Autographs, Documents & Manuscripts / Manuscripts & Documents

[MANUSCRIPT - FLAGS - JAPAN]. "All the flags from 1893".
Japan, 1893. Collection of drawings of 131 flags, banners etc. on separate leaves of varying sizes, most of them coloured.
With: (2) [MANUSCRIPT]. [Decorated Japanese rice-paper].
Japan, [1893?]. Ten sample leaves 928 x 38 cm) of so-called rice paper (actually cut in small sheets from the pith of the rice-paper plant, Tetrapanax papyrifer), decorated with varying designs, like flowers, fans and traditional Japanese dolls.
19th-century wrappers of thick handmade Japanese paper, reinforced with straps of paper containing Japanese characters and blue and red stamps; with the title of ad 1 in Japanese characters on the front wrapper. [131]; [10] ll. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - ARABIC - DICTIONARY]. [Vocabularium Italico-Arabicum]. Arabic-Italian dictionary.
[Probably Egypt, ca. 1770]. 4to (ca. 17 x 22 cm). Arabic and Italian manuscript on paper, 19 lines per extensum, paginated throughout from right to left. Near-contemporary brown leather with a blind-stamped oriental rosette as a center piece and similar style corner pieces on both boards, a (partial) manuscript title-label on the spine. 494 pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - ASTRONOMY]. Plain astronomy. Manuscript volume of notes on practical astronomy and mathematics.
[England?, ca. 1777/1781?]. 4to. Manuscript volume of notes on practical astronomy and mathematics in English, written in ink on Dutch paper with a Maid of Dordrecht watermark without countermark. The leaves are numbered from the front, 101 and 26 leaves of text and diagrams, 39 blank leaves in the middle, last 26 leaves in reverse order, illustrated with several astronomical and mathematical diagrams, including one of a solar system. Late 18th-century half calf, marbled sides. 101, 26, [39 blank], 26 ll. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALENDAR]. [Calendar for calculating the date of Easter].
[Auxerre, France?], [ca. 1400?]. Small 4to. Latin manuscript in red, brown and black ink on paper, written in an upright French gothic semi-cursive hand with short texts in a textura hand, with 6 round diagrams for calendrical calculations containing text and 2 more with no text filled in. Leaves A4-A6 (6 pages) written in two columns contain 12 tables for the 12 months (January to December) providing data for each day of the month, and the manuscript includes further data for calendrical calculations in several more rectangular tables. The final blank leaf has holes pricked to form a circle, but no diagram has been drawn using them. Sewn through 3 holes in a (ca. 1550?) paper wrapper, the whole in paperboards lined with printed waste paper from a (17th-century?) Latin Breviary. [18], [2 blank] pp. (pp. 2 & 5 also blank). Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALLIGRAPHY - FRENCH]. [Writing masters copy-book].
[Liège?], 1634-1643?. Oblong 4to (17.5 x 21.5 cm). A manuscript writing masters copy-book in French, written on the rectos only, mostly in black ink on paper, each of the first 9 leaves beginning with a very large (9-13 cm) decorated initial drawn in pen and ink, displaying knotwork (sometimes making heart forms) and extensive stylized pictorial elements - both reminiscent of mediaeval Keltic examples - and coloured by a contemporary hand: A-I/J in alphabetical order, and the same letter of the alphabet written below the initial in several styles of gothic capitals and usually also minuscules (A-E in black, F-I/J in red). The two remaining leaves, also in an upright gothic cursive, show an 8-line model text (a letter to a friend, Antoine van Rosendal, dated from Liège, 5 June 1643) with a 2-line minuscule alphabet (beginning with a capital A) below and several other As separately; and a complete capital and minuscule (24-letter) alphabet, including W (6 lines); both with penwork flourishes, including (in the former) a round spiral incorporating 6 faces in profile. Sewn through 3 holes in a contemporary sheepskin parchment wrapper. Kept in a 20th-century French curl-marbled paperboard folder, in a matching marbled slipcase. [11], [10 blank] ll., the 10 blanks including 3 small fragments. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALLIGRAPHY]. WALBEEK, Willem and Frans WALBEEK. [Three calligraphic prize books by Willem and Frans Walbeek].
Warmond (near Leiden), the Netherlands, 1752-1756.
Comprising:
(1) WALBEEK, Willem. Prijs boek. Inhoudende verscheyde geschriften.
Warmond, 1752.
(2) WALBEEK, Willem. Prijs-boek. Inhoudende eenige schriften.
Warmond, 1753.
(3) WALBEEK, Frans. Prijs boek.
Warmond, 1756.
Three oblong albums (ca. 35 x 44 cm). With the same hand drawn illustration of 2 putti holding a laurel wreath on the title-pages of ads 2 and 3, and an ink drawing of a compass (drawing instrument, or other measuring instrument) as part of a calligraphic exercise also in ads 2 and 3. Contemporary marbled paper wrappers. [12]; [1 blank], [13]; [10] ll. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CARTOGRAPHY]. Memoire sur la manière de centrer les angles et de calculer les triangles selon la direction de la méridienne et de la perpendiculaire à l 'usage des ingenieurs-géographes.
[France, ca. 1750/99]. Folio. Manuscript in French on thick paper, written in a neat 18th-century cursive hand. With 5 manuscript plates, showing 14 geometrical figures. Sewn in quires and stored loose in a portfolio covered with grey paper, grey cloth ties, paper label on the front board. [2 blank], [1], [1 blank], 61, [3 blank] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CEYLON - NATURAL HISTORY]. Schets van eenige zoorten van dieren welke in de bosschen omstreeks Cijlon gevonden worden.
[Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Netherlands?], [18th or 19th century?]. 8vo (16.5 x 10.5 cm). Written in a late 18th-century or early 19th-century cursive in French and Dutch.
With: (2) [MANUSCRIPT - FRENCH & DUTCH POEMS AND SONGS]. [Quelques Chansons]. Contemporary decorated paper wrappers. [28] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CHINESE MUSLIM PRAYERBOOK]. Al-salaam alaykum. [= Peace be unto you].
Quanzhou, 990 AH [= 1582 CE]. Folio (ca. 20.5 x 30 cm). Arabic manuscript on paper. Black sini script in nine lines with red verse markers, titles in red, glossing in black. With beautifully illuminated full-page 'Unwan with Chinese influence on designs, in gold, blue, red, green, and black. 18th-century cloth and paper wrappers. 46 ll. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - SERVICE BOOK - DIVINE OFFICES]. Ordine da osservarsi nell'oratorio di Santa Maria di Passione, circa gli Essercicii Spirituali delle feste cavato dalla Regola maggiore.
[Milan], [18th-century]. Folio (27,5 x 18,5 cm). With 5 full-page and 2 half-page, hand-painted religious illustrations and 9 hand-painted initials on a blue background, heightened with gold and silver. 18th-century gold- and blind-tooled parchment, each board with a blind ornamental centre-piece ornament in a blind-tooled frame, in a larger frame of gold fillets, with a gold flower in each of the 6 spine compartments. [1 blank], [1], 66 pp. Full description