Middle East & Islamic World / Islamic Art & Culture

[DUBAI – ROYAL FAMILY]. Photograph album.
Pakistan, Early 1970s. 40 photographs (29 in colour and 11 black-and-white). Various sizes (300 x 207 mm to 125 x 125 mm). Includes 51 original colour slides. Stored in large, six-leaf self-adhesive tan leather album (oblong folio, 43 x 34 cm). Full description

EFFENDI, Mahmoud. Mémoire sur le calendrier arabe avant l'Islamisme, et sur naissance et l'age du prophète Mohammad.
[Brussels, 1861?]. 4to. Modern paper wrappers. 45, [1 blank] pp. Full description

EGE, Otto F (compiler & author of the annotations). [Drop-title:] Fifteen original oriental manuscript leaves of six centuries. [Binding title:] Fifteen original oriental manuscripts.
[Cleveland, Ohio?], [Cleveland Institute of Art or Western Reserve University?], [ca. 1952]. 15 manuscript leaves (in one case a fragment of a scroll) of various formats and sizes, some glazed (see the detailed list of contents for specific dimensions), 7 written on straight-forward laid paper (European and non-European), 6 more problematic (probably all non-European), 1 on straight-forward wove paper (no. 14, supposedly made in Russia) and one on vellum (no. 7), most rubricated and/or decorated in various colours, some decorated or highlighted in gold. Each manuscript leaf is mounted (hinged on one edge to allow access to both sides of the leaf) in a passe-partout (46.5 x 33 cm) and each has a letterpress slip (10 x 18 cm) with explanatory text tipped onto the foot of the passe-partout. The publication has no title-page but includes a letterpress folio leaf that serves as a table of contents and has the drop-title given above (the present copy contains two copies of that contents leaf). The display typeface used in the letterpress leaves (and on the portfolio) is the 1938 Libra by the Dutch designer Sjoerd de Roos, inspired by uncial manuscripts. Publishers original portfolio (48.5 x 34 x 4.5 cm) covered with black cloth with on-lays in black and red on the front and the authors name in white and title in red on the spine, with three pairs of black ties (one on the inside) and a label on the inside of the right black flap giving information about the limited edition: "Edition limited to forty numbered sets of which this is No 33". [1] leaf (plus a duplicate) plus 15 original manuscript leaves mounted in white passe-partouts. Full description

[PHOTOGRAPHY - EGYPT]. Book I-[II] Egypt 1906-7. Book III Naples, Rome, Florence. Book IV Criccieth N. Wales, Zara, Khargeh Upper Egypt, Cairo, Freshwater Bay I.W.Egypt, Naples, Rome, Florence, Criccieth and the Isle of Wight, 1906-1908. Oblong (23 x 32 cm). An album in 4 volumes with 323 silver gelatin prints (8 x 5.5 cm to 14 x 8 cm, mostly ca. 10 x 7 cm). Side-stitched.
With:
(2) LEHNERT & LANDROCK. Souvenir of Cairo. 12 real artistic photos. Serie A.
Egypt, [late 1920s]. Envelope containing 12 silver gelatin prints (12 x 9 cm).
(3) [PHOTOGRAPHY - SINGAPORE?]. Photograph of a woman and a baby sitting in a rickshaw, with a child in front and the rickshaw puller.
[Singapore?], [late 1920s]. Silver gelatin print (7.5 x 12.5 cm). 9; 7; 12; 11 ll. Full description

ERPENIUS, Thomas (editor). Turat Musa al-Nabi alayhi al-salam id est Pentateuchus Mosis Arabicè.
Leiden, Thomas Erpenius for Johannes Maire, 1622. 4to. With the title in a woodcut architectural frame, head- and tailpieces built up from cast arabesque fleurons, woodcut factotums. Contemporary vellum. [16], 458, [2] pp. Full description

ERPENIUS (VAN ERPE), Thomas. Rudimenta linguae Arabicae.
Leiden, Boneventura and Abraham Elzevier, 1628. Small 8vo (15 x 9.5 cm). With title-page printed in red and black. 19th-century green sheepskin. [10], 172, [48] pp. Full description

FORESTI DE BERGAMO, Jacobus Philippus. Supplementum chronicarum.
Brescia, Boninus de Boninis, 1. XII. 1485. Small folio (21 x 31 cm). Double rules along inner margins of text and between table columns, rubricated throughout. Contemporary richly blind-tooled vellum over wooden boards, bound in the monastic shop of the Würzburg Benedictines, two clasps. [1 blank], [18], [1 blank], [3], 358, [1] ll. Full description

GROTE-HASENBALG, Werner. Der Orientteppich[:] seine Geschichte und seine Kultur.
Berlin, Scarabaeus (colophon: Dr. Selle & Co.), 1922. 3 volumes (26 x 26 cm). The text volume with colour-printed frontispiece, 28 plates numbered I-XXII (13 colour-printed), 139 numbered and 14 unnumbered illustrations in text, and a folding map; the two plate volumes with a total of 120 colour-printed plates mounted on grey-black paper.Original publishers cloth. XVI, [2 blank], 228, [8] pp. plus plates(text). Full description

GROTE-HASENBALG, Werner. Der Orientteppich[:] seine Geschichte und seine Kultur.
Berlin, Scarabaeus (colophon: Dr. Selle & Co.), 1922. 3 volumes (26 x 26 cm). The text volume with colour-printed frontispiece, 28 plates numbered I-XXII (13 colour-printed), 139 numbered and 14 unnumbered illustrations in text, and a folding map; the two plate volumes with a total of 120 colour-printed plates mounted on grey-black paper. Original publisher's cloth. XVI, [2 blank], 228, [8] pp. (text) 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