Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - September - 2014 Issue

Illustrations Featured in a Variety of Works from Antiquariats Banzhaf and Kuhn

Antiquariat Banzhaf and Antiquariat Michael Kuhn have combined to produce another joint catalogue. This one does not appear to have a title, and I cannot come up with an obvious one for it. Material does not fit into any clear subject, though we do note that interesting illustrations are features of most items. This includes early photography, drawings by talented though not always professional illustrators, abundant plates, and even some nature printing. While both booksellers come from Germany, the material is international in scope, Europe and America leading the way. These are a few samples of what it is being offered.

 

We start with a three-volume bound set of photographs compiled by Pierre Arbel with the cover title Exposition de Chicago, 1893. This was the famed Columbian Exposition, celebrating 500 years since Columbus' discovery of the New World. Much had changed in those 500 years, but the rate of change was about to explode. The Chicago fair would introduce new technology to many of its visitors, such as the electric light. Arbel was a French industrialist and member of the exposition committee. The photographic albums are filled with images of buildings and other features of the fair along with products displayed. However, it is particularly concentrated with photographs concerning the greatest development of the quickly expiring 19th century – railways. Railroads were at their peak in 1893, with little suspicion that their dominant role in transportation would be replaced by horseless carriages in the coming decades. The albums contain numerous photographs of locomotives, wagons, and other railway equipment. Priced at €3,500 (euros, or about $4,620 in U.S. dollars).

 

The Chicago World's Fair came 15 years after a like fair in Paris. A similar photo album was prepared for this fair by Alphonse Liebert, a French photographer who began as a portraitist in San Francisco during the early days of photography, returning home in the 1860's. In France, he photographed sites around Paris, including the Paris commune. Among the photographs in this album is one that displayed a very large head. It was that of Lady Liberty. The French and Americans had agreed on the project to build a statue commemorating the cooperation between the nations during the American Revolution a century earlier. It would take many years to complete, with the statue being dedicated in 1886. At the time of the 1878 fair, the head had been completed and was placed on display. Liebert's album has the cover title Souvenir de Exposition de 1878. €8,000 (US $10,562).

 

Next we have a handwritten French translation circa 1800 of John Churchman's solution to the problem of determining longitude, the Magnetic Atlas (Atlas Magnétique in French). The French translation was never published, though many editions of Churchman's theory were published in English. Churchman was a surveyor from America whose ideas were not well-received in his homeland. He traveled to Europe where he found a more sympathetic audience. While John Harrison had developed a chronometer by this time that enabled mariners to determine longitude, it was quite expensive. Churchman believed that determining magnetic variations from true north, combined with easy to obtain latitude readings, could establish a ship's longitude. However, Churchman did not accurately understand the source of the earth's magnetism, his assumptions thereby not leading to correct conclusions about longitude. It was a nice try. €9,800 (US $12,937).

 

German immigrant George Johann Scharf published a collection of Six views in the Zoological Gardens, Regents Park, in 1835. Scharf was a watercolor artist who learned lithography in his homeland. He moved on to France and the Low Countries, joined up with the English army in time to participate in the Battle of Waterloo, and in 1816 moved to London, where he settled down. He specialized in scenes of ordinary life in England, converting his drawings to salable prints. He then took up providing illustrations for scientific institutions. This brought him in contact with Charles Darwin, who commissioned him to draw some South American fossils. However, the relationship soured as Darwin felt Scharf was overcharging for his work, which led to a drying up of these orders and a less than prosperous conclusion to Scharf's career. He died in 1860, leaving behind over a thousand drawings which made their way to the British Museum. This particular work is somewhat scientific in its depiction of animals, though it is more focused on scenes at the Zoological Gardens. €4,200 (US $5,544).

 

Nature printing would have a brief run of popularity in the 1850's, with Henry Bradbury being the most notable Englishman to employ the process. However, he was not the first of his countrymen to use the process where a specimen itself is used to create the image printed. Thomas Hopkirk initiated the process in England in 1817 with the publication of Flora Anomoia. It is a study of anomalies in the plant kingdom. Most copies of this work are in the octavo trade edition with only one nature printing among its plates. This is a copy of the large paper edition which had 13 nature printed plates, plus it is an exceedingly rare copy with two extra such plates. It was inscribed by Hopkirk to Lady Liston. She was the wife of diplomat Sir Robert Liston and had a deep interest in gardening and botany. €8,000 (US $10,557).

 

Antiquariat Banzhaf may be reached at 0049-(0)7071-552314 or Antiquariat-Banzhaf@t-online.de. Their website is found at www.antiquariat-banzhaf.de. Antiquariat Michael Kuhn may be contacted at 0049 – (0)30 86 39 69 34 or kuehn.rarebooks@arcor.de. The website is www.kuehn-books.de.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800
  • Sotheby’s
    Fine Books and Manuscripts
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane] — Isaac D'Israeli. Jane Austen's copy of Curiosities of Literature. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition in boards of the author's debut novel. 70,000 - 100,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Brontë, Charlotte. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me..." 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Eliot, George. The author's magnum opus. 25,000 - 35,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Whitman, Walt. Manuscript written upon the Death of Lincoln, 1865. 60,000 - 80,000 USD
  • Sotheby’s
    Important Modern Literature from the Library of an American Filmmaker
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Kerouac, Jack. Typescript scroll of The Dharma Bums. Typed by Kerouac in Orlando, Florida, 1957, published by Viking in 1958. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. The autograph manuscript of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Miller, Henry. Typescript of The Last Book, a working title for Tropic of Cancer, written circa 1931–1932. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with a lengthy inscription to Joe Goode. 40,000 - 60,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. in our time, first edition of Hemingway’s second book. 30,000 - 50,000 USD
  • Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Samuel Augustus Mitchell, A New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining, Philadelphia, 1846. $3,500 to $5,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: 17th–19th-century case maps of various locations. $1,500 to $2,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Andreas Cellarius, Haemisphaerium Stellatum Boreale Cum Subiecto Haemisphaerio Terrestri, celestial chart, Amsterdam, 1708. $2,500 to $3,500.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Vincenzo Coronelli, Set of engraved gores for Coronelli’s monumental 42-inch terrestrial globe, Venice, circa 1688–97. $18,000 to $22,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, group of four navigational charts, Antwerp, 1580s. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Thomas Bros, Block Book of Berkeley, Oakland, 1920s. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Nieuhoff & John Ogilby, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, map of China, plan of Canton, London, 1673. $1,200 to $1,800.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Frederick Sander, Reichenbachia, St. Albans, 1888-1894. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Two early illustrated works on horsemanship and breeding, Nuremberg, early 18th century. $700 to $800.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Gould, A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans. Supplement to the First Edition, London, 1834; 1855. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World, London, 1808–14. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Oakley Hoopes Bailey, Hackensack, New Jersey, Boston, 1896. $800 to $1,200.
  • CHRISTIE’S
    Valuable Books and Manuscripts
    London auction
    13 December
    Find out more
    Christie’s, Explore now
    TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
    C.1311. £100,000–150,000

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