Art, Architecture & Photography / Art & Art History

SILVESTRE DE SACY, [Antoine Isaac]. Mémoires sur les antiquités de la Perse et sur lhistoire des Arabes avant Mahomet.
Paris, Eugène Duverger & Jean-Joseph Marcel, Imprimerie Impériale, [1808-1809]. Large 4to (22 x 27.5 cm). With 4 tables. Later red half morocco, marbled sides, title in gold on spine. [6], 47-58, 483-782 pp. Full description

SIRÉN, Osvald. Les palais impériaux de Pékin. Deux cent soixante-quartorze planches hors texte en héliotypie d'apres les photographies de l'auteur, douze dessins architectureaux et deux plans, avec une notice historique ...
Paris & Brussels, G. Vanoest, 1926. 3 volumes. With 12 plans and 2 maps (mostly folding), and a total of 274 collotype plates. Publisher's original, printed, blue paper wrappers. VI, 73, [3 blank]; [3], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank] pp. Full description

SOYTER, Magnus. [Collection of watercolour drawings with manuscript captions].
[Augsburg], 1849-1853. 13 loose wove paper folio leaves and 1 loose wove paper bifolium. Large folio (55 x 35 cm). With 64 watercolours and manuscript captions on 15 leaves (each leaf drawn on one side only). [15] ll. Full description

[SPLENDID CEREMONY - MECHELEN]. Prael-treyn verrykt door ry-benden, praelwagens, zinne-beelden en andere oppronkingen...
Mechelen, J.F. vander Elst, [1775?].
With:
(2) [SPLENDID CEREMONY - BRUSSELS]. Beschryvinge van de ry-bende ofte cavalcade..
Brussels, J. vanden Berghen, [1770].
(3) [MEYER, Jean Thomas]. Beschryvinge van het zeven honderdjaerig jubilé van den heyligen Macarius...
Ghent, Jean Meyer, [1767].
3 works in 1 volume. 4to. Ad 1 with an engraved coat of arms, an engraved headpiece, and 16 engraved plates (including 14 folding). Ad 2 with 5 numbered folding engraved plates. Ad 3 with 15 mostly folding engraved plates, including one large folding plate showing fireworks (36.5 x 48 cm). Contemporary calf, gold-tooled spine. [12], 34 [= 38]; 36; [8], XII, 84 pp. Full description

STEIN, Marc Aurel. On ancient Central-Asian tracks. Brief narrative of three expeditions in innermost Asia and north-western China.
London, MacMillan and Co., 1933. With frontispiece, map and 147 illustrations (some folding). Original publisher's brown/red cloth. xxiv, 342, [2] pp. Full description

SUAREZ DE FIGUEROA, Christobal (Thomaso GARZONI). Plaza universal de todas ciencias, y artes, parte traduzida de Toscano, y parte compuesta por el doctor Christoval Suearez de Figueroa.
Perpignan, Luis Roure, 1630 (colophon: 1629). 4to. With title printed in woodcut border with large woodcut coat of arms; interesting woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces. Contemporary mottled calf. [8], 379, [1 blank] ll. Full description

[SUNQUA (attributed)]. [Album with twelve Chinese pith paintings of court officials].
[Guangzhou (Canton), before 1850]. Folio (ca. 34.5 x 24.5 cm). Gouache and gold on pith paper (ca. 26.5 x 17.5 cm), each drawing is mounted by its corners in an album of mulberry-bark(?) paper (ca. 34 x 24 cm) and framed with a light blue silk ribbon. Contemporary green silk brocade with a floral pattern, pink closing ties. [12] ll. Full description

[TETRAPTYCH ICON]. [Incipit:] Kr[es]tou tvoemou pokli[!]naemsya vl[adi]koi s[vya]toe voskresenie tvoe slavim [= We bow before your cross, master, and praise your holy resurrection].
[Moscow or vicinity?, ca. 1810?]. A Russian Orthodox brass icon comprising 4 panels hinged to each other (15 x 9.5 x 1.5 cm closed; 15 x 35.5 x 0.5 cm open), each of the 4 interior sides with 5 relief scenes with a blue enamel background (1 scene in the onion-dome top and 1 in each of the 4 quarters of the square body), each scene with an inscription above it. Further with a brass relief veneration of the cross on the front of the exterior in a decorated architectural frame, with an oval at the head bearing the text transcribed above. Full description

THIBAULT, Gerard. Academie de l'espée ... ou se demonstrent par reigles mathematiques sur le fondement d'un cercle mysterieux la theorie et pratique des vrais et jusqu'a present incognus secrets du maniement des armes a pied et a cheval.
[Amsterdam?, Thibault heirs?, printed in Leiden by Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevier, sold in Frankfurt by Lucas Jennis], "1628" [= 1629]. 2 parts in 1 volume. Royal 1mo (53.5 x 41 cm). With an elaborate engraved title page with; engraved portrait of the author (drawn by David Bailly after his own painting); 9 full-page engraved armorial plates, 1 full-page and 45 double-page numbered illustration plates, and hundreds of large woodcut arabesque initial letters, headpieces, tailpieces and factotums, at least most of them specially made for this book. With 2 text leaves in a meticulously pen-drawn, 18th-century(?) facsimile. With all plates beautifully coloured by the painter David Bailly with highlights in gold and silver. Contemporary(?) vellum over boards (modified in the 18th century), with the velvet covering and metal bosses and fastenings removed, dark blue edges. With tissues guards loosely inserted before the coloured plates. With a dedicatory inscription on the front free endleaf to Henri de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, by the colourist David Bailly, signed from Antwerp, 17 March 1629. Also with a carefully hand-lettered contemporary note to the reader at the foot of the dedication page. [4], [222]; [54], pp. + engraved title page and other plates. Full description

TIFASHI, Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmed ibn Yusuf al-. [Azhar al-afkar fi jawahir al-ahjar]. Fior di pensieri sulle pietre preziose di Ahmed Teifascite. Opera stampata nel suo originale arabo, colla traduzione Italiana appresso, e diverse note di Antonio Raineri.
Florence, Tipografia Orientale Mediceo-Laurenziana, 1818. Folio (205 x 281 mm). Contemporary gold tooled light brown polished calf, with the title lettered in gold on the spine, the papal supralibros in the central panel on both boards, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. [62], 1-10; [2 blank], 11-118 pp. Full description