Inspired by Rembrandt and Poussin: a guide to painting
1. DE LAIRESSE, Gerard A Treatise on the Art of Painting in all its branches; accompanied by seventy engraved plates, and exemplified by remarks on the paintings of the best masters, illustrating the subject by reference to their beauties and imperfections. By Gerard de Lairesse. Revised, corrected, and accompanied with an essay, by W.M.Craig, painter to Her Majesty and the Duke and Duchess of York.
London: Published and Sold by Edward Orme. 1817
Two volumes. 4to. 270x205mm. pp. viii, 296; 294. Seventy-one engraved plates. Contemporary straightgrained dark blue morocco, borders in gilt and blind to upper and lower covers. Spine with four raised bands, decorated and lettered in gilt. Small round shelf label to foot of spine of volume one. All edges gilt. Seventy-one plates. Additional engraved illustrated title page to volume two. Slight scuffing to boards in two places and minor rubbing to extremities. Internally some browning and foxing but overall a very good copy in a handsome binding. Lairesse (1641-1711) was a major figure in the art world of the Dutch Golden Age. He began his career as a painter, influenced initially by Rembrandt (who painted him - the portrait is in the Metropolitan in New York) and, later, by the French masters, especially Poussin. In 1690 he lost his sight due to congenital syphilis and so concentrated on art theory, writing two important works on the subject, Grondlegginge Ter
Teekenkonst (1701) and Het Groot Schilderboek (1707) The Treatise on the Art of Painting is the English version of the second of these. Lairesse’s theories departed from the practice of
much Dutch seventeenth-century painting: he argued that serious painting should not represent everyday life but rather address high-minded historical, religious and mythological themes. Lairesse was an important influence on eighteenth-century artists, particularly in England where “The Grand Manner” was adopted as the ideal.
[3728] £1,250
A rare and important study in non-Euclidean geometry one hundred years before Lobachevsky
2. SACCHERI, Girolamo. [Ioannes Hieronymus Saccherius] Euclides ab omni nævo vindicatus sive, Conatus geometricus quo stabiliuntur prima ipsa universae geometriae principia Mediolani: Ex Typographia Pauli Antonii Montani 1733
First edition. 4to. 227x175mm. pp. [XVI], 142 [2bl], 6 folding plates with 55 diagrams. Contemporary vellum, spine with four raised bands, compartments decorated with gilt flower motif. Covers a little marked and soiled. Some foxing and browning but otherwise very good internally. An excellent copy of a scarce book of which Worldcat locates only sixteen copies worldwide. We have traced no copies at auction. Girolamo Saccheri (1667-1733) was a Jesuit priest and one of the most influential mathematicians of his time although the significance of his revolutionary ideas was not fully appreciated until 150 years after his death. As a young man, he taught at a Jesuit college in Milan where he encountered the mathematical work of the Ceva brothers. He spent most of his life teaching philosophy, theology and mathematics at the University of Pavia. Euclides ab omni nævo vindicatus is Saccheri’s third work on mathematics and the work for which he is best known. As he died in 1733, it is possible that he never saw it published. Although Saccheri is regarded as the father of non-Euclidean geometry, he did not set out to disprove Euclid’s parallel postulate but, rather, prove it. Indeed, as the title of the book makes clear, it is an attempt to vindicate Euclid. It was in rejecting a contradiction of Euclid’s second postulate (that a terminated line can be produced indefinitely) that Saccheri raised the
possibility that straight lines are finite. Although he did not realise it at the time, this idea is now regarded as the basis of elliptic and hyperbolic geometry which refutes Euclid’s second and fifth postulates.
Almost exactly 100 years later Nikolai Lobachevsky and Janos Bolyai, independently of each other, published the foundational texts of non-Euclidean geometry, a term first used by their contemporary Carl Friedrich Gauss. But none of these men knew of Saccheri: as we said, this is a rare book. It was not until another Italian mathematician, Eugenio Beltrami, published a paper in 1889 comparing Saccheri’s work on Euclid’s parallel postulate to that of Lobachevsky and Bolyai, that he was brought to the attention of the mathematical world. The history of non-Euclidean geometry would have to be rewritten with Saccheri taking his place as its prime mover.
[4056]
£45,000
Multum in parvo: a collection of small prints by M.E. Philipp, a master of the Ex Libris
3. PHILIPP, M.E. An archive of etchings and woodcuts [Dresden]: Various [1920s-1950s]
An extensive collection of work by the Dresden artist M.E.Philipp who signed himself MEPH. 174 small prints mostly signed with varying small limitations. There is one engraved self portrait and one original sketch. The main collection of small prints falls into two broad categories. First is a set of 96 mounted bookplates made for various clients. 13 of these are in duplicate (or in a slightly different state) so there are 83 separate images. There are 4 unmounted duplicates. Second is a collection of 78 mounted prints for greetings cards, business cards, change of address cards, New Year wishes and wedding anniversary notices. 7 of these are in duplicate (or in slightly different states) and unmounted. There is an original sketch which is a study for one of the prints. The collection also includes an engraved self portrait by Philipp. The mounts were specially made for Philip and are printed, at the foot, “M.E.Philipp, Dresden”. The prints are loosely mounted on card. The collection is mostly made up of etchings by Philipp but also includes colour woodcuts and copper engravings. They are all in excellent condition having been housed in two folders with their slipcases. Philipp’s work ranges from Art Nouveau poster style, through
the fine line of the Rococo to Beardsleyesque erotica. The collection belonged to Philipp himself. It was part of his own archive and represents his record of work done for clients over a long career. The collection was then passed to the great commissioner and collector of bookplates, Gianni Mantero who left it to his nephew.
Martin Philipp was born in 1887 and attended art college and the Art Academy in Dresden. Philipp’s particular talent, noted by his teachers, was for small scale prints and drawings, especially of animals: Philipp spent much of his time as a student visiting the local zoo. Many of his prints contain charming and humorous studies of owls, emus, cats and especially monkeys which seemed to hold a special fascination for him. The original sketch in this collection is of a monkey. The cactus also makes an appearance - he was a keen collector and cultivator. And there are landscapes, portraits and domestic scenes: the range of subject matter is wide. Philipp’s work, at first glance, seems modest and somewhat minor key, which is often the case with small scale engravings and woodcuts and, after all, a lot of these prints in this collection are greetings cards (particularly for New Year) or address notices so are intended for wholesome family consumption. But there is another side to Philipp which found expression in many of his bookplates. It is as a designer of Ex Libris that he is perhaps now best known and here he could indulge the private passions of his bookish clients. There is much erotica on display here from the fairly gentle to rather fruity. It is thought that he produced about 130 bookplates so this collection of 83 prints represents a sizeable proportion of the whole. Philipp clearly enjoyed the somewhat esoteric world of the Ex Libris with its obsessive collectors and their tendency to swap plates with each other as stamp collectors do. One of Philipp’s clients was Gianni Mantero.
[3314]
£4,750
4. LA FONTAINE Fables Choisies, Mises en Vers par J. de la Fontaine
Leiden: Chez Luzac & van Damme 1786
First edition with these illustrations. Three volumes. 8vo in 4s. 195x115mm. Vol. 1, Tome Premier (1786), Tome Second (1764): pp. xxiv, [4], 79 [1bl], two engraved frontispieces, 45 engraved plates; [4], 78, 50 engraved plates. Vol. 2, Tome Troisieme (1770) and Tome Quartrieme (1775): pp. [4], 69 [1bl], 43 engraved plates; [8], 108, 45 engraved plates. Vol. 3, Tome Cinquieme (1786) and Tome Sixieme (1786): pp. xliv, II, 89 [1bl], 42 engraved plates; iv, 152, 50 engraved plates. Beautifully bound by P. Affolter (signed on verso of front free endpaper) in tan calf, gilt triple fillet to upper and lower boards. Spine with five raised bands, four compartments decorated with a thistle motif surrounded by gilt stars and dots inside a decorated border, second compartment with a maroon label lettered in gilt and third compartment with a brown label decorated and lettered and numbered in gilt. Dentelles decorated in gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; yellow, red and green silk ribbons. In superb condition with only the very lightest of shelfwear. Probably best known for his lavish fin-de-siecle work in the Art Nouveau style, Paul Affolter began his career (he opened his workshop in 1800) producing elegant, understated but technically assured work and so, although this handsome and immaculate binding is undated, it is almost certainly from this early period. Internally very good but some foxing and browning. The plates (275 plus the two frontispieces) by Jan Punt, Reinier Vinkeles and Abraham Delflos are in excellent condition and it is their quality that accounts for the twenty-eight year gap between the beginning of this project and its end. The engravings are after those done by Jean Baptiste Oudry for the 1755-1759 folio edition (save for the frontispiece after Picart). This octavo edition was first proposed in 1758 which is the date on some of the earliest plates. It was hoped to issue each volume at six-monthly intervals but the engravers worked so slowly that the edition was not finished until 1786. The first volume was then given a title page with that date with the later volumes being given the dates of their completion. The last plates, the work of Vinkeles, a student of Punt, are dated 1781. It was certainly worth the wait as it is a lovely set enhanced by Affolter’s binding.
[3823]
£1,750
SPEAKING PICTURES
5. SMIDS, Ludolph Pictura Loquens; sive heroicarum tabularum Hadriani Schoonebeeck, Enarratio et Explicatio.
Amsterdam: ex Officina Hadriani Schoonebeek. 1695
Only edition. 8vo. 180x112mm. [16], 240, [16]. Engraved frontispiece, engraved portrait on verso of title page and sixty engravings by Adriaan Schoonebeeck. Slightly later full calf, borders in blind and gilt, spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt and blind and lettered in gilt. Turn ins decorated with gilt roll. All edges gilt with delicate gauffering. Internally near fine save for a closed tear to E7 (not affecting text). A very nice copy of the only edition of this attractively illustrated work on history painting which takes its title from Simonides of Keos’s observation “Poema pictura loquens, pictura poema silens,” (Poetry is a speaking picture, painting a silent poetry). To demonstrate the truth of this, Smids and Schoonebeeck each picture accompanies a text from Latin poetry or history with an explanation of the meaning of the text. So we find Hercules alongside an extract from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Aeneas carrying Anchises to safety with the relevant passage from Virgil. The text is by Ludolph Smids, a classical scholar from Groningen while the excellent engravings are by Adriaan Schoonbeeck who had his own printing works in Amsterdam before moving to Moscow in 1698 at the invitation of Peter the Great where he ran an engraving workshop.
[3901]
EIGHTEENTH
£950
6. BOOK OF HOURS. Officium Beatæ Mariæ Virginis S. Pii V Pontificis Maximi jussu editum, et Urbani VIII. Auctoritate recognitum. Con l'Uffizio de'Morti, Sette Salmi ed altre diverse Orazioni.
Venetiis: Apud Nicolaum Pezzana. 1758
8vo. (180x106mm) pp. [8], 405, [3]. Six engraved plates, one signed M. Heylbrouck and an engraved vignette to title page. Text in Latin and Italian. Contemporary Italian sheep, covers with elaborately tooled gilt borders, fan sprays at the inner corners. Centre of the boards have leaf motifs and two gilt oval frames with green morocco onlays bearing initials “G.P” (upper cover) and “A.P” (lower cover). Flat spine decorated in gilt with leaf motifs, with three green morocco onlays lettered and decorated in gilt. Edges to boards tooled in gilt. All edges gilt and gauffered with a delicate leaf pattern. Attractive green endpapers. In very good condition with one or two small worn spots. Internally excellent with a little foxing in places. Book label of John Saks loosely inserted along with a slip of paper from Christie’s reading “Lot No. 191/1 10 Jun 1981” when a number of Saks’s books were sold.
Saks (the grandson of the founder of the eponymous shop and a vice president of the family firm) was a Fellow of the Morgan Library and a member of the Grolier Club. His celebrated library was particularly strong in the private presses of Ashendene, Kelmscott and Doves but he also built up a fine collection of eighteenth century Venetian books of which this beautifully bound Book of Hours is a lovely example.
[3953] £750
RICHLY DECORATED RED MOROCCO FROM AMSTERDAM
7. Petri Francii [Petrus Francius] Specimen eloquentiae exterioris ad orationem M.T.Ciceronis pro A.L[icin]. ARCHIA [accommodatum]
Amsterdami: Henr. Wetstenium. 1697
8vo. 162x97mm. pp. [48], 192. Prettily bound in contemporary red morocco, both covers delicately tooled in gilt with a floral border framing an inner border of drawer-handle and flower motifs and small gilt dots, with arabesque cornerpieces. A central panel is decorated with drawer-handles, arabesque cornerpieces, leafy sprays and rococo patterns constructed with tiny dotted lines. All edges gilt, turn-ins tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers. Slight bumping and rubbing to corners and joints but otherwise a beautiful little binding in excellent condition. Internally very good but with a small portion of the title page repaired with later paper, affecting a few letters. Slightly browned in places but overall a very good copy. Title page has inscribed ownership initials “W.J.K” and on the verso of the front free endpaper is the surname beginning with “K” which possibly reads “Kenyon” but is unclear. Contemporary annotations through the first half of the book presumably by “W.J.K”. Some copies of the Specimen eloquentiae exterioris include the text of two of Petrus Francius’s own orations but these are not called for and are not in all copies (for example the copy at the BnF does not have them while that at the Bodleian does).
Petrus Francius (Pieter de Frans – 1645-1704) trained as a lawyer but made his career as a professor of Rhetoric, History and Greek in Amsterdam. His teaching methods were demanding – he expected his students to develop their rhetorical skills by reciting the speeches of Cicero and Demosthenes from memory. He was famous for his lectures and his own public speeches and for the recitations of his poetry which drew on his favourite classical authors, Horace, Pindar and especially Ovid. The present book begins with the text of Cicero’s speech Pro Archia (62BC) in defence of the Roman poet Archias who had become entangled in a political dispute. Francius takes this speech as the starting point for a set of detailed rules governing the ideal “rhetorical performance”. The first part contains thirty nine regulae circa pronuntiationem and fifty six regulae circa actionem.
[3958] £1,750
SO MANY PEOPLE
8. MALTHUS, T.R. An Essay on the Principle of Population; or a view of its past and present effects on human happiness; with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal of mitigation of the evils which it occasions. A new edition, very much enlarged.
London: Printed for J. Johnson 1803
Second edition, known as the Great Quarto edition and, with its altered title and expanded and amended text, “regarded by Malthus as a substantially new work” (ODNB). Quarto, 265x205mm. pp. viii, [4], 610. Contemporary tree calf, expertly rebacked with original spine laid down, spine lavishly decorated in gilt, black morocco label lettered in gilt. Some rubbing to extremities, bottom corners strengthened. Front pastedown has book label of Christopher Clark Geest. Some slight foxing but overall a handsome copy of an important, influential and controversial book.
PMM (reference to the first edition) states that “the central idea of the essay - and the hub of Malthusian theory - was a simple one. The population of a community increases geometrically, while food supplies increase only arithmetically”. When the food supply becomes insufficient, the population is reduced by what Malthus calls “vice” (contraception, homosexuality, abortion) or “misery” (wars, famines, plagues). In the second edition Malthus sought to “lighten this ‘melancholy hue’” (ODNB) by arguing that were people to exercise some restraint and forbear the producing of children when unable to support them, then human happiness would be likely to increase. Those having to do the forbearing might, of course, feel otherwise and there is no doubt that Malthus’s views were not universally popular. But, given that similar “restraint” arguments are adopted in discussions on the link between population and climate change, perhaps Malthus is due a revival.
[3962]
£3,500
“the art of Ship-building is of the utmost consequence to the trade and security of this nation”
9. MURRAY, Mungo A Treatise on Ship-Building and Navigation. In three parts wherein the theory, practice, and application of the necessary instruments are perspicuously handled. With The Construction and Use of a new invented Shipwright’s Sector, for readily laying down and delineating Ships, whether of similar or dissimilar Forms. Also Tables of the Sun’s Declination, of Meridional Parts, of difference of Latitude and Departure, of Logarithms, and of artificial Sines, Tangents and Secants. By Mungo Murray. Shipwright, in his Majesty’s Yard, Deptford. To which is added by way of appendix, and English abridgment of another treatise on naval architecture, lately published at Paris by M. Duhamel, Mem. of the R. Acad. of Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and Surveyor General of the French Marine. The whole illustrated with eighteen Copper Plates
London: Printed by D.Henry and R.Cave 1754
First edition. [4], iv, [4], 3-268, 73 [1]; [4], 70, [4]. Eighteen folding engraved plates including one with a volvelle. Contemporary calf, spine with red morocco label lettered in gilt. Upper cover slightly creased, corners bumped and a little worn. Head of spine rubbed and foot of spine chipped with loss of c1cm. Front pastedown has armorial bookplate of Thomas Hall. Internally very good with only a little foxing and browning in places. ’The elements of naval architecture: .. By M. Duhamel du Monceau’ has a separate titlepage, pagination and register.Loosely inserted is a leaf from a manuscript ship’s logbook (370x240mm) dated 11th14th June describing part of a voyage of the Ship Prince Augustus (an East Indiaman) commanded by Francis Gostlin. but overall a very good copy of this exhaustive, detailed and ground-breaking work on ship-building. As Murray says in his preface, “though the art of Ship-building is of the utmost consequence to the trade and security of this nation...I cannot think of a subject which has been so little treated of in our language”. ESTC records ten copies of this first edition in the UK and eight in the US with a further two elsewhere.
Mungo Murray (1705-1770) joined the naval dockyard at Deptford in 1738 where he worked as a shipwright. Sixteen years of experience led to this book but he also, as he explains in the advertisement on the verso of the title page, had a sideline as a teacher of “the several Branches of Mathematicks treated of in this Book”, offering evening classes every day except Wednesday and Saturday. The hard working Murray also qualified as a teacher, serving on board ships as a tutor in navigation. He wrote a further book on this subject and a short note on an eclipse of the sun.
ESTC: T149899
[3989] £3,500
The first book to be printed in moveable Hebrew type in Oxford 10. Maimonides [tr. Edward Pococke] Bab Musi. Porta Mosis sive, dissertationes aliquot à R. Mose Maimonide suis in varias Mishnaioth sive textus Talmudici partes, Commentariis praemissae, quae ad universam ferè Judaeorum disciplinam aditum aperiunt. Nunc primùm Arabicè prout ab ipso Autore conscriptae sunt, & Latinè edita. Unà cum Appendice Notarum Miscellanea, operâ & studio Edvardi Pocockii
Oxford: H.Hall 1655
First edition. Small quarto. 180x138mm. pp. [24], 288, 281-288, 281-296, 313-355, [5], 104, 109-436, [28]. Despite the erratic pagination, it collates complete. Title page of appendix dated 1654. Contemporary reverse calf with dog-tooth and dotted line border to both covers. Spine with four raised bands. Boards and spine heavily worn and spine has loss to first compartment and to head and foot. Cracking to joints. Internally very good. A nice copy of Pococke’s important collection of extracts from Maimonides’s Arabic commentary on the Mishnah. In preparing this work, Pococke used manuscripts which he had collected in during his time as the Chaplain of the Levant Company in Aleppo. Among them was a manuscript annotated by Maimonides himself although it seems that Pococke did not realise this at the time. Maimonides (1138-1204) wrote in Arabic but used Hebrew script. This translation by Pococke into Latin has Maimonides’s original text in parallel making this the first book to be printed in moveable Hebrew type in Oxford.
[4245]
£1,100