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Alexandre Alexeieff, Original etchings
Julien Green, Adrienne Mesurat
Paris: Les Exemplaires, 1929.
Quarto (300 x 210 mm), Number 12 of an edition of 99 on
“Vélin à la forme des Papeteries de Rives”, with 55 etchings.
Bound in a superb deco binding signed on turn in by E. Schifferson, with the motif of a locked door in brown and gold morocco. With two original steel engraved plates laid in front and back, of illustrations in this book. Publisher’s plain wrappers preserved.
Front free endpaper with a full page fully worked chiaroscuro composition in pencil and ink, depicting a young woman standing, her arms raised with an expression of terror or astonishment, signed below Alexeieff.
AUGUSTE BORGET (1809-1877)
La Chine et les Chinois.
Paris: Goupil and Vibert, 1842.
Folio (530 x 370mm). Lithographic title, 2 leaves of dedication, contents leaf. additional pictorial tinted lithographed title, 32 tinted lithographed plates on 25 leaves by Eugène Cicéri after Borget. Contemporary brown half morocco.
A very good copy.
FINE LITHOGRAPHIC VIEWS OF CHINA, including five of Hong-Kong, and others relating to Macao and Canton. The plates are remarkable for the lack of that “feeling of superiority of the Chinese, so characteristic of accounts from the 1840’s... The artist observes with a fresh eye” (Lust).
BRAQUE, Georges.
Theogonie d’Hésiode
Paris: Aimé Maeght, 1955.
Folio, (438 x 330mm).
Printed in Greek in sans serif Europe capitals, the headlines and page numerals inked in brown. Illustrated with an etched frontispiece printed in black and tan, 16 mixed etching plates, mixed-etching headpiece and tailpiece vignettes, illustrated table of the etchings, etched front cover of original wrappers printed in colours and varnished in yellow, all by George Braque, the frontispiece and plates blind-stamped in margins with monogram GB within a circle.
Bound in crushed black morocco by Paul Bonet, each cover with two abstract sculptural onlays, one a mosaic of yellow morocco on a recessed vertical panel of black calf, the other a mosaic of green morocco on a recessed vertical panel of white calf, the smooth spine with the title letterd vertically in yellow morocco Greek–letter onlays, doublures of mustard reverse calf edged with black calf, linings of forest green reverse calf edged with white calf, edges gilt, original wrappers bound in, signed by Bonet on the front turn-in and dated 1960 on the lower.
Slipcase and half morocco chemise.
CHALON, John James (1778-1854)
Twenty Four Subjects Exhibiting the Costume of Paris, The Incidents taken from Nature, Designed and Drawn on Stone by J.J. Chalon. London: Rodwell and Martin, 1822.
Folio. Lithographed title and twenty-four hand-colored lithographed plates. Plates printed by C. Hullmandel. The text is watermarked 1821 and the plates are watermarked J. Whatman 1817-1822. Contemporary half red morocco.
The plates are captioned: "La Marchande de Tisanne;" "Les Bonnes;" "La Petite Fruitière;" "La Dame du Café;" "Le Café;" "Les Tondeuses de Chiens;" "Les Brodeuses;" "L'Escamoteur;" "La Porte Cochère;" "Le Journal des Débats;" "Le Restaurant;" "La Loueuse de Chaises;" "Une Matinée aux Thuilleries;" "Le Marchand de Brioches;" "Le Porteur d'Eau;" "Le Petit Décrotteur;" "Le Marché aux Fleurs;" "La Prise de Tabac;" "Les Adieux;" "Les Dames de la Halle;" "Le Cimetière du Père la Chaise;" "Les Dames Artistes;" "La Charette du Blanchisseur;" and "La Marchande de Modes"
GARCÍA LORCA, Federico
Romancero Gitano (1924 – 1927)
Buenos Aires: SUR, 1933.
Octavo (160 x 241 mm), pp. 147.
First deluxe edition, limited to 100 copies, this copy “C”, printed for Amado Alonso, being one of the 10 “hors de commerce”.
Contemporary half calf, initials of the owner “A.A” at the bottom of the spine.
Limitation page inscribed:
‘con la admiracion profunda y el cariño de
Federico
Buenos Aires, 1934’.
(The B and A of Buenos Aires forming parts of an arrow.)
Followed by a full-page drawing in ink of a Pierrot like head emerging from a compass, signed and dated:
‘Federico Garcia Lorca, 1934.’
A contemporary of Lorca, Neruda, and Borges, Alonso was a leading intellectual in Buenos Aires in the 1930s and 1940s. A Spanish expatriate in Buenos Aires, he published many essays on the Spanish language.
LABORDE, Léon de (1807-1869)
LINANT de Bellefonds, Louis (1799-1883)
Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée
Paris : Giard, 1830.
Large folio (672 x 50 mm). Ff. [iv] 1-44 [i]. Pp. [viii: half-title, note about the frontispiece, title-page with lithographic illustration on chine collee, author's dedication to William II of Holland, Preface] [1] 2-87: Introduction, description of the journey and notes on the plates, classification b Delile of the plants collected by the author [ii: List of the plates]. Illustrated with 69 full-page plates in total, of which the majority are lithographs on chine collee, and including one with additional hand-colouring (El Queber), plus a lithographic frontispiece and numerous wood-engraved illustrations throughout the text. Bound in contemporary full red morocco with double foliate gilt border, gilt decorated spine over six bands with gilt stamped title on green leather, gilt decorative border on inside covers, marbled paste-downs and gilt edges. Small repaired loss in upper front paste-down, and very small tear to the large folded map, which is trimmed at the bottom edge.
A very fine copy bound in contemporary full red morocco of the earliest in-depth visual study of Petra.
MALLARMÉ, Stéphane (1842-1898; transl.)
POE, Edgar Allan (1809-1849)
MANET, Édouard (1832-1883)
Le Corbeau (The Raven)
Paris: Richard Lesclide 1875.
Folio (548 x 358 mm). 10 unnumbered leaves: 6 leaves of Hollande with printed title in red and black, justification verso, half-title and parallel text in English (Poe) and French (Mallarmé’s translation), final leaf with ‘achevé d’imprimer’ dated ‘le Vingt Mai Mil Huit Cent Soixante-Quinze’ verso; 4 leaves of Hollande with Manet’s monochrome lithographs printed recto only, each signed ‘E.M’ in the stone (sheet size c. 546 x 354 mm) and smaller loosely inserted parchment ‘Ex Libris’ leaf (194 x 278 mm) with monochrome printed text and lithograph by manet (raven in flight). Original vellum wrappers, with Manet’s lithograph raven head. A fine copy.
Manet’s illustrations for Mallarmé’s translation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven in its original vellum wrappers, very rare thus.
From the edition limited to 240 copies (although only 150 were printed – see below)
Le Corbeau, a large and striking work, is cited as one of the high points of French book illustration. Considered ‘an astonishingly modern illustrated book for 1875’ [The Artist and the Book] it represents a turning-point in the history of the illustrated book, which was subsequently ‘liberated’ from literal interpretation.
The technique used by Manet for the Corbeau plates was transfer lithography, ‘a method ideally suited to the brush-and-ink drawing style …’ [Manet]. Wilson-Bareau describes the process, how Manet ‘brushed in his designs with transfer ink on sheets of paper that Lefman, the specialist printer for this technique, then transferred to zinc plates for printing …’
SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)
An Address to the Irish People
Dublin: [Isaac Eaton], 1812.
First Edition. Small Octavo (210 x 120)., [2], 22 pp.
Some staining and possibly some neat minor repair work in the inner margin of the title-page (just visible on the verso of the title and possibly due to the holes caused by the stab-stitching weakening the inner margin), evenly browned throughout, neat crease along the fore-margin of the title-page, a few minor paper flaws in places and with some leaves lightly inked (due to the poor paper and ink quality noted by Shelley on the title-page), old manuscript tract volume number to the upper margin of the title-page, original stab stitching holes in the inner margin. Full green crushed-morocco by Riviere, spine lettered in gilt, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers.
Extremely rare.
Shelley’s rare pamphlet addressed to Irish Catholics and arguing for the repealing of the Act of Union. Intentionally produced cheaply and aimed at the poorest members of society, Shelley himself distributed the work in the streets of Dublin and even threw copies to potential readers from the balcony of his apartments on Sackville Street. The work has long been famed for its rarity but has in recent years gained much attention as an important example of Shelley’s political awakening and as an influence on his literary output, particularly Queen Mab.
SOUVESTRE, Pierre(1874-1914)
ALLAIN, Marcel(1885-1969)
Fantômas
Paris: Arthème Fayard for Livre Populaire, 1911-1912.
22 consecutive volumes, 1-22. 12mo (190 x 125 mm).
Original wrappers and colour cover designs, with an advertisement for the subsequent installment before each titlepage. Housed in five boxes.
MARCUS VITRUVIUS POLLIO (late 1st century B.C.)
Fra Giovanni Giocondo da Verona (1433-1515)
[De Architectura libri decem].
M. Vitruvius per Iocundum solito castigatior factus cum figuris et tabula ut iam legi et intelligi possit.
(Venezia: Giovanni Tacuino, 22 May 1511.)
Folio (299x292mm). [4], 110, [9] ll. (without the last blank). Title within a large woodcut border, 136 woodcuts in the text, initials and printer’s device.
18th century mottled calf, back with bands, compartmernts gilt with fleurons, red resp. green morocco labels for the title resp. imprint year.
Extremeties slightly chafed, lower corners somewhat worn. A small stain in the inner margin of the first 22 leaves, closed tear in the lower margin of leaf 22. – Front endpaper with a bibliographical note of the 18th century.
Fra Giovanni Giocondo of Verona was a Dominican friar, humanist and architecture theoretician. As a prolific architect and engineer, he worked in Verona, Venice, Naples, Paris and Rome where he took part with Raphael and Giuliano da Sangallo in the erection of the new St. Peter’s Basilica. While building the Notre-Dame bridge in Paris, he used hydraulic machines inspired by Vitruvius and a diopter or theodolite of his own invention.
The first printed edition of Vitruvius edited by Giovanni Sulpicio of Veroli (c. 1483-1490) followed by three other editions (Venice, 1495; Florence, 1496; Venice, 1497) were seen as being unacceptably corrupt.
