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Lot 276

Moorish style folio stand with mother of pearl inlay, 80cm high

Lot 338

Folding wooden folio stand featuring tigers and elephants, etc 58cm wide

Lot 264

A collection of Folio Society books, to include Jane Austin, Columbus on himself, Folk Tales of the British Isles, A short history of the English people, Rudyard Kipling, The Grand Tour, etc., in one box. Click here to view further images, condition reports, sale times & delivery costs for this lot.

Lot 514

A near eastern mother of pearl and bone inlaid hardwood folding folio stand, decorated with scrolling foliage, 70 cm wide (with losses).

Lot 1

ALBUM - NINETEENTH CENTURYLarge nineteenth century album, including original watercolours, oil sketches, pencil drawings, and lithographed prints of costume groups, views (Switzerland, Italy, Britain, etc.), and genre scenes, and others, mostly mounted on verso only on approximately 90 leaves, contemporary gilt- and blindstamped red morocco, g.e., some abrasions, upper hinge cracked, folio (365 x 245mm.), [c.1820-1840]Footnotes:A fine early nineteenth century album, the original larger watercolours including five animal scenes signed 'B. Fenning' (hare coursing; dappled race horse; grouse shooting with dogs; wolfhound; grouse); two costume groups (boy and blindman begging; 2 girls with hurdy gurdy) signed D. 'Lynch, 1829'; four of European female traditional costumes; three of means of transport (open carriage with 9 fancifully dressed female passengers; bullock drawn working carts), and four natural history scenes; four oil views (120 x 170mm.) of rural landscapes, probably European. The pencil sketches include a fine view of Menai Bridge, three female portraits (one dated 1840), and others.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 106

ASHENDENE PRESSMALORY (THOMAS) The Noble and Joyous Book entytled Le Morte Darthur notwythstondyng it treateth of the Birth, Lyf, and Actes of the sayd King Arthur, of his Noble Knyghtes of the Rounde Table, ONE OF 145 COPIES printed on paper, from an overall edition of 153, printed in Subiaco type, chapter headings and shoulder notes in red, 4- to 8-line initials designed by Graily Hewitt and printed alternately in red and blue, 29 woodcut illustrations (2 full-page) by W.H. Hooper and J.B. Swain after designs by C.M. and Margaret Gere, bookplate of Benjamin Martin Chandler, original dark brown calf, gilt-lettered on spine, joints slightly worn, a few minor abrasions, held in purpose-made blindstamped cloth slipcase [Hornby 26], folio (400 x 280mm.), Shelley House, Chelsea, Ashendene Press, 1913Footnotes:Writing to St. John Hornby at the Ashendene Press, Sydney Cockerell enthused that 'The Morte d'Arthur is a glorious piece of printing and... it is an achievement of which you and all who follow the developments of fine craftsmanship in England may well be proud... The presswork is miraculous. Black, red and blue are all quite perfect, with never anywhere so much as a hint of a spread'.Provenance: Property of an Australian estate.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 107

ASHENDENE PRESSCERVANTES SAAVEDRA (MIGUEL DE) The First [-Second] Part of the History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant Don Quixote of the Mancha. Translated out of Spanish by Thomas Shelton, 2 vol., LIMITED TO 225 COPIES on handmade Batchelor paper, from an overall edition of 245, printed in red and black, decorative initials and borders designed by Louise Powell and cut on wood by W.M. Quick & Geo. H. Ford, original pigskin, gilt lettered in compartments on spine [Hornby 36], folio (430 x 305mm.), Shelley House, Chelsea, Ashendene Press, 1927-1928Footnotes:The first Ashendene to be printed in Hornby's new Ptolemy type which was adapted from the type used for an edition of Ptolemaeus's Geographia printed at Ulm in 1482.Provenance: Property of an Australian estate.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 108

AUDEN (WYSTAN HUGH)Autograph manuscript of his poem 'The Wanderer', headed with the Roman numeral 'I', comprising 29 lines in three stanzas of thirteen, seven and nine lines respectively, beginning 'Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle:/ Upon what man it fall/ In Spring, day-wishing flowers appearing...', and ending '...Lucky with day approaching, with leaning dawn.', one page, on feint-lined paper, creased at folds, dust-staining, slightly browned at edges with light damp stain on left side not affecting text, verso foxed, folio (330 x 205mm.), [1930]Footnotes:'DOOM IS DARK & DEEPER THAN ANY SEA-DINGLE': AUDEN'S HOMAGE TO ANGLO-SAXON POETRYAuden's untitled poem of 1930 was written whilst working as a schoolmaster at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland. At the time he was revisiting the early English texts he had encountered at Oxford and was writing a now-lost play called The Fronny. Indeed, the compelling first line of the poem derives from a thirteenth-century prose piece called Sawles Warde - 'all the redes and the runes of God, and his dooms that dern be, and deeper than any sea-dingle'. Conor Leahey in his comprehensive discussion of Auden's debt to Middle English literature ('Middle English In Early Auden', The Review of English Studies, volume 70, issue 295, June 2019, pp.527–549), calls the poem 'one of his most mysterious and compelling early lyrics, originally referred to simply as 'Chorus from a Play'... It is this choric element, as well as the unpredictable rhythm of the poem's versification, that allows Auden to resolve these mixed affiliations into a voice that is uniquely his own... not an arcane miscellany of allusions, but an evocative and disarming lyric achievement... The poem has become emblematic of Auden's early manner, but in many ways it is an unlikely classic', using as it does Old English tropes such as the alliterative line, kenning ('houses for fishes' for example) and the tradition of riddles. The poem shares its title with an old English lament in the Exeter Book of c.970 where, as in Auden's poem, the wanderer wakes to a sight of 'bird-flocks nameless to him'. Auden also makes reference to his own early work, the poem's closing line, for instance, 'Lucky with day approaching, with leaning dawn' is adapted from the line 'Dawn leans across the sea' from a poem of 1927.Auden freely admitted his debt to the past, remarking in 1962 that 'I was spellbound. This poetry, I knew, was going to be my dish... Anglo-Saxon and Middle English poetry have been one of my strongest, most lasting influences', and he was not alone. Academics have identified a widespread phenomenon amongst early twentieth-century writers who looked to Old English as a compositional resource, citing C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Ezra Pound, who translated The Seafarer from the Exeter Book in 1911, with its influence being felt as recently as 1999 with Seamus Heaney's widely-acclaimed translation of Beowulf. The poem was included in his influential collection Poems published by Faber under the auspices of T.S. Eliot, and was numbered 'II' in the 1933 second edition. Another manuscript of 'The Wanderer' is held in the Auden Papers in the New York Public Library (Berg Collection mss Auden). The present piece derives from a UK private collection.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 121

DODGSON (CHARLES LUTWIDGE) 'LEWIS CARROLL'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, NUMBER 221 OF 350 COPIES, printed in black, red and blue on specially made paper, preface and notes by James R. Kincaid, numerous wood-engraved illustrations (many full-page, one double-page) by Barry Moser, additional suite of 74 plates (each signed in pencil by the artist) loose as issued in cloth folder, the text in original purple half morocco over marbled boards by Gray Parrot, together in original morocco-backed linen bookcase (light fading to spine), folio (420 x 270mm.), West Hatfield, Mass., Printed by Harold McGrath at Pennyroyal Press, 1982Footnotes:Provenance: Property of an Australian estate.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 126

KELMSCOTT PRESSCHAUCER (GEOFFREY) The Works, ONE OF 425 COPIES, edited by F.S. Ellis and W.W. Skeat, printed in red and black, 87 wood-engraved illustrations (some full-page) designed by Edward Burne-Jones, woodcut borders, frames, ornaments and initials throughout, paper guard between title and p.1, late nineteenth/early twentieth century pigskin gilt by Paul Claessens (gilt-stamped inside upper cover), covers with a Morris-inspired 'Art Nouveau' floral design in gilt and light brown morocco inlays, an outer border of a 3-line gilt fillets with flourishing leaves and (in the corners) sprinkles of small gilt triangles, enclosing an inner panel of acanthus leaves, trailing stems and columbine-like flowers, the upper cover with gilt blocked lettering ('Geoffrey Chaucer' and 'Kelmscott Press') in a repeated flower and leaf design of brown morocco inlays and gilt, spine in 6 compartments with raised bands, 4-line gilt dentelles, vellum paste-down endpapers (light spotting), very slight refurbishment at lower upper joint, velveteen-lined morocco-backed book case [Pedersen A40], folio (425 x 285mm.), Hammersmith, Kelmscott Press, 1896Footnotes:FINELY BOUND COPY OF THE 'KELMSCOTT CHAUCER'. Illustrated with an elaborate cycle of woodcut illustrations designed by Burne-Jones, the volume was 'recognised by all concerned, even before its publication, as the most ambitious and remarkable of the Kelmscott Press books' (Pedersen). This copy is finely bound by Paul Claessens (1861-1909), best known for twelve bindings he executed from the designs of Henry Van de Velde, with whom he worked in close partnership.Provenance: Property of an Australian estate.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 128

MUSICBRITTEN (BENJAMIN) AND WILLIAM PLOMER. Gloriana. An Opera in Three Acts, NUMBER 46 OF 100 COPIES signed by Britten and Plomer on the colophon, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY BRITTEN ('For Beth with love from Ben, Xmas 1953') on front free endpaper, additional loosely inserted note ('Beth with love from the composer!') on headed paper ('4 Crabbe St., Aldeburgh, Suffolk', Britten's home from 1947 to 1957), publisher's parchment, title lettered in gilt on spine, facsimile gilt signature of Britten on upper cover, t.e.g., slipcase (soiled), folio (382 x 260mm.), Boosey and Hawkes, [1953]-The Burning Fiery Furnacle. Second Parable for Church Performance Op. 77. Libretto by William Plomer, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY BRITTEN ('For Beth with Birthday Love, June 10 1968 from Ben') on the title-page, publisher's pictorial wrappers designed by Annena Stubbs and B.L. Wolpe, folio (355 x 270mm.), Faber, 1968--BRITTEN (BENJAMIN) Death in Venice. An Opera in Two Acts Op.88. Libretto by Myfanwy Piper, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY BRITTEN AND PETER PEARS ('For Dearest Beth with love Ben & Peter, Christmas 1975'), publisher's pictorial wrappers designed by John Piper, slightly rubbed at extremities, folio (130 x 233mm.), Faber Music Ltd, [1975] (3)Footnotes:Provenance: Charlotte Elizabeth ('Beth') Welford (née Britten) (1909-1989), presentation inscriptions to her by her brother Benjamin.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 13

MUTEFERRIKA PRESSSUBHI (MEHMED) [In Arabic:] Ta'rih-i Sami ve akir ve Subhi, 2 parts in 1 vol., FIRST EDITION, title with ink inscriptions erased and fore-edge strengthened on verso with tape, tears at head of fols. 13 and 209, the first touching text, lacking blank fol. 72, modern blindstamped calf imitating Ottoman wallet-style binding, folio (320 x 205mm.), Istanbul, Vak'anüvis Ahmed Vasıf Efendi and Beylikçi RaÅŸid Efendi, 1198 H [1784]Footnotes:After Ä°brahim Müteferrika died in 1745, his press fell into disuse, revived once in 1756 by his successors, but immediately abandoned once again until it was bought from his heirs by the present printers, two court secretaries. This work, a chronicle of the early and middle two decades of the century by official court historian Mehmed Subhi (combined with earlier histories by Sami and Åžâkir), was the first production from this iteration of the press (see Gruber, The Islamic Manuscript Tradition: Ten Centuries of Book Arts in Indiana University Collections, 2010).This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 14

MUTEFERRIKA PRESSÄ°ZZÎ (SÜLEYMAN) Ta'rih-i-Izzi, tape repairs to title, lacking fols. 85-86, mark erased from blank area of fols. 1 and 288, light toning, heavier to fols. 59-60, modern blindstamped calf imitating Ottoman wallet-style binding, folio (304 x 195mm.), Istanbul, Vak'anüvis Ahmed Vasıf Efendi and Beylikçi RaÅŸid Efendi, 1199 H [1784/5]Footnotes:Süleyman Ä°zzî succeeded Mehmed Subhi as vakanüvis, or official court historian, and chronicled the years of his tenure, 1744 to 1752. This is the second production of this revival of the Müteferrika press.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 17

POPE (ARTHUR UPHAM) AND PHYLLIS ACKERMANNA Survey of Persian Art, 6 vol., FIRST EDITION, 1482 plates (195 coloured), mostly photographic, publisher's blue buckram, spines faded, folio, Oxford University Press, 1938-1939This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 19

SCOTLAND - ROYAL BROADSIDE PROCLAMATIONSBy the Queen, a Proclamation, for a Publick Thanksgiving... for the safety of Our Realms, and the Liberties of Europe... by all our loving subects in Scotland... Given at Our Court at Kensington, the Twenty Sixth Day of September, 1710, broadside, black letter, Royal arms in upper margin, 12-line allegorical opening initial, CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT NOTE BY THE SHERIFF OFFICER OF LANARK relating to reading of the Proclamation 'at the mercatt cross of Lanark', a few small holes resulting in loss of several letters, loss to blank upper left section, archival tissue repairs [ESTC T19712, citing 3 copies only], folio (350 x 280mm.), Assigns of Thomas Newcomb, and Henry Hills, 1710--'By the King, a Proclamation, for a Publick Thanksgiving... for the disappointing the designs of the Pretender, and the wicked contrivances of his adherents... [to be] observed by all Our loving subjects in Scotland, on the said twentieth day of January next... Given... the Sixth Day of December, 1714', broadside, black letter, Royal arms in upper margin, 12-line allegorical opening initial, small paper flaw resulting in loss of 2 letters [ESTC T19494, citing BL and House of Lords Library copies only], folio (410 x 315mm.), John Baskett, Assigns of Thomas Newcomb, and Henry Hills, 1714 (2)Footnotes:Two scarce Royal Proclamations issued to be heard 'by all Our Loving Subjects in Scotland'. The first, relating to successes in the war with Spain, has a manuscript note on the verso by Mungo Humphray, Sheriff Officer of Lanark, recording that he had 'mounted the mercat cross [at Lanark] and after beating of drumbs I proclaimed...and afixt... and authentick printed coppy... upon the mercat croce so none may pretend ignorance...'.The Proclamation issued in 1714 offered thanksgiving for the 'disappointing the designs of the Pretender' in the aftermath of the ascension of King George I to the throne.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 20

SCOTLAND – ROSSLYN CHAPELCollection of drawings, manuscripts and engravings assembled by publisher and antiquarian John Britton (1771-1857), relating to the architecture and restoration of Rosslyn Chapel, Midlothian, held in an album, comprising: i) Three pen and ink architectural drawings drawn, annotated and numbered by artist David Roberts, namely 'Section of the Chancel...', 'Ground Plan of the Chancel...', 'Termination of the ground arch in the South aisle of Roslin Chapel', demonstrating, according to the covering letter '...reasons by which I came to the conclusion that the East Wall was removed at least two feet outwards...', black ink on pale blue laid paper with additions in red ink, all 230 x 180mm., [1846]; twelve drawings by architect Joseph Gandy depicting scaled ground plans, profiles and architectural details for inclusion in Britton's Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, some annotated in pencil with notes and measurements, pencil and ink, 315 x 245mm. and smaller; one pull-out sectional drawing by Britton's assistant John R. Thompson overlaid with the 'golden ratio' in red ink, signed and dated 'Edinburgh 1840', pen and wash, 360 x 428mm.;ii) Group of some thirteen autograph letters to John Britton; one from Joseph Gandy regarding the shields along the south cornice and enclosing some drawings ('...the whole place is highly picturesque, and had fate made me a painter only you would have seen many fine views of this delightful and interesting dell...'); five from David Roberts, commenting on the restoration and his dispute with William Burn whom he accuses of '...destroying the whole proportions of this exquisite bijou...', discussing the burial vault and asking for information from Britton on '...the Temple of Obsimbal [sic]... I have a great wish to have engraved in my forthcoming work...'; other correspondence from George Meikle Kemp (3 page letter including a measured profile drawing), William Burn ('...the old story of the Belted Knights being interred within armour in a vault beneath the chapel is equally absurd, as there is no vault...'), David Laing, Keeper of the Signet Library and David Irving, Keeper of the Advocates Library, c.30 pages, folio and smaller, [various places], 1806 to 1846; iii) John Britton's lecture notes and research material (including some notes '...Communicated by Walter Scott...'), and miscellaneous prints and engravings including nine leaves from Britton's Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain bound in, c.20 album leaves with material stuck or tipped in, additional leaves bound in, bookplate of the Hon. Sir Hew Dalrymple, fragment of old catalogue description attached to front inside board, calf, worn and rubbed, pages frayed, some dust-staining, binding loose, title in gilt on spine label (detached), folio (387 x 260mm.), 1806 to 1846Footnotes:'THIS EXQUISITE BIJOU': DOCUMENTS RELATING TO ROSSLYN CHAPEL, INCLUDING DRAWINGS AND LETTERS BY JOSEPH GANDY, DAVID ROBERTS AND GEORGE MEIKLE KEMP. Rosslyn Chapel was founded in 1456 by William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness, and is renowned for its Gothic architecture and intricate carvings which have given rise to much speculation and legend to this day; most famously, the presence of a hidden underground crypt discussed in these papers. By the nineteenth century, the chapel had fallen into picturesque disrepair, an inspiration for artists and writers such as Ruskin, Turner, Wordsworth and Walter Scott. After a visit in 1842 from Queen Victoria, who was dismayed at its condition, the chapel was extensively restored at the behest of James Alexander St Clair Erskine, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn.Much of the correspondence in the album concerns the restoration of the exterior by William Burn (1789-1870). Whilst visiting the chapel to make a series of oil sketches, Burn's work so enraged the artist David Roberts that, in a letter of January 1846, he complained to Britton that, whilst '...much to the credit of Lord Roslin, no expense has been spared to preserve this unique relic of a past age...', he deplored the opening up of the Great East windows which, in his opinion, destroyed the '...Rembrandtish effects...' and '...the whole proportions of this exquisite bijou...'. John Britton's lecture on Rosslyn given at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London in the same month also fuelled Roberts' disagreement with Burn, with Roberts sending Britton three sketches included here in illustration of his points.The majority of the original drawings included in the album are by the draughtsman and architect Joseph Gandy (1771-1843), assistant to John Soane and dubbed the 'English Piranesi' for his dramatic use of perspective and architectural precision. He was commissioned by Britton in 1806 to supply fourteen plates of Rosslyn Chapel for the third volume of his Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain. Gandy's drawings in our album are seemingly related to those in his Scottish notebook (considered incomplete), now held in the Sir John Soane's Museum. This group of drawings goes 'further towards supplying the missing information [in the notebook] and sheds new light on the other planned images which... were not published by Britton. There is no doubt that twelve of the drawings contained in the album are by Gandy's hand... The Lumière mystérieuse advocated by his patron John Soane was a tangible reality...' (Maggi, A., Rosslyn Chapel, An Icon Through the Ages, 2008, pp.17, 23). Also included in the album is a letter of 1839 from George Meikle Kemp (1794-1844), illustrated with a fine detailed drawing, and written whilst he was working on his great commission, the Scott Monument in Edinburgh. A research paper on the album by Angelo Maggi, 'Documents relating to Roslin Chapel: A recently discovered collection of papers by John Britton' was published in Architectural Heritage, vol. XIII, November 2002, pp.73-98, and includes an extensive list of the contents (the documents bear his pencilled reference numbers). A number of the drawings are also published in his book Rosslyn Chapel, An Icon Through the Ages, 2008, in which he writes 'Britton's meticulous collection of papers in the album of 'Documents' illustrates, in an unusually dramatic manner, not only new and unknown aspects in the evolution of the visual history of the Chapel, but also a remarkable instance of the intriguing process by which many architects of the nineteenth-century added their contribution to the modern understanding of the building' (p.114).Provenance: S. Leigh Sotheby & John Wilkinson, John Britton's Library sale, 4 May 1857, lot 263; unknown sale or bookseller, no. 854 (according to a label on inside front board); Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple (1814-1887) bookplate; Canon George Heb Taylor, Chaplain at Rosslyn until 1963; and thence by descent.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 22

STEIN (MARC AUREL)WHITFIELD (RODERICK) The Art of Central Asia: The Stein Collection in the British Museum, 3 vol., ONE OF 550 COPIES of the English language edition, numerous colour plates, photographic illustrations and maps in the text, publisher's faux vellum-backed decorative cloth gilt, preserved in original yellow cloth solander boxes with pictorial onlays, folio (365 x 255mm.), Tokyo, Kodansha, 1982-1985Footnotes:Impressively presented catalogue of the remarkable collection brought back by Aurel Stein during his three expeditions to China and Central Asia in 1900-01, 1906-07, and 1913-16. The first two volumes cover the paintings from Dunhuang, the third describes the textiles, sculptures and other artefacts.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 24

GHEYN (JACOB DE)Mainement d'armes d'arquebuses, mousquetz, et picques, engraved decorative title-page and 117 engraved plates, all finely hand-coloured in a modern hand, light dampstain in lower margin of title; small stain and long tear neatly repaired to plate 5 of arquebuss; light dampstain to fore-margin of plates 19-32 (within platemark of nos. 24-25, and 31-32) of pikes, but generally clean with wide margins, early vellum, varnished, old paper label on spine [Lipperheide 2058], folio (360 x 280mm.), Amsterdam, Robert de Baudous... on les vend' aussi a Amsterdam chez Henry Laurens, 1608Footnotes:First edition in French of Jacob de Gheyn's handsome manual showing the drill of matchlock men, musketeers and pikemen, originally commissioned in 1597 by Count Johann II von Nassau-Siegen, nephew of Prince Maurits.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 25

LEGATI (LORENZO)Museo Caspiano annesso a quello del famoso Ulisse Aldrovandi e donato alla sua Patria dall'Illustrissimo signor Ferdinando Cospi Patrizio di Bologna e Senatore, FIRST EDITION, half-title, title printed in red and black with large vignette, woodcut portrait of Ferdinand II on the dedication leaf, engraved portrait of Cospi by Adrian Haelvegh after Justus Susterman, folding engraved plate of the museum of curiosities by Mitelli, many woodcut illustrations in the text, approximately 30 leaves toned, occasional spotting, eighteenth century vellum [Cicognara 3403; Nissen ZBI 2421], folio (320 x 215mm.), Bologna, Giacomo Monti, 1677Footnotes:First edition of a full description of the museum of curiosities (or 'Wunderkammer') created by Ferdinando Cospi (1606-1686), which he donated to the Senate of Bologna in 1677. The five sections cover the range of the collection, from peculiar natural history specimens (many originally collected by Ulisse Aldrovandi) to books, antique statuary, military and scientific instruments. The fine panoramic plate depicts the interior of the museum, the walls lined with cabinets filled hundreds of objects, the upper walls covered with military weapons, above which hang large stuffed animals and sea creatures, the dwarf Sebastiano Biavati standing in the foreground.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 26

MOSER-CHARLOTTENFELS (HENRI)Sammlung Henri Moser-Charlottenfels. Orientalische Waffen und Rüstungen [Oriental Arms and Armour], FIRST EDITION, NUMBER 58 OF 300 COPIES, this one of 125 copies with text in German, chromolithographed decorative frontispiece (reproducing a leaf of manuscript from the Gulistan of Sa'di showing the line 'our aim is to produce a work that outlives us'), 44 photolithographed plates (8 colour, including 3 after watercolours, all captioned in German, English and French), 18pp. text with 2 photographic illustrations (one of Moser in 'Oriental' dress), loose as issued in publisher's green cloth gilt portfolio, gilt-stamped decorative 'Arabic' panel design to upper cover, neatly rebacked in morocco gilt, large folio (520 x 420mm.), Leipzig, Karl W. Hiersemann, 1912Footnotes:Henri Moser (1844-1923), son of a watchmaker and industrialist, undertook several tours in Central Asia from the 1860s onwards. During one in 1883 he was received by the Emir of Bukhara, the Khan of Khiva and the Shah of Persia, which facilitated the expansion and depth of his large and important collection of Oriental arms and armour. Having exhibited his collection extensively throughout Germany and Switzerland, and catalogued it (with the help of his Persian assistant Mirza Yuhanna Dawud) at his Schloss Charlottenfels home, Moser donated it to the Historical Museum of Bern, Switzerland in 1914.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 28

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL ARSENAL, TSARKOYE SELOKAEMMERER (GEORGES DE) Arsenal de Tsarskoé-Sélo, ou Collection d'armes de sa Majesté l'Empereur de toutes les Russies [repeated in Russian], FIRST EDITION, text in French and Russian, chromolithographed dedication leaf printed in red and gold, 40 plates (13 chromolithographed, 27 lithographed) after A. Rocksthuhl and Nicolas Bogdanoff, variable toning, and occasional foxing, small repair to blank fore-margin of plate 28, and one text leaf, full red morocco gilt, sides elaborately tooled roll-borders enclosing central arms with crown above seven castles within a cartouche, g.e., folio (520 x 355mm.), St. Petersburg, A.A. Lline, 1869Footnotes:RARE, with no copies listed in auction records as having sold at auction since 1948. The great Russian Imperial collection of Russian, European and Oriental arms and armour was built up by Emperor Nicholas I in the early half of the nineteenth century, and expanded by his son Alexander II. In 1861 came the purchase of Prince Soltykoff's exceptional collection of Oriental arms. The collection was housed at the royal residence in Tsarskoye Selo until its removal to the Hermitage in 1885.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 29

SARRE (FRIEDRICH) AND FREDRIK ROBERT MARTINDie Ausstellung von Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst in Muenchen, 1910, FIRST EDITION, NUMBER 296 OF 430 COPIES, 257 photographic plates (22 hand-coloured and tipped-in as issued), light cockling and minor dampstaining at fore-edges, modern green crushed morocco gilt, sides with decorative roll tool borders, spines tooled within raised bands, gilt dentelles, g.e., large folio (490 x 382mm.), Munich, F. Bruckmann, 1911-1912Footnotes:FINE COPY. Held in Munich over six months in 1910, 'Masterpieces of Mohammedan Art' was one of 'the most important and by far the most comprehensive exhibitions of Islamic art in Europe... [giving] new impetus to the reception of Islamic art in the West and was therefore a turning point in the so-far 'Orientalist' view of and romantic passion for Muslim art and culture... [the examples illustrated] in the mega three-volume catalogue of this exhibition, are in fact icons of Islamic art' (After One Hundred Years. The 1910 Exhibition 'Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst' Reconsidered, edited by A. Lerner and A. Shalem, 2010).Volume I is devoted to Islamic manuscripts, book decorations, calligraphic arts and carpets; Volume II to ceramics, metalwork, glass and crystal; Volume III to textiles, arms and armour, woodwork and ivory.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 31

VEGETIUS RENATUS (FLAVIUS)De re militari libri quatuor. Sexti Julii Frontini... De strategematis... Aeliani. De instruendis Aciebus... Modesti. De vocabulis rei militaris, edited by Guillaume Bude, Wechel's woodcut Pegasus device on title and at end, 124 woodcut illustrations (all but 3 full-page), typographic diagrams of troop formations in the Aelianus, woodcut initials, single inkspot on pp.159/60 and p.189/90, inked 'No. 49' in upper blank margin of title, occasional light spotting, bookseller's label of C.E. Bourlot, Turin on front paste-down, later vellum, titled in ink on spine, age soiled [Adams V334], folio (323 x 203mm.), Paris, [Chrétien Wechel for] Charles Perier, 1553Footnotes:The fifth Wechel edition of the Scriptores rei militaris, a compendium of military writings, illustrated with fine woodcut illustrations (copied from those used in Heinrich Steiner's 1529 Augsburg edition) depicting machines of war, many of which are fantastical, including several for use under water.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 32

WALLHAUSEN (JOHANN JACOB VON)Kriegskunst zu Pferdt. Darinnen gelehret werden die initia und fundamenta der Cavallery, letterpress title within wide engraved pictorial border, 44 engraved plates (numbered 1-43, with additional plate numbered 11, 26 double-page, 2 folding), title strengthened at inner margin, one plate cropped at side margins, one plate with long tear repaired, 5 others with small repairs, single thin worm trail to 2 plates and 6 pages of text, twentieth century morocco gilt, covers with wide decorative gilt borders, g.e. [Lipperheide 2069; Sloos, Warfare and the Art of Printing, no. 06010; VD17 39:125873Z], folio (358 x 198mm.), Frankfurt, printed Paul Jacob, for [Oppenheim] Johann Theodor de Bry, 1616Footnotes:Scarce second edition of Wallhausen's classic military treatise. Dedicated to Maurice, Prince of Orange-Nassau, the plates depict exercises with musket and pike as well as camp layouts and the ordering of troops. It 'offers the modern reader a perfect focus of the most fundamental ideas of the early 17th century; the relationships of the ancients and modern, theory and practice, academic education and battle experience, training exercise and real warfare, and the role of personal combat skills within the larger context of battle' (Sydney Anglo, The Military Arts of Renaissance Europe, 2000).Provenance: Ferdinand Casper Koch (1873-1957), Rotterdam, owl bookplate.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 34

BRAHE (TYCHO)Astronomiae instauratae mechanica, second (first trade) edition, title with large engraved portrait of the author standing beneath an arch containing the arms of the families of Brahe and Bille, 6 large engravings (5 full-page of astronomical instruments, one half-page of the observatory at Hven, Uraniborg), 19 full-page woodcuts (mostly of instruments), and several smaller woodcuts (including a map of the island of Hven), decorative woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials, varying degrees of browning and oxidisation throughout, affecting some illustrations, lower outer corners of first sections curled with slight fraying, title with early ownership inscription crossed through and a few scrawled ?numbers at foot, later stiff wrappers with earlier vellum backstrip titled in ink, soiled, a few short tears and chips and chips to wrappers [Houzeau and Lancaster 2703; Norman 320; Sparrow Milestones 29], folio (320 x 201mm)., Nuremberg, Levinus Hulsius, 1602Footnotes:TYCHO BRAHE'S MOST IMPORTANT ASTRONOMICAL WORK, providing an illustrated description of his astronomical instruments and of the observatory on the island of Hven. The first edition had been printed in 1598 on Brahe's own press at Heinrich Rantzov's castle at Wandbeck, near Hamburg, the forty copies of which Brahe distributed privately. The illustrations of this published 1602 edition were printed from the same blocks and plates, which were sold by the author's heirs to Levinus Hulsius, with the addition of the portrait and the engraving of an armillary sphere on C6 verso, replacing a woodcut. The work also contains a short autobiography and a summary of the principal results of Brahe's observations, and an appendix in which the construction of the observatories is shown.In 1576, King Frederick II had heard of Brahe's plans to move to Basel to further his experiments, he offered Tycho permanent the island of Hven in the Danish Sound to use as he saw fit. There Brahe constructed the most advanced astronomical observatory of his time, which he christened Uraniborg (Heavenly castle)., but hen he realized that the Palladian style towers were not adequate because of the instruments' exposure to the elements and the movement of the building, he constructed a second underground observatory at nearby Stjerneborg, whose basement also housed an alchemical laboratory with 16 furnaces for conducting distillations and other chemical experiments. Unusually for the time, he also established a research centre, where almost 100 students and artisans worked from 1576 to 1597. The library housed Brahe's brass-encased globe, now preserved in Copenhagen: 'On this globe, over the years, Tycho marked the exact positions, referred to the year 1600, of the fixed stars that he observed... In the southwest room on the ground floor at Uraniborg... was Tycho's most famous instrument, the mural quadrant, with a radius of about six feet... Inside the quadrant's arc, for ornamental purposes, was painted a life-size portrait of Tycho seated at a table, with arm outstretched as though pointing to a cylinder...' (DSB).This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 35

DE JODE (GERARD, PUBLISHER)[Thesaurus Sacrarum Historiarum veteris [-Novi] testamenti], 2 parts bound in 1 vol., 320 engraved sheets comprising: [Old Testament] 191 plates including index leaf (noting 'Continens in somma 215 fol.', lacking title and 22 plates called for); [New testament] 129 plates including index leaf (noting 'Continens folia 128) and engraved pictorial title-page ('Novi testamenti elegantissimis iconibus...'), a few plates seemingly missing but including others apparently not called for, one plate (Abraham) defective, 7 laid down, 12 cropped, ink caption in English provided in a late eighteenth century hand in the lower blank margin of many plates, late nineteenth century half morocco, gilt lettered spine ('Illustrated Bible. Gerard de Jode. 1562'), some scuffing to sides [Adams B1965], oblong folio (245 x 335mm.), [Antwerp, Gerard de Jode, 1585], sold as a collection of plates not subject to returnFootnotes:Gerard de Jode's compendium of illustrations for both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, engraved by or after members of the De Jode family, Crispin van den Broeck, Johann Sadeler, Maarten van Heemskerck, Maarten de Vos and others. The plate count for copies varies.Provenance: John Fullarton, the Old Testament inscribed 'John Fullarton his writing Octr. 22d. 1770' on the blank recto of St. John plate and 'That this most Curious Bible may be taken care of is the request of John Fullerton, Captain [of] his Majesty's late 97th Regt. of Foot' in the margin of the index leaf. The 97th Regiment of Foot was disbanded in 1783.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 44

STRADANUS (JOHANNES)Venationes ferarum, avium, piscium. Pugnae bestiariorum: & mutuae bestiarum [-Vermis Sericus], 2 parts in 1 vol., first part with engraved pictiorial title (with title repeated in Dutch at foot and 96 engraved plates (of 102, numbered 1-102, without nos. 1, 3, 39, 52, 62 and 89); second part with engraved title and 5 plates (numbered 1-6), all on wove, captioned in Latin text only, all cut to platemark (c.220 x 288mm.) and mounted one per page recto only, some light old white chalk residue, a few with light marginal crease, 5 loose, contemporary gilt-lettered calf spine (worn), lacks covers [cf. Schwerdt II, p.228], oblong folio (265 x 355), [Amsterdam], Uytgegeven door Nicolaes Visscher [but London, c.1820]Footnotes:An English reimpression of two late sixteenth century works by Stradanus (or Jan van der Straet), printed in the nineteenth century from the original plates. These depict hunting scenes (including elephants, monkeys and crocodiles, and diving for coral), fowling and fishing. The second suite of six plates relates to silkworms.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 46

BIBLE, GREEK AND LATINNovum Testamentum iam quintum accuratissima cura recognitum a Des. Erasmo Roter, double column text, woodcut printer's device on title and final leaf, historiated woodcut initials, 4-leaf Greek table with architectural column borders, first few leaves frayed, title torn with loss not affecting text, some dampstaining (severely affecting first few leaves, then mostly in margins with some small worm trails), contemporary blind-ruled calf over boards (leather coming loose), gilt red morocco spine label, tears to upper joints and slight loss at foot of spine [Darlow & Moule 4609; Adams B1683, with Old Testament], Hieronymus Froben & Nicolaus Episcopius, 1535--ERASMUS (DESIDERIUS) Opus epistolarum, second (expanded) edition, woodcut device on title and final page, numerous woodcut initials, occasional light dampstaining (mostly in upper margins), title soiled and with hole affecting text on verso, some old underscoring of text, later panelled calf gilt, abrasions to lower cover, gilt worn away from spine [Adams E855], Hieronymus Froben, Johannes Hervagius & Nicolaus Episcopius, 1529, folio, Basle (2)Footnotes:Provenance: First work, John Davison ('riensis') several early ownership inscriptions on title (some in Greek, all crossed through), and on last page of preliminaries, with that of William Davison. Both works, William Wynne, bookplate with motto 'Ne bydd doeth Na Ddarllenno' ('he who does not read will not be wise'), and his signature ('Gul. Wynne') in the first volume. The bookplate is generally attributed to William Wynn (1709-1760), Welsh clergyman, poet and antiquary, some of whose books were sold by his descendants in these rooms on 4 December 2019.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 47

BIBLE and BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, IN WELSHLlyfr Gweddi Gyffredin a Gweinidogaeth y Sacramentau, 1718; Y Bibl cyssegr-lan, 1717; Llyfr y Psalmau, 1717, 4 parts in 1 vol., woodcut device on titles, 2 folding engraved maps (one creased with repairs on verso), contemporary red morocco, sides with inner gilt panel and cornerpieces with initials 'MMA' at centre, spine with gilt ruled compartments, g.e., a few small stains, corners and spine ends worn [ESTC T125812, T126074, T125814], 8vo, London [Psalms: Oxford], John Baskett, 1718-1717-1717; another edition, 4 parts in 1 vol., contemporary panelled calf, worn with slight loss to spine ends and lower cover [ESTC T41121, T124562, T124567], 8vo, Cambridge, John Bentham, 1746--[Bible] Y Bibl Cyssegr-Lan, sef, yr Hen Destament ar Newydd, 2 parts in 1 vol., engraved title to New Testament, lacking printed title-page, Old Testament frontispiece and list of books, browned and stained, first and last leaves repaired and defective, later reversed calf, 5 small brass bosses on each cover, ticket of T. Hughes, Bookseller, Llanrhaiadr, hinges reinforced [ESTC R24201], folio, Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1690--The Book of Common Prayer, Oxford, John Baskett, 1718; The Whole Book of Psalms... by Thomas Sternhold..., Susanna Collins for the Company of Stationers, 1720; Llyfr Gweddi Gyffredin, engraved frontispiece, Edmund Powell, 1710, 3 works in 1 vol., contemporary calf, worn [ESTC T81429, N46200, T140075], folio--[Bible] Y Beibl Cyssegr-lan, facsimile of 1588 Bishop Morgan edition, number 10 of 500 copies, publisher's crushed brown morocco stamped in gilt, mint in slipcase, folio, Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, 1987; idem, another copy, this unnumbered, publisher's variant blind-stamped leather, 1987--[Book of Common Prayer] Llyfr Gweddi Cyffredin 1567, facsimile of John Rylands copy, number 240 of 300 copies, publisher's cloth, folio, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1965 (7)Footnotes:Move to header of first lot:Books from the Library of the late Rev. Euros Wyn Jones of AngleseyThis lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 48

[DAVIES (JOHN)]Antiquæ linguæ Britannicae, nunc vulgo dictae Cambro-Britannicae, a suis Cymraecae vel Cambricae, ab aliis Wallicæ, second edition, VARIANT WITH THE RARE LEAF OF COMMENDATORY VERSES following 2*4, text in triple columns, woodcut device on title, royal coat of arms on verso, woodcut head- and tail-pieces, light browning and occasional dampstaining, contemporary calf, rebacked and recornered, two 3-line FRAGMENTS OF A MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT IN LATIN on vellum used as binder's waste at front and rear [cf. ESTC S122150; Rees 1551], folio, R. Young, 1632Footnotes:The second (first folio) edition of Davies' dictionary, with fine Welsh provenance and complete with the rarely found additional leaf headed 'Encomiastica'.Provenance: Edward Parry, Bridge Street, Chester (1798-1854, bookseller publisher and antiquary), ticket on front paste-down; Lewis Gilbertson (1814-1896, cleric, vice-principal of Jesus College, Oxford), signature on front free endpaper; his presentation label to S. Michael and All Angels' Theological College, Aberdare; St. Michael's Clergy School, Aberdare, ink stamp on title and final page.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 5

ENGINEERING - BRITANNIA AND CONWAY BRIDGESCLARK (EDWIN) The Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, with General Inquiries on Beams and on the Properties of Materials used in Construction... Published with the Sanction and Under the Supervision of Robert Stephenson, 3 vol. (including Atlas), 18 lithographed plates in the text volume, errata slip in volume 1, 46 plates (including 6 tinted lithographed views after George Hawkins) in the atlas (this with contents loose, gutta percha perished), opening few plates with short tear at fore-edge but overall good and free of spotting, publisher's quarter morocco gilt, atlas with pictorial gilt decoration on upper cover and slight loss at extremities of spine, slight rubbing [Ottley 2699], large 8vo and folio (610 x 445mm.), Published for the Author, 1850--FAIRBAIRN (WILLIAM) An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, with a Complete History of their Progress, 20 engraved folding plates, light spotting, short tears or fraying to fore-margins, publisher's morocco-backed cloth, slightly rubbed, large 8vo, John Weale, 1849, FIRST EDITIONS (4)This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 51

[MORGAN (ABEL)][Cyd-gordiad egwyddorawl o'r Scrythurau: neu daflen lythyrennol o'r prif eiriau yn y Bibl Sanctaidd], browning and staining throughout, lacks title-page, first few leaves frayed at edges, last leaf loose and chipped with loss to text in upper corner, Dd 1-2 defective at foot (just affecting text), Xx2 torn without loss, contemporary blind panelled sheep, some loss of leather, spine defective [ESTC W37653; Evans 3323; Rees 3619], folio (290 x 170mm.), [Philadelphia, Samuel Keimer and Dafydd Harry, 1730]Footnotes:Scarce. The second Welsh book printed in America, and the earliest Welsh concordance to the Bible. Abel Morgan emigrated to Philadelphia in 1712 and became a leader of the Baptists of Pennsylvania. He died in 1722 and eight years later his brother Enoch Morgan and and John Cadwalader edited and published his Cyd-Gordiad. 'To this day Abel Morgan's name is a household word in Wales and America among the Welch people' (DAB XIII, pp.163-4).Provenance: 'Rev David Griffith Bethel', ownership inscriptions on title and inner front cover, latter dated May 1813. 'David Griffith (1792 or 1794-1873), Independent minister... [was] born at Rhiwfelen, Abergwili, Carmarthenshire. The family moved to Llanegwad and the son was brought up in Panteg chapel where he began to preach at the age of sixteen. After spending two years at David Peter's school at Carmarthen, he became minister of Bethel, Llanddeiniolen, Caernarfonshire, an offshoot of Pendref, Caernarvon, founded about 1810; there he was ordained in 1815' (Dictionary of Welsh Biography).This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 57

BANKING - SEVENTEENTH CENTURYBanking ledger kept in person by Edward Backwell, containing well over six hundred original acquittances for payments received, over forty of which are signed by him ('per me Edward Backwell'), kept in one volume and two loose gatherings, the principal volume inscribed on the upper cover in a contemporary hand 'Acquittance Booke from the xviiith of August 1660. to xxvth of December following [paraph]/ From xxvi December 1660 to the xxiiith of February next In the [?] Paper [i.e. unbound] bookes' [contractions expanded]; the two unbound gatherings both inscribed in contemporary hands respectively on the upper wrapper 'Arrears./ Acquittances determining the 23th of February 1660' and 'Kings Accompt/ Acquittances determining the 23th of February 1660', c.100 pages, some usual dust-staining and other signs of use, some later leaves roughly torn out and two now loose, contemporary vellum, narrow folio (480 x 180mm.), Excise Office, London, 18 August 1660 to 16 March 1661Footnotes:'THE LEDGERS OF THE GOLDSMITH-BANKER EDWARD BACKWELL ARE UNIQUELY SIGNFICANT IN DOCUMENTING THE FINANCES OF RESTORATION ENGLAND AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN BANKING. They provide the earliest detailed evidence of the scale and sophistication of England's emerging banking system, and the role of the City of London as the leading centre for international trade and finance... Edward Backwell was one of a score of men who in the middle years of the seventeenth century laid the foundations of the modern banking system... His ledgers are the earliest systematic set of banking records to survive in the United Kingdom, and are all the more important for being the records of one of the financial giants of his age. They predate the foundation of the Bank of England by over thirty years, yet show that banking was already fundamental to the City and the country's economic life' (UNESCO, 'Memory of the World' Register, online). This newly-discovered ledger is from an earlier period than nine other Backwell ledgers that have been identified by UNESCO, and whilst those were executed in a scribal hand throughout, this ledger was evidently kept under Backwell's direct personal supervision, having been signed by him in many places ('Per me Edward Backwell'), and bearing annotations by him as to the arrangement of entries.Backwell (c.1618–1683) had been banker to the Commonwealth of England and was, after the restoration of Charles II, banker to the King and many leading figures of the Restoration period (including Samuel Pepys, who mentions him in his diary more often than any other financier of the age). In later years he was Chief Cashier at the Bank of England, and the first man authorised to issue what are now known as bank notes. At the time Backwell kept our ledger he held the offices of Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths Company, Alderman of the City of London, and Commissioner for Assessment, London (a post held from August 1660, the starting date of our ledger). Our ledger covers that part of Backwell's business that dealt his control of the running of the finances of the Excise Office, which raised money for Parliament. It also shows Backwell to be acting as paymaster to the great officers of state, paying at the order of the Commons stipends to the likes of George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, who only months earlier had ushered in the restoration of Charles II, and the King's younger brother, James, Duke of York, afterwards James II. Backwell is shown to be Paymaster to the House of Commons itself, and his own practical input into the running of finances is visible within our ledger. A clear example of this is to be found in the first entry. This has been struck out (the untidiness with which it has been scored through strongly suggests that this has been done by Backwell himself). The deleted entry reads: 'Received the 18 of August 1660 of the Commissioners of Excise London three hundred & three pounds seaven shillings & tenpence being in further part of 4800 payable to mee per Order of the Commons house of Parliament dated the 30 of June 1660 I say Received'. This has been subscribed and signed by Backwell himself: 'Per me Edward Backwell'. Having scored through the main entry, Backwell has further scored through his subscription and signature in order to render them illegible (or at least of no legal validity); and made and initialled a note below in his own hand: 'This Receipt transferred to the former accquittance Booke/ EB'.For a fuller description of the contents of the ledger contact the department.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 6

ENGINEERING - THOMAS TELFORDTELFORD (THOMAS) The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer, 2 vol. (including Atlas), FIRST EDITION, edited by John Rickman, text volume with half-title, one engraved plate and vignettes in text, Atlas with engraved portrait and 82 maps and plates (numbered 1-83, 21 folding and/or double-page, no. 28 not called for in list), lower margin of portrait strengthened with archival tape, 3 plates with thin thread of worming, some spotting throughout, modern half morocco, 4to and folio (590 x 430mm.), Payne and Foss, 1838This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 61

CHARLES IIManuscript copy of John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham's memoir entitled 'A Short Character of Charles the Second King of England', 5 pages, written in brown and black ink, the last section seemingly completed in a different hand, bound in early blind-panelled calf, large gilt-blocked royal arms of King George I on each side, neatly rebacked to match with red morocco gilt lettering label, folio (294 X 184mm.), [late seventeenth/early eighteenth century]Footnotes:'There was as much Laziness as of Love in all those hours he passed among his Mistresses, who after all, only serve to fill up his seraglio': a finely presented Georgian manuscript copy of the scurrilous memoir of King Charles II by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. First published anonymously in 1696, and rumoured to be written by John Dryden, the text had originally circulated in manuscript copies, with Sheffield's name only attached to it when it was reprinted in 1725.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 62

COMMONWEALTH ACTSA Collection of the Severall Acts, Ordinances, & Orders as Well of Parliament as of His Highness The Lord Protector... for the Levying of Monies by Way of Excise and New-impost, woodcut of the Commonwealth arms on opening leaf, title within 2-line fillet border, without final blank [ESTC R27333], John Maycock, and Gartrude Dawson, 1655; An Additional Act for the Better Improvement and Advancing the Receipts of the Excise and New-impost... the 17. Day of September, An. Dom. 1656, title within 2-line fillet border with woodcut of the Commonwealth arms, section for 'A book of values of merchandize imported' with separate dated title-page, duplicate of 2 leaves (pp.7-10, Ci-ii) bound in [ESTC R206322], Henry Hills, and John Fields, 1657; An Act and Declaration Touching Several Ordinances Made Since the Twentieth of April 1653 and before the Third of September 1654, and Other Acts, title within typographical border with woodcut of the Commonwealth arms, with final blank [cf. ESTC R228128, listing 3 variants of the title, but not this one, which on the title has the 'l' of 'several' above the 'n' in 'ordinances', p.1 signed 'I2', and the colophon printed in 4 lines], Henry Hills and John Field, 1657; An Act for the Improvement of the Revenue of the Customs and Excize, 4pp., caption title with woodcut Commonwealth arms [ESTC R13781; Goldsmith-Kress S.1133], [Henry Hills and John Field, 1657], 4 works bound in 1 vol., black and Roman letter, contemporary black morocco gilt, sides with 2-line fillet border and gilt fleuron corner-pieces, g.e., old manuscript ('Cromwell's Excise') label on spine, folio (270 x 175mm.)Footnotes:Acts issued under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, in a contemporary morocco binding. It includes acts charging excise on tobacco brought from New England, prohibiting the planting of tobacco in England, and others relating to brewing and 'Spanish wines'.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 69

JOHNSON (SAMUEL)A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vol., FIRST EDITION, titles printed in red and black, light paper toning, modern calf, gilt-lettered spines [Courtney & Smith, p.54; Chapman & Hazen, p.137; Rothschild 1237; PMM 201], folio (420 x 250mm.), J. and P. Knapton, 1755Footnotes:THE FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST STANDARD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. 'I have... attempted a dictionary of the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected, suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance, resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion, and exposed to the ignorance, and caprices of innovations' (Preface).Provenance: Property of an Australian estate.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 7

FROHAWK (FREDERICK WILLIAM)Natural History of British Butterflies, 2 vol., FIRST EDITION, 65 plates (60 coloured), publisher's blue cloth gilt, dust-jacket (a few short marginal tears), folio (375 x 240mm.), Hutchinson, [1914]This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 71

LOGGAN (DAVID)Oxonia illustrata, sive omnium celeberrimæ istius universitatis collegiorum, aularum, bibliothecæ Bodleianæ, scholarum publicarum, Theatri Sheldoniani; nec non urbis totius scenographia, FIRST EDITION, engraved throughout comprising title, privilege, dedication to Charles II, prefatory and index leaves, 40 double-page engraved plates by Loggan including general views of the city, map, and views of the colleges (that of Christ Church double-page and folding), all mounted on guards, some light browning in upper margins, some plates with short slits at foot of fold or guard (a few repaired on verso), in a fine contemporary English binding of black goatskin, tooled with an elaborate all-over design in gilt, sides with outer roll tool borders enclosing double central panel, outer panel with 4 large semi-circles composed of flower, acorn and small semi-circle tools, all panels filled with curling leafy tendrils and numerous different small and large flower tools (including distinctive tulip design in centre), gilt spine with raised bands and 6 of the 8 compartments each containing a floral tool with pointillé and 4 black dots at corners, leather title label, g.e., marbled endpapers, some wear to upper joint and to spine ends and bands, corners slightly bumped [ESTC R5725; Madan 3035], folio (428 x 295mm.), Oxford, E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1675Footnotes:LOGGAN'S 'GREAT WORK' IN A SUMPTUOUS RESTORATION BINDING. The workshop which produced this distinctive binding has not been identified, although some of the tools are redolent of those used by other well-know binders of the period.'David Loggan's great work, including forty large, accurate, and interesting illustrations of Oxford, intended partly as a companion volume to Anthony Wood's Historia et Antiquitates' (Madan). Loggan's largest work, it was produced at Oxford where he held the position of engraver to the university, but despite the Sheldonian imprint, it is thought to have been printed in Loggan's own house in Holywell.Provenance: Charles Finch, 4th Earl of Winchilsea, 4th Viscount Maidstone, 2nd Baron FitzHerbert of Eastwell (1672–1712), bookplate dated 1704 (the year he was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Kent), and family armorial device mounted on fly-leaf; private UK collection.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 8

GREAT EXHIBITION 1851 - PHOTOGRAPHYExhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. 1851. Reports of the Juries on the Subjects in the Thirty Classes into Which the Exhibition was Divided, 4 vol., ONE OF APPROXIMATELY 130 COPIES, 154 MOUNTED CALOTYPES (captioned on the mounts, images 175 x 224mm.), 3 chromolithographed plates by Day & Son, original red morocco gilt by Riviere (stamp inside upper covers), lettered in gilt on upper covers and spines, imperial blue silk doublures with royal arms in gilt and the initials for Victoria and Albert entwined, g.e., spines dulled, a few scuffmarks and abrasions, folio (350 x 250mm.), Spicer Brothers, Wholesale Stationers, W. Clowes & Sons, Printers, [1851]-1852Footnotes:ONE OF APPROXIMATELY 130 SETS, ILLUSTRATED WITH 154 CALOTYPES DEPICTING THE EXHIBITION BUILDING AND PRIZE-WINNING EXHIBITS. William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor and patentee of the calotype (or 'Talbotype') had granted the Exhibition Committee usage of his invention, in return for which he was presented with fifteen of these special copies of the Reports, intended for presentation of chief jurors and important persons such as Queen Victoria. The salted paper prints were taken by Claude-Marie Ferrier (1811–1889) and Hugh Owen (1808–1901), and printed at Talbot's recommendation by his one-time assistant and collaborator Nicolaas Henneman (1813-1898), whom he had helped establish his own photographic studio.The Exhibition had 17,000 exhibitors, with the judges considering approximately one million exhibits for which 2,918 medals were presented. The photographs include several views of the exterior and interior of Paxton's main building, and images of exhibits ranging from agricultural and industrial machinery, inflatable boats and steam engines to garden fountains, militaria, statues, silverware and ceramics. The Reports were issued at the same time as the 3 volume official catalogue, First Report of the Commissioners..., and a case of medals not present here.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 92

CRICKETThe London Chronicle, vol. LXVI, no. 5119 [including the Laws of Cricket], 8 pages (pp.89-95), printed in 3 columns (including ine and a half columns headed 'Cricket'), red paper tax stamp on p.92, disbound, small folio (290 x 210mm.), Saturday 25 July to Tuesday 28 July 1789Footnotes:THE FIRST APPEARANCE IN A NEWSPAPER OF THE LAWS OF CRICKET, printed just two years after the formation of the MCC, and a year after the official laws of the game were introduced in 1788. The article, boldly headed 'Cricket', describes the game as 'at present so fashionable, and at all times so creditable and manly...' noting that 'While the frequent showers, however, are preventing cricket from being played so often as it otherwise would, it may not be amiss to compensate to inexperienced batsmen and bowlers... deprived of their favourite exercise, by laying before them the following'. The laws are much unchanged today, as is the weather, and the opportunity in moments when 'rain stops play' to discuss the game instead of playing it.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 309

Folio books to include a 1995 Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, a 1986 second impression of Out of Africa by Karen Blixen and others together with mixed booksLocation: 3:3

Lot 213

FOLIO SOCIETY BOOKS - GLENCOE/COLLODEN AND TRAFALGAR

Lot 215

FOLIO SOCIETY CHARLES DARWIN THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, RISE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, THE VIKINGS, THE CELTS AND THE NORMANS

Lot 216

FOLIO POETS KIPLING - FRANKENSTEIN, SAGGITARIUS RISING, SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE BY PEER RIDGE BOOKS

Lot 217

FOLIO SOCIETY BOOKS LIVES OF THE LATE CAESARS, THE TWELVE CAESARS, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MEDICI AND GODS GRAVES AND SCHOLARS

Lot 219

FOLIO SOCIETY OF THE ICELANDIC SAGAS, BRITISH MYTHS AND LEGENDS, LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR

Lot 220

FOLIO SOCIETY OF THE BARBARIAN INVASION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, EIGHT VOLUMES

Lot 221

FOLIO SOCIETY OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, TWELVE VOLUMES (SOME MILDEW DAMAGE TO THE SPINES AND CASES)

Lot 222

FOLIO SOCIETY FIVE VOLUMES, DISCOVERY OF THE RENAISSANCE

Lot 7056

Bowyer, Robert, The Campaign of Waterloo : illustrated with engravings....., comprising title, one full-page and four half-page hand coloured aquatints, folio, pub. 1816, printed by T. Bensley and Son for the artist, loosely cord bound, incomplete, faults.

Lot 137

London Portrait Of A City Hardback book Compiled by Roger Hudson First Edition 1998 The Folio Society. This book and it's containing box are in near mint condition. Sold on behalf of the Michael Sobell Cancer Charity. We ship worldwide and combine shipping on multiple lots to keep costs as low as we can.

Lot 141

3 Hardback Books Box Set A History Of The Crusades by Steven Runciman 1994 The Folio Society London. Box and books in very nice condition. Sold on behalf of the Michael Sobell Cancer Charity. We ship worldwide and combine shipping on multiple lots to keep costs as low as we can.

Lot 143

Shakespeare's Sonnets And A Lover's Complaint Hardback Book 1989 The Folio Society London. No dust jacket. Book in very nice condition. Sold on behalf of the Michael Sobell Cancer Charity. We ship worldwide and combine shipping on multiple lots to keep costs as low as we can.

Lot 173

Retreat From Moscow Hardback Book Memoirs Of Sergeant Bourgogne by The Folio Society 1990 English Translation. No dust jacket. Book in very nice condition. Sold on behalf of the Michael Sobell Cancer Charity. We ship worldwide and combine shipping on multiple lots to keep costs as low as we can.

Lot 28

A rare Safavid oil painting of an African soldier Persia, Isfahan, circa 1680-90oil on canvas, affixed with a fragmentary old label on the stretcher reading Portrait of an Indian Officer 122 x 79.5 cm. Footnotes:ProvenancePrivate English aristocratic collection, London. Acquired by the vendor's mother in Jaipur during a visit to the court of Maharajah Man Singh II in the mid 1960s.Bonhams have the privilege of presenting an enigmatic and unique painting depicting a flamboyant African soldier in Safavid Persia. Immensely rare, the present work is quite likely to be one of the first ever depictions of an African subject in Persian oil painting, and one of the earliest artistic records of the black African community whose descendants continue to reside in the Gulf region.Isfahan was referred to as 'half the world' (nisf-i jahan) by the 16th Century. Shah 'Abbas (reg. 1588-1629) had moved his capital from Qazwin, Safavid political power had grown, there was a flowering of culture in Persia, and Isfahan, in particular, became a nexus of trade and cultural exchange. Along with the Ottoman Sultan and the 'Grand Mughal', Safavid Persia and Shah 'Abbas ('The Sophy' or 'The Great Sophy', an expression probably deriving from a mishearing of 'Safavi'), were touchstones of grandeur and exoticism in Western consciousness at the time.One thinks of the striking image, spread across a double page in a folio volume, of the Maidan-i Naqsh-i Jahan in Isfahan, in Voyages de Corneille le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Orientales (Amsterdam 1718) – where the broken lines of the tents of the bazaar, where all sorts of business was being transacted amongst several nationalities, contrast with the more austere lines of the Safavid architecture surrounding them. As Cornelius de Bruyn's accompanying account put it: 'The greater part of this plaza is full of tents, where all kinds of things are sold [...] One continually sees a prodigious crowd of people and among other things a large number of people of quality who come and go to the court' (see S. R. Canby, Shah 'Abbas: the Remaking of Iran (London 2009), pp. 260-261, no. 127, illustrated). And one also thinks of the group of twenty-one paintings discussed by Eleanor Sims in her essay below – the depictions of people of various ethnicities, genders, in different forms of dress, alongside types of decorative objects - and so to our painting of a young African man.While the painting is – as Eleanor Sims argues below – a type, and one playing on variations in Safavid fashion, it must surely refer ultimately to a real-life soldier, a musketeer or tofangchi, a division of the Persian army primarily composed of foreign mercenaries. A figure (albeit one with white skin) which appears in the Kaempfner Album (produced in Isfahan in 1684-85) in the British Museum is highly reminiscent of our subject, in pose, weaponry and dress: the hat with its plume, the two straps which pass over his shoulders (to a backpack?), the accoutrements around his waist, the red-orange breeches, and the white banded gaiters. The British Museum catalogue describes him as a royal bodyguard. Leaving aside western Europeans, most foreigners in Safavid Persia, whether free or slaves, were closer to home – they were from the Caucasus, Georgia, Circassia, or notably, Armenian, in the flourishing town of New Julfa. But an African must have been in a minority, by geographical accident (and less common than in Ottoman Turkey, where black Africans, often eunuchs, were more commonly in positions of power at court). Our figure demonstrates his confidence in his rank and profession, his dress and (to some degree, at least) his wealth, create a well-to-do image, almost dandyish.Eleanor Sims traces his relation in this respect to the 'Tehran Suite' of paintings. In addition, both figures in an Afsharid oil painting, done around fifty years later, wear long coats with the same horizontal frogging on the chest (albeit with much more embroidered decoration on the coats), and the male figure wears the same vertically-striped undershirt - and these figures are of a notably higher class (the catalogue description speculated whether the male might be a son of Nadir Shah). See Sotheby's, Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 22nd & 23rd May 1986, lot 175 (dated to circa 1735-45).Whether he was a slave, who had come to Persia via the Arab trade from East Africa and the Indian Ocean into the Gulf (whose descendants to this day form an Afro-Iranian community in the south of the country); whether he had been freed as a condition of service in the Persian army; whether he was a free man who had ended up in the melting-pot of 17th Century Isfahan; or whether he is strictly a 'type', perhaps made African to cater to an existing European interest in blackamoors, and other signifiers of 'the exotic' (especially if he had a female companion painting, as Sims suggests) - we will doubtless never know. What does seem to be clear is that this painting is a rare, perhaps unique portrayal of an African in the Safavid army, and of an African in Persia.An African Youthby Eleanor SimsCould a picture offer any greater degree of 'exotic' than does this oil-painted figure of a young African wearing imaginatively interpreted 17th-century Safavid Persian clothing?He is one among a presently recorded number (21) of large rectangular pictures, painted in oil on canvas. All are single figures; all are dressed in fine 17th-Century Safavid clothing; all comfortably fill their picture-space. Their dress, especially that of the women, usually also distinguishes their ethnicity and religious affiliation: Muslim Persian, Armenian and Georgian Christian. Several men among the 21 may instead be Europeans in Safavid garb, but they are the exceptions within the genre. And with a different exception, none is either signed or dated; all but three are anonymous.Such paintings were almost surely commissioned by Europeans in the cosmopolitan melange of peoples visiting Safavid Isfahan in that century (Eleanor Sims, 'Five Seventeenth-Century Persian Oil Paintings', Persian and Mughal Art, ed. Michael Goedhuis, London 1976, pp. 223-32). Struck by the 'exotic' inhabitants they saw, many wanted images to take with them, when they returned to their own countries. English travellers seem to have been especially desirous of owning these 'exotic' personages, especially when they could be executed on a scale not unlike the oil-painted portraits already hanging on their walls. Indeed, many can be connected with houses or families: in Wiltshire (see Mary Arnold-Forster, Basset Down: An Old Country House, London 1949, p. 147; Eleanor Sims, 'The 'Exotic' Image: Oil-Painting in Iran in the Later 17th and the Early 18th Centuries', in The Phenomenon of 'Foreign' in Oriental Art, ed. Annette Hagedorn, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 135–40 passim; eadem, 'Six Seventeenth-century Oil Paintings from Safavid Persia', in God is Beautiful and Loves Beauty: The Object in Islamic Art and Culture, New Haven & London 2013, pp. 343, 346-47), and in Northamptonshire, (eadem, 'Five Seventeenth-Century Persian Oil Paintings', pp. 241-48). Three are known to have been in English royal possession since the middle of the 17th century (1651; noted on the Royal Collection Trust Website; two published in Epic Iran: 5000 Years of Culture, J. Curtis, I. Sarikhani-Sandmann, and T. Stanley, London 2020, cat. 183-84). But that this youth is black makes him an especially exotic figure, even for 17th-century Isfahan.He stands in an open landscape whose horizon is at mid-figure height. The fore- and middle-ground show rows of grassy... This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: RR This lot is subject to import restrictions when shipped to the United States.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 67

A folio from the Mewari Sakunavali (Book of Omens), depicting hares in a landscape Mewar, circa 1720gouache and gold on paper, yellow panel at top with two lines of text in nagari script, red border 257 x 213 mm.Footnotes:As described by Andrew Topsfield (Court Painting at Udaipur, Zurich 2001, p. 144), this Sakunavali series was a unique commission in Udaipur. It consisted of almost a hundred pages, graded in progressive categories from evil (asubham, e.g. a burgled house or families of dogs and monkeys) and undesirable (neshta, e.g. a poor man), to good (subham, e.g. cows in a byre), excellent (srestha, e.g. a yogi in a hermitage or a king enthroned) and the best of all (uttaram, e.g. winged gaja-simhas or a pride of lions).Most subjects of this series are drawn from everyday experiences and rendered with an 'unaffected directness of observation'. Irrespective of connotations of loss, ill health or bad fortune, bad omens are realized as sensitively as the good ones.For other paintings from the same series see Bautze, Indian Miniature Painting, Amsterdam 1987, no. 23; Goswamy and Smith, Domains of Wonder, 2005, no. 31. See also Sotheby's, London, 1966, lot 100; Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 6th October 2008, lot 391; Christie's, Arts of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, 10th October 2013, lot 196; Christie's, South Kensington, Arts and Textiles of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, 11th October 2013, lot 507, and Simon Ray, November 2014, no. 53.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Lot 131

Folio Society - Patrick O?Brian, (20); other titles, (9), [29]**Please note all lots must be collected from Sudbury, Derbyshire on the 30/31/3 OR 1/4, a surcharge of £20 will be charged if the item is not collected and removed to the saleroom**

Lot 452

Y A William IV rosewood folio stand, circa 1830, by Williams & Gibton, one leg stamped '25645', 120cm high, 88cm wide, 60cm deep

Lot 233

ILLUSTRATED BRITISH FIREARMS PATENTS 1714-1853, by Stephen V. Grancsay and Merrill Lindsay, complete with companion folio of prints.

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