Autographs, Documents & Manuscripts / Manuscripts & Documents

[FORTIFICATION - MANUSCRIPT]. Traité de fortification.
[Northern Germany?, ca. 1685/1700?]. 4to & small folio (23 x 18 cm). Manuscript in French, written in black ink on paper in an easily readable cursive hand, with the title in a pen and ink decorated cartouche, about 45 pen and ink drawings (14 full-page and 8 larger folding, 2 of the folding ones in red and black ink with coloured washes, one of the colour folding leaves 36 x 27 cm), mostly showing fortification plans. Contemporary or near-contemporary calf, gold-tooled spine. [1], [3 blank], 164 pp., ll. 165-171, [172], pp. 173-197, 197 [bis], 198-289, [24 blank, partly numbered]. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - FRANCE]. Colloquio su'gli affari presenti del 1683 fatto nell'Inferno, tra Maometto, e monsieur Colbert, già ministro di Francia.
[Italy, ca. 1684?]. Small folio (29 x 20.5 cm). Manuscript in brown ink on laid paper in a legible hand. Sewn. [54], [2 blank] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT]. FRANCQ VAN BERKHEY, Jean le. [Autograph letter in French, signed, to Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau.]
Leiden, 10 December 1771. 25 x 20 cm (letter) & 23.5 x 18.5 cm (manuscript). Never bound.
With: [MANUSCRIPT]. [FRANCQ VAN BERKHEY, Jean LE]. Memoires, pour servir a ce que l'illustre auteur de "L'histoire generale des poissons" Monsieur M. Du Hamel de Monceau, solicite a l'egard des morues.
[Leiden, 1771].
A letter and treatise in French, written in dark brown ink on paper in a neat and easily readable hand, the treatise with 9 tipped-in pen and ink illustrations drawn by the author (6.5 x 10.5 to 11.5 x 21.5 cm) and a few small illustrations in the text. [4]; “29” [= 30], [1], [1 blank] pp. plus tipped in illustrations. Full description

[FRENCH INDIA - MANUSCRIPT]. Des castes Indiennes.
Karaikal, 11 April [1743]. 4to (ca. 24 x 18.5 cm). Manuscript written in dark brown ink on beige laid paper. Blue mottled stiff paper wrappers. [23], [1 blank] pp. Full description

[FRENCH ROYAL NAVY]. [Binding title:] Abregé de la marine du Roy 1732.
[Paris?, 1732]. 13.5 x 19 cm. Manuscript in brown-black, red and blue ink on vellum, some of the lettering and borders gilt. With a beautiful frontispiece painting in coloured gouaches (14 x 9.5 cm) pasted on the page facing the opening of the text Contemporary gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, gold-tooled blue-black goatskin morocco pastedowns, gilt edges. Frontispiece plus [2], 26 ll., including 2 double and 1 larger folding. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - GARDENING]. Introduction à la théorie de l'art des jardins.
Ca. 1775-1800. 2 volumes. 4to. Written in several, slightly different neat 18th-century hands. Later red decorated paper over stiff paperboards, spines covered with brown paper, black morocco spine labels with titles and volume numbers in gold. [2], 2, 46 pp., 47-76 ll., 60 pp.; 129, [3], 83, 96, 20 pp. plus 2 ll.with the table of contents. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - GENEALOGY & HERALDRY - DUTCH]. [Manuscript genealogies of the noble family Cuylenburgh ( vol. 1) and the noble family Beusichum & Cuylenburgh (vol. 2)].
[Utrecht, Culemborg or Beusichem?], ca. 1655-1675, after 1654]. 2 volumes. Large folio. Manuscript in Dutch, written in one hand in a neat, 17th-century hand cursive hand. With 65 coat of arms, almost all of them coloured by hand. Also with some spaces for coats of arms left blank. A loose leaf added to volume with 34 ink-drawn and contemporary hand-coloured small coats of arms with accompanying text written in a cursive 17th-century hand. 19th-century half brown cloth (vol. 1) and red buckram (vol. 2), brown decorated paper sides, titles in gold on the front boards. [4 (plus 1 loose leaf)]; [8] ll. Full description

GERSOM, Gerrit van. Caerte en omlooper van Prins Willem Polder. Bedijkt anno 1650 en 1651. ...
[Oostburg?], 1723. Royal folio (41 x 27.5 cm). With a hand-coloured title page, a large folding map of the dikes along the border of the polder, a large folding general map of the polder showing the numbered parcels at a scale of about 1:18,000, and 17 folding detail maps showing the individual plots within the parcels at a larger scale, all executed in brown ink and watercolours and tipped onto the fore-edges of 19 of the 144 numbered text leaves. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. 151 ll. (ll. 1 & 145-151 blank). Full description

GUILLOT, P. Cours de dessin géométrique. Projections et perspective.
De Villeneuve, Les Béziers, 1878. Oblong large folio (31.4 x 48.7 cm). With manuscript title in black and grey ink and 39 full-page manuscript plates with beautifully drawn and professionally executed washed pendrawings and watercolours of the projections of solid bodies and of plans and designs on perspective for architects and stone cutters, all versos blank. Contemporary half red calf. [1 blank], [40], [2 blank] ll. Full description

HAFEZ (HAFIZ) [Khwaaja Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi]. [The Divân of Hafez].
[Persia], 983 AH [= 1575-76 CE]. 21.3 x 16 cm. Illuminated manuscript on paper, written in a fine nasta'liq script in black ink in 2 columns of 15 lines per page. The two columns of text are written in a panel measuring 14 x ca. 7.4 cm, most of the text is written in a simple frame built up from lines in black, turquoise, gold, and blue. The text begins with a beautiful blue and gold headpiece with small white, red, gold, and light blue flowers. Leaves 1v and 2r are beautifully highlighted in gold and decorated with intricate flower designs, vertically in between the text columns one finds small flowers in gold, white, red, brown, and light blue on a background of gold, horizontally between the text one finds gold highlights and banners of samll white, red, brown, and light blue flowers on a kobalt blue (and 1 one instance black) background, the two columns together are surrounded by frame with incredibly intricate gold and blue flowers and blue dots on a clear background, the larger margins on these leaves are beautifully decorated with an intricate flower-and-vine design in gold, outlined in black and the centers of the flowers are either red or blue. The text on leaves 2v and 3r is surrounded by the same frame of incredibly intricate gold and blue flowers and blue dots, with some additional colourful lines surrounding this frame. Leaf 8 is sprinkled with gold paint, the margins of leaf 18 are decorated with gold dots. All text (and decorations) is surrounded by a thin black double-line frame spanning 2 facing pages (ca. 21.8 x 30 cm). Later half black leather and multicolour painted and lacquered paper over paper boards. The painted sides show (from the outside in) a 0.4 cm blue frame around a 1.2 cm border of orange and green flowers with red details on a yellow background, this is followed by another 0.4 blue frame which surrounds the main decoration: large flowers in red, yellow, green, and blue on a vibrant orange background. [92] ll. Full description