Art, Architecture & Photography / Art & Art History

[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

BORJA, Juan de. Empresas morales ...
Prague, Georg Nigrin, 1581. 4to (17.8 x 13.6 cm). With a hand-coloured engraved title-page, incorporating the coat of arms of the dedicatee King Philip II of Spain, 100 hand-coloured engraved emblems, 2 hand-coloured woodcut decorated initials, and numerous woodcut ornamental tail-pieces throughout, all text and illustrations are set within a frame of double red lines. Contemporary overlapping limp vellum with the manuscript title on the spine and remnants of ties. [2], 101, [3] ll. Full description

[BOTTLE IN BOOK FORM]. Esprit de Francklin ... Le B[on].homme Richard.
Chalonnes sur Loire, Fremy frères, Bottrel et Cie., [ca. 1830]. Blown glass bottle made in the form of a book (15 x 10 x 3 cm plus 1.5 cm neck and lip). The "spine" is covered with gold-tooled red morocco, with 7 horizontal rolls dividing it into 5 fields plus a smaller 6th at the foot, the title and the French form of Franklin's pen-name in fields 3 and 4 and a decoration in fields 1, 3 and 5, the "boards" covered with paper, each with an lithographed rectangular decorative border enclosing an oval laurel wreath around an oval paper overlay with a lithographed view, that on the front board showing Benjamin Franklin and that on the back board showing a man in the distillery, each with accompanying texts above and below the wreath. The paper sides (but not their overlays) have a slight reddish cast. Full description

BOUDARD, Jean-Baptiste. Iconologie tirée de divers auteurs. Ouvrage utile aux gens de lettres, aux pöetes, aux artistes, & généralement à tous les amateurs des beaux-arts.
Vienna, Johan Thomas von Trattner, 1766.
3 volumes. 8vo. With Trattners engraved device on the 3 title-pages. Contemporary half calf. [16], 203, [8]; [2], 219, [8]; [2], 208, [12] pp. Full description

[DRAWING]. BRANDS, Eugène. [Two manuscript invitations for an exhibition opening, each including an original drawing in colour].
[Amsterdam, 1948]. Each 14.7 x 11 cm. Pen-and-ink drawings; one with blue watercolour and the other with blue and yellow watercolour. 2 pp. Full description

BRANT, Sebastian. Navis stultorum: oft, Der sotten schip.
Antwerp, Jan II van Ghelen, 1584. Small 4to. With a woodcut of the Ship of Fools on the title-page, woodcut Dutch title-panel, Van Ghelen's large woodcut greyhounds and goat device on the last page, 118 full-page and 2 smaller woodcut illustrations in text, each page (after the title and its verso) in a border built up from arabesque cast fleurons. 18th-century sprinkled calf, gold-tooled spine and board edges, mottled edges. [2], "234" [= 236], [10] pp. Full description

BRÈS, Jean-Pierre. Le livre-joujou.
Paris, Louis Janet, [24 December 1831]. Large 16mo in 8s (14.5 x 11 cm). With a letterpress title-page, an engraved title-page and 12 engraved plates, the engraved title-page and all plates with movable parts (moved with tabs), all 13 engravings and their movable parts hand-coloured for the publisher. Further with a wide variety of decorated types. Publishers original gold-tooled black half sheepskin, original publishers blue paper sides, printed letterpress, the front and back with the same cover-title, with a wood-engraved vignette, marbled edges. [2 blank], “11” [= 6], vii, [1], 157, [3 blank] pp. Full description

BUIJS, Jacobus. [Set of 22 drawings and 1 engraving].
[Ca. 1781]. Various sizes. 22 washed pen and ink drawings and 1 engraving on paper. Mostly loose, nos. 8, 10, 20-23 pasted on paper support. Full description

BURNET, John. A practical treatise on painting. In three parts. Consisting of hints on composition, chiaroscuro, and colouring. The whole illustrated by examples from the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools.
London, James Carpenter, 1826-1827. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With 25 full-page partly handcoloured etched and aquatint plates with 105 reproductions by Burnet of famous paintings. Contemporary calf, covers blind-tooled in a checkered pattern, marbled edges. [4], 31, [1 blank]; VI, 45; V-IX, [3], 64 pp. 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