Art, Architecture & Photography / Art & Art History

GALLI BIBIENA, Ferdinando. Direzioni a' giovani studenti nel disegno dell' architettura civile, nell' academia clementina dell' instituto delle scienze ...
Bologna, Lelio dalla Volpe, 1745 & 1732. 2 volumes. Small 8vo (17.5 x 10 cm). With 75 full-page engraved plates in the first volume, and 58 full-page engraved plates in the second volume, including 18 folding. Further with some woodcut decorated initials, and some tailpieces built up from typographical ornaments. Contemporary vellum, with the manuscript title on the spine, red spotted edges. [1], [1 blank], [10], 143, [1]; 159, [1] pp. Full description

GHEYN, Jacob II de. [The riding school or exercise of cavalry].
[Leiden, workshop of Jacob II de Gheyn, 1599]. Oblong folio (25 x 32 cm). With 22 numbered engraved plates (varying sizes, ca. 15.4-16 x 19.7 x 21.5 cm), including the engraved title-page. The illustrations are designed by De Gheyn and possibly engraved by him or by Zacharias Dolendo. Contemporary gold-tooled calf with the large gold-tooled coat-of-arms of the Stuart Princes of Wales (Stuart Prince of Wales, Henry Frederick (1594-1612)) within a gold- and blind-tooled double fillet frame on both boards, with small gold-tooled flowers on the spine, gold-tooled board edges. [22 engraved plates]. Full description

GORI, Antonio Francesco. Museum Etruscum exhibens insignia veterum Etruscorum monumenta aereis tabulis CC. nunc privum edita et illustratum.
Florence, Gaetano Albizzini, 1737. Volume 1 and 2. Folio (27.5 x 37.5 cm). With engraved plates (12 folding), and 1 folding plate with Etruscan script. Contemporary vellum. LXVIII; [2], XLII, 471, [1] pp. 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

GULLAIN, Charles. Documents sur l'histoire, la geographie et le commerce de l'Afrique orientale.
Paris, Arthus Bertrand, [1856-1857]. 3 text volumes and 1 atlas volume. Text volumes: 8vo; atlas volume: folio. With 55 tinted plates. Contemporary leather-backed marbled boards. XXXI, [1], 628; XXIII, [1], 556; [4], 527, [1 blank] pp. Atlas volume: [4] pp. and 55 plates. Full description

HONDIUS, Hendrik (& Simon FRISIUS, Andries STOCK and Robert de BAUDOUS). Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipué Germaniae Inferioris, effigies. Pars I.
The Hague, Henricus Hondius, [ca. 1610]. Folio. An engraved print series with an architectural title-page with allegorical figures, 41 engraved portraits (20 x 12 cm) by Hendrik Hondius (9), Robert de Baudous (4), Simon Frisius (23) and Andries Stock (5); and an allegorical closing print (a skeleton holding an hour glass and an arrow, not in the copy on Google Books). The three plates outside the portraits are all by Hendrick Hondius. With an extra added portrait of Hendrick Hondius, engraved by Fredericus Boultats after a drawing by Hondius himself (16.5 x 11 cm; mounted on a blank leaf). Contemporary half calf, brown sprinkled paper sides. [44] engraved ll. plus [1] letterpress leaf. Full description

[HUGO, Victor]. [Théatre. Gravures sur soie].
[Paris, J. Lemmonyer, G. Richard and Cie, E. Testard, between 1885-1895]. 4to (ca. 27 x 24.5 cm). With 30 full-page engravings on silk. Contemporary gold-tooled red morocco, with the title and author lettered in gold on the spine, gold-tooled board edges and turn ins, marbled end papers. Bound by the French bookbinder Louis Guétant (1848-1936), signed in the bottom turn in of the front board. [30] silk ll. Full description

[INUIT - WATERCOLOUR]. [Watercolour of an Inuit hunting seals in a kayak].
[ca. 1839?]. Watercolour on laid paper (18.5 x 19.3 cm), in a passe-partout (44 x 43.5 cm). Full description

ISONO BUNSAI (BUNSAI MADAKI). Nagasaki miyage [= Souvenir of Nagasaki].
Nagasaki, Yamato-ya Yoshihei juo, Koka 4 [= 1847]. 23 x 15.5 cm. Text and illustrations printed from 42 woodblocks, probably on kozo (mulberry bark) paper (vertical chainlines about 34 mm apart), with an astrological figure and constellation on the title-page (the Mao Xiu lunar mansion?), 12 double-page and 6 full-page illustrations (a few with Dutch titles as well as Japanese) including a map of Nagasaki harbour (showing the Dutch and Chinese trading factories and three ships), two Chinese merchants at a table in the factory library while their servant unpacks a chest of books, a bedroom with a VOC captain(?) and merchant(?), the latter with his pocket watch and Indonesian servant, a cluster of Japanese ships making a dense forest of masts, a landscape with dozens of kites, another with many people on a bridge over a river, a Dutch VOC ship in great detail, a VOC merchant at dinner with an Indonesian servant and two Japanese geishas, a Dutch woman, an elephant, festivals (one with a dragon and drums), and other landscapes, city views, etc. The texts show a wide variety of writing styles (kaisho, gysho and sosho) with the blocks for many texts (and one illustration) including seals of authors or artists, mostly in tensho (seal characters). Original publishers blue paper wrappers in the traditional Japanese fukurotoji manner, publishers manuscript title-label on front wrapper. [1], 40, [1] double ll. Full description

[JEWELLED BINDING - FRENCH PRAYER BOOK]. L'abbé de la HOGUE. La journée du chrétien, sanctifiée par la prière et la méditation.
Lyon and Paris, Librairie Catolique de Perisse frères, 1844. 16mo. Binding: ca. 11 x 7 x 2.5 cm. With a small printer's device on the title page. 17th-century elaborately jewelled and decorated gilt silver binding with a gilt silver imperial double-headed eagle and two hands holding a heart centre piece, below Jesus on the cross (with an added skull and bones at the foot of the cross) and ornamental gilt silver corner pieces connected to the gilt silver board edge fittings on both boards. The whole is set with numerous jewels (amethysts, garnets, turquoise, and (simulated) sapphires). With two jewelled clasps closing on pegs in the fore edge of the front board, gilt edges, red velvet paste-downs and blue silk flyleaves backed with paper. VIII, 524, [5], [3 blank] pp. Full description