Recent Acquisitions

[BINDING - SILVER]. [Pair of embossed silver book covers, with two engraved silver clasps].
[Netherlands?, ca. 1725?]. Pair of embossed silver book covers (34 x 25 x 3 cm); each cover with a large scrollwork cartouche surrounded by extensive vine and flower decorations and with medallion portraits in each of the four corners, the front showing the crucifixion flanked by Mary and St. John (with an "INRI" scroll above, flanked by a crescent moon and a sun, and a skull and crossbones below), with portraits of four saints, each with a blank scroll (above left bearded with a regal crown; above right clean-shaven with a round-topped mitre; below left and right bare-headed and bearded), the back showing the resurrection with an angel and two astonished guards, with portraits of the four Evangelists. Full description

BLACKWELL, Thomas Eden. [Sketchbook containing several sketches of India, Burma and Switzerland, with an emphasis on their cultures].
[Various places, ca. 1826-1830]. Oblong 4to. With 66 sketches in pen & ink and pencil, mostly signed by Blackwell, mounted and bound in, with manuscript captions. There is also 1 print (ca. 1795/1800?) drawn by Singey Bey and engraved by Thomas Medland. Half black morocco, black decorated paper sides, gold-tooled ornaments on spine. [70] gray, white and blue album ll., containing 67 sketches and their accompanying manuscript captions and descriptions. Full description

BLAEU, Joan. Vyfde stuck der aerdrycksbeschryving, welck vervat Schotlandt en Yrlandt.
Amsterdam, Joan Blaeu, 1654. Atlas folio (57.5 x 39.5 cm). With engraved architectural title-page with the arms of Scotland filling the top half, elaborately crested, supported by unicorns with flags and still with the old Stuart royalist mottos, and 55 engraved maps (54 double-page and 1 of the Irish County Caterlogh, full-page), often richly adorned with additional cartouches with regional scenes, but most often with coats of arms from the region. Numerous woodcut tailpieces and decorated initial letters. The title-page and all maps, including the cartouches, scenes and coats of arms, beautifully coloured by hand and highlighted with gold. All maps in their first states, without added ships or compass roses. 17th-century Dutch gold-tooled vellum. [8], 189, [1 blank], 70, [1, 1 blank] pp. Full description

BOECKLER, George Andreas. Architectura Curiosa Nova, Exponens 1. Fundamenta hydragogica. 2. Varios aquarum ac salientium fontium. 3. Magnum amoenissimorum fontium. 4. Specus artificiales sumtuosissimas. 5. Cum auctario figuram elegantissimarum. In Latinam linguam translata per J.Chr. Sturm.
Nuremberg, Paulus Fürst, [1664]. 4 parts in 1 volume. Folio. With richly engraved frontispiece, 4 titles within typographical woodcut borders, the first printed in red and black, and 200 full-page engraved plates of fountain architecture and hydraulic engineering in fountains. Contemporary vellum with the manuscript title on the spine. [10], 30; [2], 13, [1 blank]; [2], 22; [2], 26 pp. Full description

[BOOK-SHAPED BOX - QUEEN ANNE]. [Gold and tortoise shell book-shaped box made for Queen Anne of Great Britain].
[Portugal?], [ca. 1702?]. Ca. 15.5 x 12 x 5.5 cm.
Early 18th-century, possibly Portuguese, tortoise shell box, with elaborate gold filigree rococo decorations: birds and foliage within a floral frame on the front and back "boards" with gold filigree decorated fastenings around the "fore edge", complete with: 2 catch plates, 2 anchor plates and 2 clasps. The "spine" is divided into 4 compartments, separated by gold filigree decorative horizontal strips, with a gold engraved plaque in the 2nd compartment reading in a banner "BY ME KINGS REIGNE" and below "ANNE [a crown] REGINA" and a filigree basket of flowers in the 1st, 3rd and 4th compartments. The edges are embossed and covered in fine gold foil. The inside of the box is covered in red velvet and the front "board" is, once the box is open, connected to the outer corners of the "fore edge" by fine gold chains. Full description

[BRITISH ARMOUR - TOWER OF LONDON - DUTCH MANUSCRIPT]. Beschrijving van de paarden wapenzaal in de Tower te London.
[The Netherlands, second quarter of the 19th century]. Ca. 21.5 x 17 cm. With 12 large, colourful ink drawings of knights on horseback, depicting various British kings and nobles, and a smaller ink drawing of knights in battle on the title-page. Contemporary green paper, over brown cloth, with a calligraphed title on the front in a baroque style floral frame, and a drawing of a knight on horseback on the back board within the same floral frame, blue speckled edges. [1], [1 blank], 105 pp. Full description

BÜNTING, Heinrich and Matthias HASAERT. Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, das ist Ein Reisebuch uber die gantze Heilige Schrifft ...
Including:
[BÜNTING, Heinrich]. Itinerarium Novi Testamenti. Das ist: Ein Reisebuch over das Newe Testament.
BÜNTING, Heinrich. De monetis et mensuris sacrae scripturae. Dass ist: Ein eigentliche ausrechnung und beschreibung aller Müntz und Masse in heiliger Schrift. ...
Magdeburg, Paul Donat for Ambrosius Kirchner, 1585. With 3 title-pages, 7 double-page and 2 full-page woodcut maps
With: (2) BÜNTING, Heinrich. Braunschweigische und Luneburgische Chronica.
Including:
Das ander Theil Braunschweigischen Chronica, gehet auff das Land Lüneburg
Das dritte Theil, der Braunschweigischen und Lüneburgischen Chronica, ...
Das vierte Theil dieses Buches, gehet insonderheit auff das Fürstenthumb Grubenhagen, füret ... den geburts Stam des fürstlichen Hauses Braunschweig und Lüneburg.
Magdeburg, Paul Donat for Ambrosius Kirchner, 1584-1585. General title-page in red and black with the woodcut coat of arms of Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, further with numerous finely detailed woodcut illustrations
2 works in 3 and 4 volumes, bound as 1. Folio. Contemporary, richly blind-tooled pigskin, possibly by Nikolaus Müller in Wittenberg. With a matching pair of panel stamps in the central fields: portraits of Martin Luther (front board, 83 x 44 mm) and Phillip Melanchthon (back board, 81 x 45 mm), each with the date 1556 and text below. Ad 1: [16], “141” [= 242], [18]; [6], 110, [9] [3 blank]; [6], “34” [= 33], [1 blank] pp.; ad 2: [14], “150” [= 151], [1 blank]; “46” [= 47]. [1 blank]; [1], 47-82, [1 blank]; [1], “82”-“113” [= 83-109] ll. Full description

BUTTURA, Antonio. Sonetti a Bonaparte.
Paris, Pierre Didot laîné, An VIII [after Floréal, so 1800]. 8vo. Finely printed on vellum. Contemporary long-grained and gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, each board with a frame made from a decorated roll with palm leaves between 2 fine-line fillets, the smooth spine with the title in the 2nd of 6 fields, an acorn with leaves in each of the others, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, light green watered silk endleaves. [2 blank], [1], [1 blank], [8], [4 blank] pp. Full description

CATESBY, Mark, Nicolaus Friederich EISENBERGER and Georg LICHTENSTEGER. Piscium serpentum insectorum aliorumque nonnullorum animalium nec non plantarum quarundam imagines ... | Die Abbildungen verschiedener Fische, Schlangen, Insecten, einiger andern Thiere, und Pflanzen...
Nürnberg, Johann Joseph Fleischmann, 1750. Folio. With 42 hand-coloured copperplate engravings (34.5 x 25 cm). Early nineteenth-century period-style half leather binding with marbled boards, title in gold-tooling to board in gilt lettering. [2], 42, [84] pp. Full description

CENTENO, Amaro. Historia de cosas del oriente primera y segunda parte...
Cordoba, Diego Galván, 1595. 2 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With a woodcut coat of arms on the title-page and the divisional title-page for part 2, an elaborate Jesuit woodcut IHS vignette on the verso of the last leaf above the colophon and woodcut initials throughout, with a few typographical or woodcut tail-pieces, al text is set within a simple woodcut frame. Later tree marbled sheepskin. [8], 138, [4] ll. Full description