Autographs, Documents & Manuscripts / Manuscripts & Documents

[FRENCH ROYAL NAVY]. [Binding title:] Abregé de la marine du Roy 1732.
[Paris?, 1732]. 13.5×19 cm. Manuscript in brown-black, red and blue ink on vellum, some of the lettering and borders gilt. With a beautiful frontispiece painting in coloured gouaches (14×9.5 cm) pasted on the page facing the opening of the text, showing a small warship at a shipyard in a small harbour being repaired by workmen. Contemporary red morocco, gold-tooled spine, gold-tooled fillets on boards and board edges, richly gold-tooled frame, gilt edges. Frontispiece plus [2], 26 ll., including 2 double and 1 larger folding. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - GARDENING]. Introduction à la théorie de l'art des jardins.
Ca. 1775-1800. 2 volumes. 4to. Written in several, slightly different neat 18th-century hands. Later red decorated paper over stiff paperboards, spines covered with brown paper, black morocco spine labels with titles and volume numbers in gold. [2], 2, 46 pp., 47-76 ll., 60 pp.; 129, [3], 83, 96, 20 pp. plus 2 ll.with the table of contents. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - GENEALOGY & HERALDRY - DUTCH]. [Manuscript genealogies of the noble family Cuylenburgh ( vol. 1) and the noble family Beusichum & Cuylenburgh (vol. 2)].
[Utrecht, Culemborg or Beusichem?], ca. 1655-1675, after 1654]. 2 volumes. Large folio. Manuscript in Dutch, written in one hand in a neat, 17th-century hand cursive hand. With 65 coat of arms, almost all of them coloured by hand. Also with some spaces for coats of arms left blank. A loose leaf added to volume with 34 ink-drawn and contemporary hand-coloured small coats of arms with accompanying text written in a cursive 17th-century hand. 19th-century half brown cloth (vol. 1) and red buckram (vol. 2), brown decorated paper sides, titles in gold on the front boards. [4 (plus 1 loose leaf)]; [8] ll. Full description

[DRAWING - FORTIFICATION]. GENNEP, T.P. van. [Three fortification plans].
[Raamsdonk], 1798. 3 manuscript fortification plans (measuring (ad 1) 58 x 93 cm, (ad 2) 24.5 x 24.5 cm (ad 3) 29.5 x 37 cm) on paper. All signed: T.P. van Gennep, 1798; and one: Raamsdonk, 29 January 1798. Full description

[HERALDRY - FLANDERS - NETHERLANDS - FRANCE]. [Album containing coats of arms of Flemish, Dutch and French noble families].
[France, Flanders and the Netherlands, 17th and 18th century]. Folio. With 390 coats of arms (plus another 49 blank shields) of which 13 on vellum, all but 25 contemporary hand-coloured of which 17 painted with gold and 1 with silver and all but 3 drawn by hand. Mostly all coat of arms are captioned in brown ink in contemporary 17th- or 18th-century cursive hands, in which also the sometimes added manuscript text (on the same or another leaf) is written. Coats of arms on paper and vellum in various sizes, mounted on later folio-sized paper leaves. 18th-century half red roan (sheepskin), brown sprinkled paper sides over boards, manuscript title label on the front board. All loose leaves and quires mounted/stored on [29] ll, the quires loosely stored in a paper slip mounted on a leaf. Full description

[FORTIFICATION]. HOOFF, Cornelis Christiaan van. Grondbeginselen der vestingbouw, volgens de verschillende manieren van versterken van Pagan, Vauban en Coehoorn. Geconstrueerd getekend en beschreven door C C van Hooff.
[The Hague], 1796. Folio. With a calligraphic title-page and 19 folding drawings (mostly about 32.5 x 51 cm, 6 longer: 78 to 138 cm, the longest assembled from 2 pieces before drawing) with 45 numbered figures, showing fortification plans and sections in black and red ink with coloured washes. With an 1857(?) photograph of a (ca. 1795?) miniature oval portrait of the author and 4 documents concerning the manuscript and the author's family (1933-1965), all loosely inserted. Contemporary half, tanned sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. [1], [1 blank], 81, [1 blank], [1], [3 blank] pp. plus 19 integral blank ll. with drawings tipped onto them. Full description

[HORSES - MILITARY]. Anecdoten van paarde kenners, paarde liefhebbers, ruijters en ross-kammers. Naar waarheid en eijge ondervinding opgesteld. Door een gepensioneerd cavallerie officier.
[The Netherlands, ca. 1815]. Folio (38 x 24 cm). Manuscript on paper written in brown ink in a readable Latin hand, with the title on p. 72, illustrated with 30 small watercolour drawings of horses mounted on the leaves (mostly about 8.5 x 11 cm), and a washed pen drawing with 5 caricature figures before a monument (9.5 x 16 cm), mounted above the dedication. Half vellum (1930s?), gold-tooled spine. [4 blank], 248, 251-254, 257-267, [9 blank] pp. Full description

[ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT - ALTAR CANON]. Accipiendo in manibus hostiam dicat[!].... Initium Sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem. ... Cibavit illum dominus pane vitæ et intellectus.
[Belgium?], [ca. 1790?]. Three illuminated manuscript wall panels in matching style, forming a three-part altar canon lettered in blue and red ink on parchment (one 47.5 x 57 cm & two 31 x 22 cm; image sizes 46 x 54.5 cm & 29.5 x 21 cm), the larger stretched over a wooden frame and each of the smaller two over a wooden panel. All three panels meticulously and finely lettered in the style of roman printing types with 1 line in italic capitals, all 12 initials and some of their decoration in gold. All three panels richly illuminated around and between the text blocks with a gold background and extensive gold highlights, the illumination including decorated cartouches. The principal scenes at the head (miniatures in a wide variety of colours) show the Last Supper, Saint John the Evangelist and Christ washing his apostles feet; the central scenes at the foot (ink and ink wash drawings, probably emblematic, that on the large panel in grey and those on the small panels in red) show a lamb and cross on an altar, 4 standing figures with long staffs around a table with a platter (of bread?: some of the figures are eating something) and herald angels before a kneeling figure (it doesnt look like a shepherd or the Virgin Mary). Full description

[ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT - BOOK OF HOURS (DIOCESE OF UTRECHT)]. [Incipit, A2r:] Alst my gaet niet nae mij[n] syn / Soe wil ic my liden en[de] swyghe stil ...
[Diocese of Utrecht, the County of Holland], 1488. Large 8vo (19 x 13.5 x 4 cm). Written in Dutch on vellum by 2 gothic textura hands in 1 column (20 lines/page for the first hand for the main text and calendar; 22 lines/page for the additions written by the second hand). All leaves are numbered in pencil in the upper margin of the rectos by a 19th- or 20th-century hand. Richly iluminated by the Master of the Brussels Hours of the Bezborodko Group, being one of the stylistic groups of the Masters of the Dark Eyes, with 6 full-page miniatures, 2 historiated initials and 4 larger decorated initials, several smaller decorated initials, and many 1-line lombardic initials in blue and red. Also with a 6-line blue penwork initial on a red penwork ground, being a contemporary addition. Also with three- and four-marginal border decoration (an uncoloured background filled in with small dots or short tendrils in black, show acanthus leaves in different colours, various flowers and several brightly coloured birds and fabulous beings, with gold and black/white dots among them). Contemporary blind-tooled calf over rounded ("cushioned") wooden boards. With the original brass catch- and anchor-plates, the latter with remnants of the leather fastenings, and the later silk red ribbon markers loosely preserved. 144 ll. including 6 inserted leaves with miniatures and 2 blank endpapers used as paste-downs. Full description

[FRENCH INDIA - MANUSCRIPT]. Des castes Indiennes.
Karaikal, 11 April [1743]. 4to (ca. 24 x 18.5 cm). Manuscript written in dark brown ink on beige laid paper. Blue mottled stiff paper wrappers. [23], [1 blank] pp. Full description