• Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Forum Auctions
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
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    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2019 Issue

Renaissance Manuals on Perspective and Human Proportion from Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books

Perspectives.

Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books has issued a catalogue entitled Perspectives. A Special Collection of Artists' Manuals on Perspective and Human Proportion. Perspective, basically, is the art of making flat, two-dimensional images appear as if they were three dimensional. To a large degree, we take it for granted today as artists, with varying degrees of success, have mastered the art. However, if you think of the pictures you drew in elementary school, and many if not most of us never advanced beyond this, they were flat and dull. There was a time when even the greatest artists never advanced beyond this point.

 

The development of a sense of perspective dates only to the Renaissance. That is why the great paintings found inside the Egyptian pyramids look flat and out of proportion. Walk like an Egyptian. The drawings may have offered detail, but they still lacked depth, not at all life like. The same can be said for old American native rock art and cave art. Talented artists drew flat images. It was not until the dawn of the Renaissance that great artists such as Michelangelo and Dürer began to master the techniques that added a third dimension, and with it, life to their drawings.

 

For example, take a look at the cover image. I have no idea what these gentlemen are doing, or what they are pointing to, so I will leave that to others to explain. What else is noticeable is the artist has added depth to the drawing. The different sizes of the figures creates a sense that some are farther away than others, though in reality, the difference is that some figures are larger than others, not closer. The lines, which draw together appear as they would if traveling away from you, though in reality they too are flat. Add to that the greater detail in the larger figures, as you would be able to discern from people placed closer to you, and the the shading beneath the feet consistently aimed in one direction as shadows would be, and you have created the appearance of depth the Egyptians never mastered.

 

Of course, there is more to perspective than this simple explanation, which is why I still can't draw anything more realistic than a mediocre cave drawing. There are mathematical relationships that artists began to recognize at the dawn of the Renaissance. These books and manuals relate these lessons as they were developed in the early days of three-dimensional art. Much here, new at the time, is timeless today. Here are a few examples.

 

We begin with a trilogy from Albrecht Dürer: Underweysung der messung, mit dem zirckel unn richtscheyt in Linien ebnen unnd gantzen corporen (1525), with Etliche underricht, zu befestigung der Stett, Schlosz, und flecken (1527), with Hierinn sind begriffen vier bücher von menschlicher Proportion (1528). This is a sammelband of first editions of the three groundbreaking books Dürer wrote near the end of his life (he died in 1528). The first is his treatise on measurement, which explained his techniques on perspective and mathematical proportion. The second is on a different subject – fortification. One doesn't think of Dürer with military subjects, he being an artist, engraver and writer, but this was a practical subject at a time when some European country was always fighting with another, or with the Turks, or even their own people. It makes more sense if you think of this as a book about architecture. The third book is on human proportion, a necessary subject for an artist to master, both for perspective and realistic drawings of people. Item 2.

 

Next we turn to a book on perspective even older than those of Dürer, Von der Kunnst Perspectiva. This is the 1509 German edition of De artificiali perspectiva, first published in France in 1505. The author was Jean Pélerin, also known as Viator. He was not the first to write about perspective, as several Italian artists had written on the subject before, some even prior to printing, but his 1505 edition was the first such treatise published outside of Italy. Viator was a diplomat in the court of King Louis XI and a clergyman. What he wasn't was an artist. Nonetheless, he had a great understanding of the principles of perspective. The drawings used to illustrate the principles are simple, essentially line drawings, as one might expect of a person of limited artistic talent. Nevertheless, they dramatically display depth despite their simplicity, demonstrating how to create a sense of perspective. This very rare edition, published by Jörg Glockendon, is believed to have been pirated. Item 1.

 

Next we have an amazing book whose artwork in a sense turns perspective on its head. The perspective is right, but the objects illustrated present an incongruous mix. You would think this was surrealism, except that art form would not be invented for another 350 years. The title is Geometria et Perspectiva, Hier Inn Etliche Zerbrochne Gebew, den Schreinern in eingelegter Arbait dienstlich… by Lorenz Stöer. It was published in 1567. Stöer illustrates very odd scenes, combining realistic structures, various large polyhedrons, and other unusual structures to create a world that will remind you of a more recent artist who created some of the most fantastic artwork of the last century. As Günther notes, “The bizarre and implausible coexistence of buildings, nature, and puzzling geometrical objects is so surreal that they resemble – and may have been the inspiration for – the tangled and ‘impossible’ works of the Dutch artist Maurits C. Escher (1898-1972), renowned for his mathematically-inspired optical illusions.” If you are an admirer of the work of Escher, to which I plead guilty, you will love these illustrations. Item 8.

 

It turns out the item on the cover is actually a manual on perspective. The title is Underweissung der Proportion unnd stellung der bossen, likely a rare third edition from 1543 (the first was published in 1538). It is the work of Erhard Schön, a disciple of Dürer. Günther describes Schön as probably the leading woodcut designer after Dürer. He had a workshop full of apprentices who asked him to create this guide to help them prepare satisfactory illustrations. The instructions of Dürer and others were hard to follow, so Schön's job was to make the principles more understandable. Many of the illustrations use simpler linear ones to demonstrate the point, people with square, or cube-like heads seen from different angles. Günther notes once again these drawings appear to preview much later art forms, saying, “these angular figures composed of geometrical solids are stunning for the present-day viewer, as they strongly recall cubism, anticipating the 20th-century avant-garde movement.” Item 4.

 

Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books may be reached at +41 (0)61 275 7575 or info@guenther-rarebooks.com. Their website is www.guenther-rarebooks.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
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    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
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