work in the published volume, differing significantly from the drawings. Photostats were made from black-and-white prints of the original drawings, then the artist applied new colours, different from the originals. He identified the new colours by reference to a colour chart -- this information was mailed to London to be translated and passed on to the printers in Stuttgart by Hansjorg Mayer. "It pleased me to give instructions in numbers and words and have them come back as colours." The present archive must be seen to be fully appreciated. In fine condition. An exceptional primary document of the Pop Art movement. PROVENANCE: Paul Cornwall-Jones, publisher of Petersburg Press. Axsom and Platzker, Oldenburg: Printed Stuff, pp. 168-196.
  • $85,000
  • $85,000
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Voyage dans la Lune

DE VILLE D'AVRAY, A. Voyage dans la Lune avant 1900. [2], 50 ff., all colour lithographs. Oblong folio, 270 x 215 mm., bound in original publisher's red cloth, upper cover stamped in gilt. Paris: Librairie Furne, Jouvet & Cie., Editeurs, [ca. 1890s]. Only edition of this extraordinary children's book, executed entirely in colour lithography by Hérold & Cie., 131 Blvd. St. Michel, Paris, after original designs by the author, about whom nothing is known. In the 'Préface' he states that he composed the work for his children "sheet by sheet during the long evenings of winter." This work is evidently of the greatest rarity and is not listed in any bibliography or library catalogue consulted by us. There are several interesting parallels between the present work and the famous film of the same name by Georges Méliès (1902), a fourteen-minute masterpiece based on Jules Verne's De la Terre a la lune and Autour de la lune. Among the similarities are the references to the French learned society, the smiling face of the moon, the desolate lunar surface, the Earth's surface in the background, volcanic explosions, a lunar grotto, lunar mushrooms, using an umbrella to repel moon inhabitants, etc. However, there are many significant differences between the works, namely the vehicle of transport used here is a balloon (as opposed to a rocket), and in the present volume there is a profusion of surreal, monstrous characters throughout. At one point the two protagonists, MM. Baboulifiche and his servant Papavoine, are taken by gigantic bats to Saturn, where they die several deaths (including being eaten by ants and flying lizards). The story turns out to be the product of fantasy: in the end M. Baboulifiche wakes up -- it was all a horrible dream. Another inspiration for this work might have been the "Opéra-féerie" in four acts by Albert Vanloo, E. Leterrier and Arnold Mortier, with music by Offenbach, which was staged 248 times between 1875 and 1877. A fantastic and intriguing volume, preserved in extremely fresh state with just occasional marginal spotting.
  • $4,250
  • $4,250
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Le Theatre des bons engins

LA PERRIÈRE, Guillaume de. Le Theatre des bons engins, Auquel sont continuz cent Emblemes moraux. 56 ff., (signatures A-G8 with the last blank), containing 100 woodcut emblems, each with dizain by La Perrière. 16 mo, 120 x 75 mm., bound in old stiff vellum. Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1561. La Perrière's Theatre des bons engins is the earliest, and probably the most popular and influential French emblem book. The woodcut illustrations depict fishing, bird catching, chess playing, card playing, oil painting and two scenes of court tennis, as well as symbolic, allegorical and emblematic imagery often incorporating mythological figures and animals. The editions published by Jean de Tournes in Lyons in 1545 and thereafter contain newly designed woodcuts and the addition of moralizing titles, it is the model that was followed in both the subsequent Dutch and English versions of the Theatre as well as other in emblem books. Guillaume de la Perrière (1499-1565), a native of Toulouse, was much involved in the cultural life of that city. Between 1537 and 1552 he was responsible for recording the chronicles of Toulouse, and in 1535 as well as presenting an early manuscript version of his first emblem book to Marguerite de Navarre. He was a keen advocate of the vernacular (and under his regime the Toulouse chronicles were for the first time written in French rather than Latin), and it is significant that his purely French Theatre was clearly much more popular in market terms than his Latin/French second emblem book, the Morosophie, which ran to only two editions. As well as the Theatre and Morosophie he also produced two other collections of verses that could also be considered to be emblem books, the Cent considerations d'amour (1543) and the Considerations des quatre mondes (1552), both published in Lyons like his Morosophie and later editions of the Theatre. OCLC lists copies of the 1545 edition in the BN and the Institut de France, but no copies of any other de Tournes edition.
  • $12,500
  • $12,500
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Onomystrya

ELY, Timothy. Onomystrya. One-of-a-kind manuscript book. 20 pp., consisting of title with 18 painted and drawn folios, drawn and painted throughout by Timothy Ely with each page containing drawings in ink, dry pigments, watercolour, gouache, dilute acrylics and gilded metals. 8vo, 375 x 225 mm., bound in black metallic on boards, relief lettering with decorative highlights, preserved in new cloth box. Portland, Oregon: Timothy Ely, 1994. Unique painted manuscript. Timothy Ely's Onomystrya is a visual laboratory, a metaphysical realm, consisting of symbolic images of architecture, floorplans, geometry, perspective, celestial spheres, phantasmagoric spaces, ideograms, horizons and symbolic mathematical writing. The mystical text, labeled "cribiform" by the artist, is a hybrid of scripts by ancient scribes, engravers and calligraphers, Chinese characters, ciphers, Egyptian hieroglyphics, cryptographs, codes and various secret writings. The cribiform is meant to function "as an intermediary to other types of meaning." Certainly, the connection to Carl Jung's theories on single marks and symbols as messages from the collective unconscious comes immediately to mind. This painted manuscript echoes the style and interpretative world of illustrated works of Pacioli, Vitruvius, Serlio, Boullée, Tyco Brahe, Mercator, Celarius, Leonardo and Galileo, as well as evoking the modern sensibility of Max Ernst and Iliazd, as seen in their masterpiece Maximiliana of 1964. Timothy Ely began making books in the 1950s with one surviving example from that time: a small cookbook covered in stars. Ely has taught bookbinding, drawing and creativity workshops in many places in the world from Scandinavia to Central America. His books and other works can be found in museums and libraries, most extensively in the United States and Europe.
  • $22,500
  • $22,500
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Depero Futurista

DEPERO, Fortunato. Depero Futurista. 118 ff., printed on various paper stocks, of which some are coloured; most versos blank. Illustrated with 28 halftone plates in text, 2 in colour. Line-block illustrations and typographic designs throughout, many printed in red and black. Oblong 4to, 245 x 322 mm., bound in flexible blue boards, printed in black and white, secured with massive metal bolts, as issued. Preserved in a black cloth box. Milano/ New York/ Paris/ Berlin: Edizione Italiana Dinamo Azari, 1927. Depero's famous "Futurist bolted book," from his own design, is an anthology of his theatrical and commercial designs from 1913 to 1927, long regarded as one of the avant-garde masterpieces in the history of the book-object, and likely the inspiration for Duchamp's Boite en valise. "Depero Futurista exemplifies many of the Futurist innovations: witty typographical effects, the use of colored inks and decorated paper, and the brilliant idea of dynamo binding, making the book seem like a machine" (Jentsch). "[This] book Is Mechanical, bolted like a motor, Dangerous, can constitute a projectile weapon. Unclassifiable, cannot fit into a library with the other volumes. And therefore it is in its exterior form Original, Invasive, and Assaulting, like Depero and his art" (from the preface to the work). Stated limitation of 1000 numbered copies (never completed). Discreet ownership stamp on front free endpaper, and faint trace of ownership stamp on title-page. Head of spine a little bumped, overall, a fine copy. Jentsch, The Artist and the Book in twentieth Century Italy No. 177. See: Del Junco, Futurist Depero, 2014.
  • $38,500
  • $38,500
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Quaestiones definitae ex triplici philosophia

FARNESE, Ottavio. Quaestiones definitae ex triplici Philosophia, Rationali, Naturali, Morali, in Parmensi Academia Publicè triduum disputatae ab Octavio Farnesio. [8], 374 i.e. 372, [8] pp. (including final blank), illustrated with engraved allegorical title, large folding dedicatory engraving to Pope Paul V (450 x 580 mm.), 75 figurative calligraphic woodcuts, 45 ornamental calligraphic woodcuts, 80 large historiated and/or decorative woodcut initials, final engraved printer's mark. Folio, 325 x 220 mm., bound in full seventeenth-century Italian vellum, gilt-tooled ornamental border on covers. Binding and tears on: title page, two pages and folding plate skillfully repaired. Small collection stamp on title page. Parmae: Ex typographia Antei Viothi, 1613. First and only edition of this calligraphic woodcut-illustrated book. The work was dedicated to the Borghese Pope Paul V. Exhibiting brilliance at the age of fourteen when this work was published, Ottavio Farnese's precocious learning is showcased by this erudite volume. The text consists of 2370 questions (Quaestiones), a method representing the standard educational practices of the time. The book's basic tenet uses the University of Parma's method of teaching from the three branches of Aristotle's philosophy (rational, natural, and moral) by proposing questions and eliciting answers. These Quaestiones led to verbal discourse and instructive philosophical discovery. The tour de force of this precious book, however, is found in the artistic calligraphic illustrations, perhaps the earliest of their kind. The refined woodcuts depict full human figures, a seated lion, frogs, grasshoppers, birds, musical instruments, a sphinx, harpies, an axe and hammer, putti playing tambourines, turtles, storks, roosters, vases, skull and cross-bones, etc., withal created by a single uninterrupted line. The larger illustrations are signed "Ferrarius incid." after "Brondulus invent." (G.F. Brondolo?). The artist Brondulus has never been identified. The impressive allegorical title-page was designed by Malosso of Cremona, i.e. Giovanni Battista Trotti (1565-1619) and engraved by Francesco Villamena (1566-1624). The large, folding dedicatory engraving is unsigned, although stylistically it can safely be attributed to the artists of the title-page Trotti and Villamena. Its design incorporates 18 allegorical muses seated on top of or within niches of a triumphal arch or frons scenae; at center is the Borghese Pope's coat-of-arms placed over a central archway in which reclines the Borghese dragon before a scene of the Vatican garden in the distance. With wood-engraved printer's device at colophon (unicorn in country landscape). Ottavio Farnese (1598-1643) suffered an ill-starred life. He was the illegitimate son of the reigning Duke of Parma, Ranuncio I Farnese. In 1600 his father married Margherita Aldobrandini, and due to the fact that their marriage produced no offspring, in 1605 Ottavio was legitimized by Ranuncio, who groomed him to be his successor as Duke. However, in 1612 Margherita conceived a legitimate heir Odoardo. One year later, shortly after the publication of this brilliant disputation in 1613, Ottavio was incarcerated in the notorious prison in Parma La Rocchetta by the oppressive and paranoid Duke. The young prince was stripped of his feudal titles (Fiorenzuola, Borgo San Donnino, Ortona, Altamura, Castellamare, Leonessa, Cittaducale, Val di Nure, etc., etc.) and was left to languish in the prison for the next thirty years, dying there in 1643, probably of the plague. Ottavio's name survives in history books only as a melancholy footnote. Exceedingly rare: only one copy sold at auction as listed in ABPC (1987). OCLC lists six copies in the U.S.: the Getty Research Institute, Harvard (lacking large dedicatory plate), Newberry and St. Bonaventure Library, The Morgan, and LOC; 3 in Germany: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich, Sachsische Landesbibliothek Dresden, and Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen -Nürnberg and 3 in Great Britain: Wellcome Library, Victoria and Albert, and the National Art Library. Brunet II, 1185. Bernard Quaritch, Exhibition of Early Woodcut Books, 15 Picadilly, London: 1869, lot #313, identified then as: "Extremely Rare." Not in Berlin Katalog, Bonacini, Morrison, Becker, Cicognara, Praz, Guilmard, Vinet.
  • $15,000
  • $15,000