Autographs, Documents & Manuscripts / Manuscripts & Documents

[BOOK OF HOURS]. [Book of Hours - use of Rouen].
Rouen, Normandy, France, ca. 1480. Small 4to (14.3 x 19.3 cm). Latin and French illuminated manuscript on vellum. Ruled in red ink for 14 lines per page (16 in the calendar). Gothic textura, major feasts in calendar in burnished gold, others alternately red or blue. Text pages illuminated with panel borders of flowers and plants on gold, and blue and gold stylised acanthus on a plain ground. Calendar has 24 small square miniatures set into panel borders; major text divisions marked by 12 large miniatures; 2 historiated initials; hundreds of smaller initials and line-fillers throughout. 18th-century French gold-tooled red calf over pasteboards, with the title lettered in gold on the spine, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. [160] ll. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - BOOK OF SECRETS - GERMAN]. [Medicinal recipes and incantations].
[Germany?], [ca. 1700?]. Small 8vo (16 x 10 cm). Manuscript in German with occasional Latin phrases, written on laid paper in brown and black ink in at least two German gothic cursive hands (the Latin phrases in Latin hands), a "tetragrammaton" diagram (rectangular with a St Andrews cross rather than star-shaped) with the name of (the archangel) Uriel and a "sator rotas" square. Lacking quire A and bifolium B1.8 (10 ll.?). Brown vellum(?) wrapper, sewn without supports at 3 stations. [4], 17-28, 31-78, [8] pp. Full description

[BOTANICAL MANUSCRIPT - FRIAR LUC DAVID]. [Drop title:] Traite des plantes universelles par figures au naturel par le frere Luc david Recollet, chirrugien oculiste ...
[France], 1742. Large folio (ca. 45 x 28 cm). With 423 botanical drawings in bright watercolour. Manuscript with French text (including Latin names of the depicted plants), written in an 18th-century cursive hand. Most leaves contain a "Strasbourg bend" watermark: a fleur-de-lis above a shield with a diagonal band and the countermark "L Laroche" (identical to Heawood 65, but erroneously listed by him as "I Laroche", date: 1718-1721). The French papermaker Léonard Laroche (1646-1721) was active in the French province of Angoumois (now Charente) in the period 1673-1721.
Contemporary vellum, later endpapers. [2], 423, [1 blank], [19] ll. Full description

BOULTEN, F.A. [Manuscript ledger recording the time spent working on infrastructural projects].
[London?,] 1952-1955. Folio. Lined journal, each page ruled for monthly tallies, with some extra annotations. Contemporary cloth. [48] 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

[BRAZIL]. D'ORLEANS, Louis-Philippe. [MANUSCRIPT]. Ordonnance du Roi qui prescrit la publication de la convention relative à l'établissement d'un service de paquebots à vapeur entre la France et le Brésil.
Neuilly, 21 May 1844. Small folio (31.5 x 20 cm). Written in French in a very neat calligrapher's cursive. Sewn through 2 holes with a blue ribbon, gilt edges. [1], [1 blank], [14], [4 blank] pp. 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

[MILITARIA - MAURITIUS]. CAMPBELL, Alexander. [Warrant to authorize the occupation of a house for His Majesty's forces in Mauritius and Bourbon].
Port-Louis, 24 June 1813. 4to. Manuscript warrant written in ink on paper, signed. Loosely inserted in a later orange paper folder. [1] leaf. Full description

[CARRIAGE HORSE TACK]. FÖLSCH, Michael. [Sample book of harness designs and other elaborate and decorative carriage horse tack].
[Vienna, ca. 1790?]. 2 volumes. Oblong small folio (23.5 x 37 cm and 25.5 x 39.5 cm). With 67 pen-and-ink, watercolour and gouache drawings of horses, most highlighted with silver and gold , all signed, most trimmed and mounted on blank leaves ca. 1805. With 2 etchings added at the end of volume 1, executed by Friedrich Leopold Bürde and dated 1812. Volume 1 stab-sewn, volume 2 with the leaves mounted on stubs and sewn through the folds, each with marbled paper wrapped around the spine. In an early 19th-century half tanned sheepskin box in the form of a book, metal hook-clasps. Full description

CARRIÉRE, Jan Ph. Herbarium van bloemen en planten. 1ste deel.
[Watergraafsmeer, ca. 1884]. 1 volume. Small folio (22.5×20.5 cm). With 30 drawings of flowers in watercolour and ink, each with a description in Dutch on a separate leaf. The whole preceded by a title-page, a table of contents (1 page), and an introduction (2 pages). Contemporary black cloth, rebacked, modern endpapers.
With: (2) CARRIÉRE, Jan Ph. Herbarium van naar de natuurgeteekende bladeren, "afdeeling boomgewassen". [Title volume 2:] Herbarium van boombladeren.
Watergraafsmeer, 1884. 3 volumes. Small folio (22.5×20.5 cm). With 90 drawings of tree leaves in watercolour and ink, with a description in Dutch on a separate leaf. The first two volumes each with a title-page, a table of contents (1 page) and an introduction (1 page), and the third volume without preliminaries. Contemporary blue (vols. 1-2) and black (vol. 3) half cloth. The third volume rebacked with original backstrip laid down. Full description