Forum Rare Books

Stage design for the Real Teatro di San Carlo at Naples: 18 hand-coloured lithographs

CANNA, Pasquale. Raccolta di disegni alla Sacra Real Maestà D.A M.ria Cristina Borbone Regina di Spagna ed delle Indie.
[Naples, 1828-1831?]. Oblong 1mo (39×50 cm). One letterpress leaf dated 22 August 1830, mounted on flyleaf, and 18 hand-coloured lithographs, dated from 1828 to 1831, drawn on stone by Angelo Belloni, Federico Gatt, Gaetano Dura and Settimio Severo Lopresti, and printed by the "Reale Litografia Militare". Contemporary green half sheepskin, gold-tooled spine, front board with letterpress title-label. Full description

€ 68,500

Architecture Italy Music, Theatre & Dance Prints & Print Series

67 drawings of horses in harness, drawn by a leading Imperial harness maker as a sample book

[CARRIAGE HORSE TACK]. FÖLSCH, Michael. [Sample book of harness designs and other elaborate and decorative carriage horse tack].
[Vienna, ca. 1790?]. 2 volumes. Oblong small folio (23.5 x 37 cm and 25.5 x 39.5 cm). With 67 pen-and-ink, watercolour and gouache drawings of horses, most highlighted with silver and gold , all signed, most trimmed and mounted on blank leaves ca. 1805. With 2 etchings added at the end of volume 1, executed by Friedrich Leopold Bürde and dated 1812. Volume 1 stab-sewn, volume 2 with the leaves mounted on stubs and sewn through the folds, each with marbled paper wrapped around the spine. In an early 19th-century half tanned sheepskin box in the form of a book, metal hook-clasps. Full description

€ 85,000

Art & Art History Drawings & Watercolours Horses & Horsemanship Manuscripts & Documents

2 unpublished botanical manuscripts, with illustrations and descriptions
of 30 flowering plants and 90 trees and shrubs

CARRIÉRE, Jan Ph. Herbarium van bloemen en planten. 1ste deel.
[Watergraafsmeer, ca. 1884]. 1 volume. Small folio (22.5×20.5 cm). With 30 drawings of flowers in watercolour and ink, each with a description in Dutch on a separate leaf. The whole preceded by a title-page, a table of contents (1 page), and an introduction (2 pages). Contemporary black cloth, rebacked, modern endpapers.
With: (2) CARRIÉRE, Jan Ph. Herbarium van naar de natuurgeteekende bladeren, "afdeeling boomgewassen". [Title volume 2:] Herbarium van boombladeren.
Watergraafsmeer, 1884. 3 volumes. Small folio (22.5×20.5 cm). With 90 drawings of tree leaves in watercolour and ink, with a description in Dutch on a separate leaf. The first two volumes each with a title-page, a table of contents (1 page) and an introduction (1 page), and the third volume without preliminaries. Contemporary blue (vols. 1-2) and black (vol. 3) half cloth. The third volume rebacked with original backstrip laid down. Full description

€ 5,500

Arboriculture & Dendrology Drawings & Watercolours Flowering Plants Manuscripts & Documents

The Ottoman Empire from a French perspective in 75 strikingly handcoloured plates

CASTELLAN, Antoine Laurent. Moeurs, usages, costumes des Othomans, et abrégé de leur histoire. Avec des éclaircissemens tirés d'ouvrages orientaux, et communiqués par M. Langlès.
Paris, Nepveu, 1812. 6 volumes. 18mo (14 x 9 cm). With 75 hand-coloured engraved plates: a frontispiece in each volume and 17, 17, 9, and 26 plates in volumes 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively. Most plates depict costumes, but also tools and instruments are shown. All plates are very detailed and beautifully coloured by hand, in very fresh contemporary colouring, some even finished with gold. Contemporary gold- and blined-toole purpleish-black morocco. Full description

€ 6,500

Anthropology & Ethnography Costumes & Uniforms Turkey & Ottoman Empire

Two of the finest 17th-century Dutch gardening books

CAUSÉ, Hendrik. De koninglycke hovenier aanwyzende de middelen om boomen, bloemen en kruyden te zaayen, planten, aen queeken en voort teelen.
Amsterdam, Marcus Doornick, [1676]. With engraved title-page and 31 engraved plates, including 2 bird's-eye views of a French and a Dutch royal garden, 5 plates with two pomological illustrations each, 8 plates with two illustrations of flowers each and 16 plates with a total of 32 garden designs.
With: (2) COMMELIN, Jan. Nederlantze Hesperides, dat is, oeffening en gebruik van de limoen- en oranje-boomen, gestelt na den aardt, en climaat der Nederlanden.
Amsterdam, Marcus Doornick, 1676. With engraved title-page and 26 engraved plates showing flowers, fruits and orangeries. 2 works in 1 volume. Folio (35 x 23 cm). Contemporary vellum, recased. Full description

€ 15,000

Arboriculture & Dendrology Castles, Gardens & Mansions Fruit Culture Horticulture

First edition of a famous and extraordinary book on perspective, with 80 engraved illustrations,
in a very rare issue, not in the ESTC

CAUS (CAULS), Salomon de. La perspective avec la raison, des ombres et miroirs.
London, John Norton [printed partly by Jan Mommaert the elder in Brussels and partly by Richard Field in London], 1612. Royal folio (52 x 28.5 cm). With engraved title-page and 80 etched and engraved illustrations: 64 on otherwise blank pages, mostly on integral leaves (2 across double-pages, further mostly full-page), and 16 on the text pages (from small to half-page). Contemporary dark brown calf. Rebacked, restored and with new endpapers. engraved title + [5], 49, [16] ll. including engravings. Full description

€ 22,500

Art & Art History Optics & Perspective

Oval portrait painting of Voltaire

CERF, J. de. [Oval miniature portrait painting of Voltaire].
[France?], "1687" [= ca. 1735?]. Oval portrait painting (11 x 9 cm) in grisaille on copper, with a note on the back "J. de Cerf A[nn]o 1687". Mounted in a gilt rectangular wooden frame (34.5 x 28 cm). Full description

€ 9,500

France French Literature Philosophy & Esotericism

Justice done by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy to the Governor of Zeeland,
who had killed a man and raped his wife

[CHARLES THE BOLD]. Justitie van Carel den Stouten, Hert[og]: van Bourg[ondië]: etc. Grave van Holl[and]: Zel[and]: etc. over seker gouv[erneur]: in Zelant.
[Amsterdam?], Joachim Bormeester, [ca. 1690]. Oblong 1mo (full sheet) broadside (41 x 50.5 cm). An engraved print with extensive engraved texts in Dutch, the central scene (33.5 x 31 cm) flanked by 6 smaller scenes, with the title above the central scene (in roman capitals with I and V for UJ and U), 5 lines of verse (a couplet in 1 line followed by a 4-line verse) below each smaller scene and the story in prose in the foot of the engraving. Hand-coloured and highlighted in gold. Full description

€ 850

Art & Art History Law & Politics Netherlands Prints & Print Series

Rare first and only editions of Neo-Latin poems on ships and monkeys

CHARLEVAL, Charles-François de. Navis carmen.
Rennes, widow of Mathurnus Denys, 1695. With a folding engraved plate of a 44-gun ship.
With: (2) CHARLEVAL, Charles-François de. Simius carmen.
Rennes, widow of Mathurnus Denys, [ca. 1695]. 2 works in 1 volume. 8vo. Contemporary calf, gold-tooled spine. 34, [2 blank], 31 pp. Full description

€ 2,950

Caricature & Satire French Literature Literature Ships & Shipbuilding

Very rare children's book on the peoples of the world, with 24 hand-coloured costume plates

[CHILDREN'S BOOK - GEOGRAPHY - ANTHROPOLOGY]. Kleine Völker-Gallerie für Kinder in unterhaltenden Erzählungen von den Sitten, Meinungen, Gebräuchen und Kleidungen fremder Nationen, mit vier und zwanzig kolorirten Kupfern.
Köln, 1811. 12mo. With 24 numbered engravings (7 x 3 cm) showing the peoples discussed in their traditional costumes, each mounted on a blank leaf. With the engravings coloured as published, as indicated on the title-page. Later gold-tooled half red morocco, red paper over boards, with the title in gold on the spine. 170, [4] pp. Full description