Gastaldi, Giacomo.MareMagnum
4 134 résultats
Engraved map on two sheets, joined. 440 x 600 mm. Framed (84:67,5 cm). Rare. Based on the large mural map of Giacomo Gastaldi in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, in 1550, considered the culmination of his work on the cartography of Africa through the 1540s. (The mural was subsequently lost to overpainting.) Shows the continent with southern Europe and Arabia; large strapwork dedication cartouche to Thomaso Ravenna at lower left; compass rose centre right. Trimmed to the outer neat lines; some wear and repairs to old folds, with loss of a few letters of the dedication. Two small areas of sea supplied in pen facsimile. Faint spotting, a pale uneven wash. Tibbetts p. 47, 31. Not in Sultan bin M. Al-Qasimi, The Gulf in Historic Maps (1st or 2nd ed.).
Oblong large folio (570 x 419 mm). Lithographed illustrated title, 2 ff. of text, 16 mostly coloured lithogr. plates showing horses (c. 33 x 45 cm, paper dimensions c. 40 x 55 cm; some with borders), 5 (instead of 6) ff. of descriptive letterpress text (the missing page supplied in ink). Contemporary half calf with giltstamped spine label. Extremely rare and early series of lithographs. The large and appealingly coloured plates depict important stallions and mares from the famous Danish Royal Stud at Frederiksborg (Pegasus, Flink, Zephir, Palnatoke, and Velskat, among others). All horses are branded with a monogram and often also with the crown. The publication was originally planned to comprise 12 issues of 4 plates each but no more than the first four were produced. - Two plates are trimmed and mounted on different backing paper (one with a repaired tear). Text shows foxing, but plates are generally clean. Binding somewhat rubbed and bumped at extremeties, with damage to spine. Nissen 1499. Not in Schwerdt or Mennessier de la Lance.
Folio (310 x 220 mm). (46) ff., one final blank. Rubricated in red throughout and about half of the spaces left for initials filled in red by hand. 19th century red sheepskin, marbled sides. First edition of the popular "Imago mundi" of Honorius Augustodunensis (1080-1154), an incunabular encyclopaedia of popular cosmology and geography combined with a chronicle of world history, containing references to Arabia, Syria, Palestine, and the Saracens and thus providing one of the earliest mentions of Arabia ever printed. The monk Honorius takes the river Nile as the boundary between Africa and Asia (naming the latter continent in its entirety "India"). Arabia is described in the subsection on Mesopotamia. The description of this country, found along the Tigris and the Euphrates, also includes an account of the Kingdom of Sheba, home of the Queen of Sheba, and is said to be inhabited by the Moabites, Syrians, Saracens and others. After Mesopotamia we find Syria, including Phoenicia, which is followed by sections on Palestine and Egypt. - The "Imago mundi", which by scholarly consent was not published after 5 February 1473, exemplified the picture of Africa and the Orient prevalent in the West ca. 1100, which were perceived as lands full of marvels. It is one of the five earliest books printed by the great and prolific Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger. - Binding slightly rubbed; a few early manuscript annotations by a near-contemporary humanist in the margins. From the library of the Frankfurt physician Georg Franz Burkhard Kloß (1787-1854), also a noted historian of freemasonry, with his bookplate on pastedown; additional bookplate of Jean R. Perrette. Lacking the second of the two last blank leaves. A few wormholes, a couple of leaves attached to stubs, but otherwise in very good condition. Hain 8800. Goff H-323. GW 12942. BMC II, 411. Proctor 1974. Panzer II, 234.342. ISTC IH00323000. Not in Atabey or Blackmer.
8vo (145 x 204 mm). Two treatises bound together: the first in Persian with occasional captions in Arabic, the second in Arabic. Manuscript on polished paper. 45 ff., 18-22 lines. Nastaliq and naskh script in black and red, written space ruled in red and blue, with numerous charts in red, blue, and black and chart headers in blue woodblock print. Folio 10 features moveable slips to complement a chart. 19th century full leather over wooden boards, covers decorated with lacquered gold leaf and illustrated with an astrolabe quadrant; top edge of upper cover recessed at the centre; a flower-shaped inlay to the upper cover is lost. Finely rendered and beautifully bound work on astronomy and timekeeping by Haji Mirza Muhammad Karim Khan-i-Kirmani (1810-73). Karmani was a Shaykhi-Shia scholar, a distant cousin to Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar (1769-1834), and a 19th century polymath with mastery of a whole field of Islamic and philosophical sciences, including alchemy, medicine, optics and music. - The first treatise presented here is "Khulasa al-taqwim", a calendar summary in the form of tables for ikhtiyarat, or selections: it thus guides the reader through the selection of auspicious moments in a given day, the station of the moon and the zodiac in the heavens, and describes the solar and lunar calendars, the hours of the day and night, and knowledge of horoscopes. - The second is "Risala al-Mizan", which focuses on the use and construction of astrolabes. Karmani had a particularly keen interest in the engineering behind the astrolabe, a distinctly Muslim invention which is perhaps the greatest technical triumph of the mediaeval world. Indeed, Karmani went on to invent his own version of the astrolabe. Both calendrical knowledge and astrolabe engineering require keen mathematical and geometric knowledge, the study of which is aided by the numerous and often complex charts made available to the reader throughout. One such chart features two movable slips, still fully intact and functional, which practitioners may slide up and down to match up with the chart and aid their calculations. The binding on this volume is particularly striking, as it is illustrated with diagrams of astrolabe quadrants on a field of glittering copper leaf. - Light wear to covers, slightly delicate binding. A well-preserved and uncommonly early copy of Kirmani's astronomical writings. The only comparable manuscript copy to have appeared on the market is a later specimen in a very similar binding, dating from 1312 H/1895 CE, which sold at Christie's (Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Sale, 27 April 2017, lot 16), commanding £21,250.
Large folio. 2 vols. in one. (26), VIII, 132 pp. (4), XX, 144 pp. With coloured engraved title-page (dated 1754), large engraved vignette by Andreas Hoffer after Gottfried Eichler, and 91 (1 folding) coloured or colour-printed engravings by Knorr, J. A. Eisenmann, A. Hoffer and others. Contemporary calfskin binding gilt. First edition of this monumental work of natural history, one of the most splendid zoological works ever produced in Nuremberg. Begun by Knorr as early as 1751, it was continued by his heirs after his death in 1761. The book describes items from the great contemporary natural history collections, including the magnificent white falcon (with hood) from the collection of the famous physician and botanist Christoph Jakob Trew. The illustrations, occasionally printed in colours but mostly hand-coloured in radiant hues, depict birds, exotic mammals, fishes, corals, butterflies and other insects. - Occasional insignificant waterstaining to the wide blank margins of the text; a few plates show unobtrusive fingerstaining. A beautiful, very wide-margined copy in excellent state of preservation, printed on good, strong paper. Plates show clean, distinct colours and superior contrast. Nissen, ZBI 2227. Horn/Schenkling 12038. Hagen I, 426. Dean I, 696. Graesse IV, 35.
Imperial folio (420 x 596 mm). (8), 87, (1) pp. With large lithographed title vignette and coat of arms of Wilhelm II on dedication leaf. 69 lithographed plates, maps and plans after Laborde and Linant de Bellefonds, mostly mounted on India paper (3 of which folding or double-page and 1 coloured). Period-style half calf with gilt title to spine. First edition of "an important work" (Blackmer), complete with all the magnificent views in large folio format. All subsequent editions, including the English one, were published in octavo and retained only a few plates of the original edition, all in considerably reduced format. Laborde made the journey to Petra with the engineer Linant de Bellefonds in 1828, travelling from Suez via St. Catherine's and through Wadi al-Araba to Akabah. Although Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles had explored Petra before Laborde, he was the first to make detailed drawings of the area. Dedicated to the Elector Wilhelm II of Hesse (1777-1847). - Slight browning and foxing, occasional waterstaining and tears to folds; a small tear in the map repaired, but in all a good, wide-margined copy. Rare: the last complete copy came up for auction in 2009 (Christie's, 3 June, lot 120: £23,750). Blackmer 929. Gay 929. Henze III, 101. Brunet III, 714. Vicaire IV, 758f. Nissen ZBI, 2335. Not in Atabey. Cf. Macro, Bibliography of the Arabian Peninsula, 1386 (2nd ed. only). Howgego 335, L2 (1830-33 ed.).
4to (145 x 198 mm). (34) ff. Half calf over marbled overs (ca. 1900) with gold-tooled red label to gilt spine. All edges sprinkled red. Almost unobtainably rare first edition of this digest of medical prescriptions, taken from the works of the highly-regarded Arabic physician Mesue the Younger (also known as Masawaih al-Mardini), including "a kind of general manual for apothecaries and perfumers" (Duveen). All recipes are in Italian, while the main title and the headings are in Latin. Bibliographers are not agreed on the book's place or date of publication: GW locates it merely in Italy, ca. 1495, whereas Copinger believes it was printed in Venice, by an unidentified printer, in or around 1500. The British Museum Short-Title Catalogue suggests Sigismund Mayr in Naples as the printer and 1510 as possible year of publication, while the British Library's catalogue now appears to prefer Venice and 1505 as tentative place and year. Klebs notes that the collection constitutes a "rifacimento" of the Italian edition of Mesue's "Opera medicinalia", published in Venice on 12 December 1493. - Contemporary ink ownership to title-page. A restored tear in the final leaf (not affecting the text), some brown specks on the title-page and an insignificant waterstain along the lower edge of the final gathering, but altogether in excellent condition. Rebound in a pretty half-calf binding around the turn of the century. Only two copies in libraries internationally (British Library and Univ. of Wisconsin, formerly the Duveen copy). That in the British Library is incomplete, lacking the final leaf (falsely described by Copinger as having a final blank leaf, which is in fact the endpaper). Copinger 4011. GW M23031. Klebs 228 (note). Proctor 7427. ISTC im00521400. USTC 842290. BM-STC Italian 739. Duveen 651. Edit 16, CNCE 50479.
Double Crown folio (48 x 36.5 cm). [37] ff. including title-leaf and 7 blanks, plus 16 loosely inserted ff. Album containing 42 pencil and other drawings (a few partly coloured) and 3 squeezes, some on the album leaves and some loosely inserted, mostly of ancient Egyptian and Nubian architecture, sculpture, bas-reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions, but also with a few botanical drawings and landscapes with buildings. Most have English-language captions in brown ink and are signed and dated 1838 to 1839. New black half morocco, on recessed cords, title and double fillets in gold on spine, using mid-19th-century marbled paper for the sides (blue-green Spanish-marble with black and white veins). An album of drawings (and squeezes of bas reliefs) made by William Robertson on a journey from Cairo in December 1838 down the Nile into Nubia, reaching as far south as the present-day Egyptian-Sudanese border region, including the temples of Abu Simbel, in January 1839, then returning via Philae, Karnak and other sites to Thebes in February 1839. They give very detailed views of numerous buildings, sculptures, bas-reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions, as well as more distant views of landscapes with buildings and three botanical drawings. While Robertson made most of his drawings on site, he drew the Temple at Luxor after a drawing by Achille Émile Prisse d'Avennes (1807-1879) who began exploring and drawing the ancient Egyptian sites in 1836 and published many of his drawings in 1847. The squeezes of bas-reliefs are of special interest, for they preserve a very precise record of the original with little influence from personal interpretation: the paper was wetted, pressed into the relief and allowed to dry. In addition to the three clear squeezes, a couple of the drawings also seem to have been made on flattened squeezes (some of those that survive as squeezes also have some lines drawn over them them). Since many of the ancient Egyptian sites have been looted and damaged over the years, these early drawings and squeezes provide an important record of what was there in 1838/39 and how it was situated, before the first photographs were made. The building of the old Aswan dam in 1902 caused frequent flooding and damage at the site of Philae, now an island, and most of its treasures were removed before completion of the new Aswan dam in 1970. The album has no true title-page, but the leaf before the first drawing has a slip pasted to it giving the name of the artist, dated from Cairo, December 1838. We have not identified the artist. The clergyman and historian William Robertson and his son of the same name died before 1838 and the archaeologist William Robertson Smith was not born until 1846. Thieme & Becker notes two artists named William Robertson, active two or three decades before and after the present drawings, but provides so little information that we cannot link them to either. He may possibly be the Irish-born London architect William Robertson (1770-1850), who took an early interest in Egyptian revival, but he would have been nearly seventy when these drawings were made. The loosely inserted drawings and squeezes are made on at least 8 different paper stocks, wove and laid, one of the wove stocks machine-made (the "watermark" left by the papermaking machine's belt seam appears in one sheet). A few of the original album leaves are now detached and may have been removed by the artist himself. The squeezes have inevitably been flattened in the album, but they still show the contours of the original bas-reliefs very clearly. One inserted drawing is severely foxed and one inserted floor plan is rather dirty, but in general the drawings are in very good condition. A detailed graphic record of ancient Egyptian art, architecture and hieroglyphic inscriptions, made before many of the worst depredations.
Folio (335 x 432 mm). 3 ff. of letterpress matter (half-title, title and list of plates). With 40 mounted calotypes. Contemporary marbled half morocco on five raised bands with giltstamped spine title; marbled endpapers. Second, "better known" (Parr/Badger) edition of this pioneering work, first published in 1854: only the plate volume with the 40 magnificent calotypes, wanting the separately published 90 pages of text. - Wishing to support L. F. J. Caignant de Saulcy in the controversy concerning the dating of the wall of Jerusalem that followed his journey to the Dead Sea, Auguste Salzmann set out for the Holy Land on 12 December 1853. With the help of his assistant Durheim, he prepared some two hundred waxed-paper negatives of the Jerusalem monuments during his four-month stay. While his findings were first published in a monumental volume in 1854 (the copy of the Duke de Luynes commanded 463,500 Euros at Sotheby's Paris in 2013), the present reduced edition, with prints by Blanquart-Evrard, is better known. "It was an expensive book, a livraison, or fasicle of three prints costing 24 gold francs. A single print was 10 francs [...] Salzmann was acutely attentive to both patina and pattern in attempting to define the architectural strata of a city in which building was built upon building, thus leaving a vertical record of the various cultures that had occupied the city and left their remains on the foundations built by earlier conquerors [...] Salzmann himself described his pictures as having 'a conclusive brutality', but to modern eyes their poetic aspect seems paramount. It would appear that Salzmann was at one and the same time both expert and layman, dispassionate observer and enthusiast. His pictures have this dual quality, flickering rapidly between documentary and poetry. This, one might suggest, is the ideal goal for any photographer". - Binding slightly rubbed and chafed in places. Marginal foxing throughout, affecting only a few photographs; insignificant waterstain to edge; old ownerships erased from title, leaving slight traces. Parr/Badger, The Photobook I, 25. Tobler 181f. Röhricht 440f. Baier, Geschichte der Fotografie 452f. Gernsheim, History of Photography 186. Witkin/London, Photograph Collector's Guide 86f.
2 vols. of text (4to) and one volume of plates (folio, 284 x 378 mm). Text: XXIII, (1), 228, (2) pp. With 3 genealogical tables and 2 folding maps. XVIII, 397, (1) pp. Half calf with gilt-stamped morocco label to spine. Atlas: 4 chromolithogr. plates (conjoined as 2), 6 (1 double-sized) toned lithogr. plates, and 65 mounted photographs on a total of 40 plates; 1 letterpress leaf of contents. Cloth portfolio with gilt cover title. Remarkable set, rarely encountered complete with the plates volume. The Dutch orientalist Snouck spent a year in Mecca and Jeddah during 1884/85 and was married to a Mecca woman. He was the first non-Muslim to visit the city outside the annual pilgrimage. The photographs, taken by himself and an Arabic physician, are among the earliest to show Mecca and its pilgrims. - Very nicely rebound, in matching period style portfolio and half calf. An unusually crisp and clean copy throughout: text volumes spotless; the plates with the vintage photographs, much sought after as the earliest photographic documents of the city, its dignitaries and its pilgrims, are backed on thin linen and preserved in perfect condition. Macro 1239 (omitting mention of the Atlas). Henze V, 177. Dinse 443.
8vo. 15 black and white photographs captioned in white, plus one repeat in a smaller print. Original board album, acquired from "M. Arthur, Beyrouth". Paper label to upper cover: "Arab Types. Syria". Small but fascinating collection of portrait photographs showing Arabian nobles as well as commoners, all captioned and the subject often identified by name and tribe. The photos, many of which are executed as highly expressive profile studies, were taken and assembled by Lt. Col. Walter Francis Stirling (1880-1958), Chief of Staff to T. E. Lawrence. While the present photographs were taken during his time with Lawrence, whom Stirling revered, it is not his British comrades but rather the striking features of the sheikhs and bedouins on which this collection is focused. Among the images are "Sheik Gawaileh of Nejd, one of Lawrence's Bodyguard", and "Sheikh Hamondi, Friend of Lawrence"; others are more ominously identified as "Yezidi Shepherd, Devil worshipper" or "Bad type of Hadadiyim Tribesman". Of many noble tribesmen here depicted, such as Fauraz ibn Sha'laan, Emir of the Ruwalla, or Sheikh Daham al-Hadi, Paramount Sheikh of the Shammar tribe, these probably constitute the only photographic record. - Stirling was trained at Sandhurst and served in the Transvaal operation during the Boer War before being seconded to the Egyptian Army in 1906. He spent five years patrolling with an Arab battalion on the Eritrean and Abyssinian borders. Throughout WWI he served at Gallipoli and the Palestinian campaign until he was appointed chief staff officer to Lawrence of Arabia, who called him "Stirling the imperturbable". In 1937, Stirling would reflect on his famous wartime comrade: "From then [early 1918] throughout the final phase of the Arab revolt on till the capture of Damascus, I worked, travelled, and fought alongside Lawrence [...] We sensed that we were serving with a man immeasurably our superior [...] In my considered opinion, Lawrence was the greatest genius whom England has produced in the last two centuries [...] If ever a genius, a scholar, an artist, and an imp of Shaitan were rolled into one personality, it was Lawrence." In 1919 Stirling became advisor to Emir Feisal and Deputy Political Officer in Cairo, then acting governor of Sinai and Governor of the Jaffa district in Palestine before moving to Albania in 1923 to take up a position advising and assisting in the reorganisation of the Albanian Ministry of the Interior.
8vo. (8), 384, (8), 115 [but: 215], (17) pp. With a woodcut on title-page, a woodcut initial and some woodcut tailpieces. 17th century marbled calf with gilt label to richly gilt spine, red edges. First edition of a "history of the kings of Persia compiled from the Persian histories of Mir Khwand and Turan Shah" (Howgego), in the original Spanish, by the Portuguese merchant and adventurer Pedro Teixeira (1563-1645?). It is one of the earliest European sources to mention Qatar, relating to the pearl fishery in the region: "The pearl fishery at Bahren begins some years in June, but generally in July, an lasts all that month and August … They generally go a fishing to Katar, a port on the coast of Arabia, 10 leagues to the southward of the Island Bahren. As soon an oyster is brought up, they open it, and take out the pearl. The pearls of this sea surpass all others in goodness and weight…" (English translation). The work is divided into three parts. The first, which is the largest, deals with the kings of Persia. It is a summarized translation of the voluminous Rawzat al-Safa by the Persian historian Mir Khwand (ca. 1434-1498), and is probably the first translation of the text into an European language. The second part is a translation of the Ayyibud emir Turan Shah's (d. 1180) chronicle of the kings of Hormuz, a text which is today only extant in translations. Though Teixeira's adventures started in 1586, he reached Hormuz in 1593, where he resided for several years to study its history. Both parts contain a chronological account of the kings, but also provide a more general history of the area. The last and third part contains an account of Teixeira's later travels from India to Italy in 1600-01 and 1604-05, visiting China, Mexico and the Middle East. In his preface Teixeira states that he originally wrote the work in Portuguese, but that it was translated into Spanish to appeal to a wider audience. The work appeared in a French translation in 1681, and extracts appeared in an English translation appeared in 1711, followed by a translation of the full text in 1715. - Binding slightly rubbed and with a small defect to upper spine. Slightly browned, otherwise immaculate copy in its first binding. Howgego, to 1800, T19. Maggs Bros., Spanish books 1014a. Not in Blackmer.
Large hand-coloured four-sheet plan. Pen and ink, graphite and watercolour on paper laid on canvas. Framed and glazed. Dimensions: app. 90 x 170 cm (sheet); 105 x 205 cm (frame). Large manuscript plan in beautiful colour; a unique witness to Vanderbilt's passion and ambitions. A member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family, William Kissam (1849-1920) managed railroads and was also a horse breeder. He was one of the founders of The Jockey Club and the owner of a successful racing stable. In 1896, Vanderbilt built the American Horse Exchange at 50th Street (Manhattan). In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS William K. Vanderbilt was named in his honour. - This impressive plan represents the horse-racing stable and track at the chateau, which Vanderbilt built in 1906, with the help of Henri Guillaume and Pierre Sardou, architects. He purchased in 1903 the land in an area of Poissy called Les Gresillons, 20 miles outside Paris. At the time, he ran a breeding operation in Deauville, making the location, also called "Carrieres-sous-Poissy", particularly convenient since it is on the way from Paris to Deauville. The hippodrome comprised three oval tracks, the outer of which measured 2400 metres, as well as a straight track. A long wall separated the racing areas from the Chateau St-Louis where the Vanderbilts lived, called the Chemin Plat, now known as Avenue Vanderbilt. With the beginning of World War I, the racing stables were shut down and eventually sold. The Chateau St. Louis is now the corporate headquarters for a local quarry, which spreads over the land previously occupied by the hippodrome. As of today, only the residential building known as "Chateau Grésillons" still stands and is currently being restored. - Provenance: Ralph Esmerian (New York jeweler).
2 vols. Folio (328 x 447 mm). (8) pp.; (4) pp. of text; a total of 76 photographs on plates by Francis Frith (sizes ca. 145-165 x 215-230 mm), each with a separate leaf of text. Contemporary red morocco, spines and covers gilt. Marbled endpapers; all edges gilt. First edition of this important and early photobook on the Near East. During the years 1856-59, Frith (1822-98) made three visits to Egypt and the Holy Land; this selection of his photographs, from wet-collodion 9 x 7 negatives taken with an 8-by-10 inch camera, was published in 25 fascicles of 3 prints each, a work hailed as "one of the most renowned nineteenth-century photobooks" (The Photobook). Most of these images are dated 1857 either in the plate or the printed caption. They include a portrait of the artist in oriental costume and views of Abu Simbel, Aswan, Baalbek, Bethlehem, Damascus, Giza, Hebron, Jerusalem, Karnak, Luxor, Nazareth, Philae, Tiberias, Wadi Kardassy etc. The preliminaries of vol. 1 include title, introduction, table of contents, and subscribers, those of vol. 2 encompass title and contents. Each plate is accompanied by a full-page letterpress description. "Francis Frith is undoubtedly one of the best-known photographers to work in the Near East. His trips to the Levant were a brilliant commercial success as well as an artistic one" (Perez 163). - Some foxing to blank margins, as well as to a few photographs. Modern bookplate of the German anthropologist Jasper Köcke. Bindings very slightly rubbed, but hinges somewhat brittle; unobtrusive chafe-mark to upper cover of vol. 2. Overall a fine, appealingly bound copy. The Photobook I, 28. Blackmer 1942. Hannavy 561. Gernsheim, History 286. Perez, Focus East 165. Van Haaften-White XII & XV.
4to (ca. 160 x 216 mm). Arabic manuscript on polished paper. 8 parts. 93 leaves, final blank leaf. Written in black ink throughout with red chapter headings, 19 lines, two columns and single column. Contemporary brown leather binding with gilt borders and recessed and gilt central ornament, stamped in relief. A fine, complete collected medical manuscript, including pharmacological and alchemical material. The principal section is formed by the "Urjuza fi l-tibb", or "Medical Poem" of Ibn Sina, which can be considered a poetic summary in 1326 verses of the author's great encyclopedic textbook, the Qanun. The verse form made it popular as a mnemonic in the process of transmitting the Canon's medical knowledge from master to student. The second part of the work is more directly concerned with anatomical matters, but also discusses the pulse and urine. - The following section is "Al-Maqala al-Aminiya fi 'l-fasd", a treatise in ten chapters on phlebotomy. It was written by Abul-Hasan Hibatallah ibn Said ibn al-Tilmidi (d. 1165 CE), the Christian physician to the Abbasid caliph Al-Muqtafi, hailed as one of the greatest medical men of his age. - A subsequent essay treats the refinement of chemical substances by burning and washing, also discussing the characteristics of the combustion of various metals, including gold, silver, steel, copper, and lead. Further parts concern the refinement of medicines (by Al-Hasan ibn Bahram al-Mutatabbib) and the treatment of poisonings in general, but also offering an alphabetical pharmacopoeia. - Leather covers professionally restored; modern marbled pastedowns. Internally quite clean; a few leaves show edge tears but without loss to text. Altogether a fine Arabic medical manuscript comprising a wide range of relevant material. GAL I, 457, 81 ("Manzuma fi 't-tibb"); GAL S I, 823. For al-Maqala al-Aminiya see GAL I, 487.
Large folio. Half morocco, retaining the original cloth covers and gilt cover label. 11 (instead of 21) plates. Author's Edition. Landmark collection of Muybridge's revolutionary "instantaneous photography", a self-developed technique that allowed for high-precision series of high shutter speed stop-motion photographs. He began his work with photographing horses, but in time it would also include athletes, birds, lions, and even camels. Muybridge first photographed a horse with all 4 hooves off the ground in 1872, after Leland Stanford (later the Governor of California) hired Muybridge to determine whether a horse leaves the ground completely when running, a hotly debated issue at the time. (Stanford believed they did, and Muybridge won Stanford a $25,000 bet.) By 1885, Muybridge had accumulated over 20,000 photographic negatives, or 781 sequential series of photo-plates, shot from multiple cameras at carefully planned locations and angles, each of which showed a human and/or animal engaged in a continuous motion. This required Muybridge to develop cameras for faster shutter closure. In cases where a human or animal moved any great distance, photographing the movement required a team of photographers, rather than a single photographer. Muybridge and H. Allen, a physiology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, published 37 eleven-volume sets which contained a collotype of every one of the 781 photographic series. This "Author's Edition" consists of a selection of the most important collotypes contained in the full work; the present set includes all the plates to show animals: No. 565. Horse trotting. - 616. Horse and rider, trotting more rapidly. - 626. A third horse and rider, running, including several frames with all 4 hooves off the ground. - 647. A horse jumping a hurdle at high speed, with a bareback jockey. - 659. Mule jumping and kicking with his hind limbs. - 710. Race hound at high speed, including frames with all 4 feet off the ground. - 721. Lion circling along the wall of a small enclosure. - 739. Camel walking. - 755. Bird flying, including swoops down. - 3. Runner. - 152. Runner jumping a hurdle. - The combined illustrated area of any given plate varies, but is typically about 21 x 30 cms. Muybridge had focused his early photographic work on San Francisco and Yosemite, but had later been sent by the Federal Government to photograph Alaska for the High Sierra Survey. (The latter project was in 1868, shortly after the territory was purchased. He was later sent on a second trip to Alaska to photograph the Tlingit tribe and the Modoc War.) During his time as a photographer, Muybridge owned a racetrack. Late in life, he invented the zoopraxiscope, a primitive forerunner of the motion picture camera. Analyses made possible by the technique later had a wide range of implications for sports, podiatry, physical therapy, vertebrate paleontology, and other fields. - Pastedowns and spine renewed, otherwise an excellent, clean copy in the original boards. Grolier, Truthful Lens, 123. Parr/Badger, The Photobook I, 52.
4to (140 x 190 mm). Complete Arabic manuscript on strong Chinese paper. 165 ff. (337 numbered pages), leaf size ca. 132 x 182 mm, written space ca. 82 x 128 mm). 6 lines, per extensum (except 4 lines on pp. 3-4; 11 lines on pp. 11-34). Illustrations of the Kaaba in Mecca and the burial sites of the first three Rashidun Caliphs on pp. 47-48. Text written in "sini" calligraphy typical of Chinese Muslims, in an archaic form oscillating between naskh and muhaqqaq. Black ink, various sections highlighted in red, text within single or double red rules; sporadic notes or corrections on the margins. Contemporary black, red and gold painted and lacquered over paper and cloth. Painted boards show floral designs in black and gold on a red background, all within a black border with red wave designs. With remnants of leather on the brown cloth spine. Extremely rare specimen of the famous Sunni prayerbook "Dala'il al-khayrat": an Arabic manuscript written in what is today Xinjiang, China. - The "Dala'il al-khayrat" ("Waymarks of Benefits" or "Proofs of Good Deeds"), an extensive book of poems in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, was compiled by the Moroccan Sufi scholar Muhammad ibn Sulaiman al-Jazuli (807-870 H / 1405-1465 CE) and was quickly received throughout the Islamic world, functioning as a kind of Muslim catechism. Al-Jazuli's inspiration for the book is said to have come before he left Fez to spend forty years in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, but he completed it in Fez during the last years of his life. The present manuscript, written in so distant an Islamic community as that of Eastern Turkestan, a territory dominated throughout by Mongols or Chinese, where Muslims were commonly viewed as strangers, gives striking evidence of the range and scope of a tradition lasting for almost six centuries: the utopia of Islam as the Religion of Oneness, aiming to unite all the Muslim peoples in a single community reaching from Europe to the Far East. - The text begins with an introductory praise of Muhammad, followed by the 99 names of Allah (leaves 1-46) and a compilation of eulogies and prayers divided into seven subsequent chapters (each referred to as "juz", or "section"): 1, pp. 46-113; 2, pp. 113-136; 3, pp. 136-181; 4, pp. 181-217; 5, pp. 217-236; 6, pp. 236-256; 7: pp. 256-end. Interestingly, the double page 47/48 does not show Mecca and Medina, as is typical for manuscripts of this text, but rather presents naive illustrations of the "Ka’ba of Allah" (!) and the burial sites of the first three Caliphs. No date in colophon, written in the form of prayer. Leaves 12 to 19, extraneous to the text proper and containing additional prayers and the 99 Names of Allah, are inserted on contemporary Chinese paper. Edges worn; lower corner rounded and fingerstained from long use, but very well legible and altogether well preserved.
Tall 8vo (172 x 252 mm). 4 vols. Arabic text throughout apart from titles in English (lacking in second volume) and 4 pp. subscribers' list in vol. 4. Modern half calf over marbled boards with blindstamped spine title. The rare and celebrated first complete edition of the Arabic text, printed in Calcutta at the Baptist Mission Press. Also known as the "Calcutta II" version, this is described on the title as "now, for the first time, published complete in the original Arabic, from an Egyptian manuscript brought to India by the late Major Turner Macan, editor of the Shah-Nameh". - The original scattered Arabic texts were collected in four corpora: the so-called Calcutta I or Shirwanee edition (1814-18, 2 vols.), the Bulaq or Cairo edition (1835, 2 vols.), the Breslau edition (1825-38, 8 vols.), and the present one, the "Calcutta II" or the "MacNaghten" edition. Considered the most comprehensive text of the Arabian Nights, this is also the basis for the best-known translations including the English editions by John Payne and Richard F. Burton. - "Première édition complète du texte arabe [...] Elle a été donnée d'après un manuscrit égyptien pris dans l'Inde par le major Turner Macan, et elle a eu pour éditeur sir W.-H. Macnaghten" (Brunet). "It was only in 1839-1842 that the Arabic text [of the 1001 Nights] was edited in its entirety, by Macnaghten" (cf. Fück). - Browned and brownstained. Intermittent worming throughout, occasionally with extensive loss and stabilized with translucent paper, especially concerning the beginning and end of vol. 2. An extraordinary survival. Chauvin IV, p. 17, 20B. Brunet III, 1715. Graesse IV, 523. Fück, p. 139, n. 365.
Small folio (ca. 215 x 337 mm). 64 pp., interleaved by 30 blank pp., 3 of which with manuscript notes. Contemporary full blue leather with giltstamped spine and red spine-label. One of the founding documents of the 20th century's oil industry: the personal copy of Fuad Rouhani (1907-2004), later the first Secretary General of OPEC, with his autograph annotations and signature. - The historic agreement that provided Western oil companies with 50% ownership in Iranian oil production after its ratification in 1954. It expired in 1979. The agreement, which was heavily pressured by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, gave U.S. oil companies complete control over how much petroleum Iran pumped and the price it could sell for, and obliged Iran to compensate the AIOC with a sum of 25 million pounds - £15 million for the AIOC's loss of oil revenue from 1951 to 1954, and £10 million to transfer ownership to Iran of the Naft-e Shah oil fields, a small refinery in Kermanshah and domestic fuel distribution facilities. - Several marginal notes as well as 3 pp. of handwritten notes by Rouhani, listing the oil companies involved in the consortium, including references to later corporate developments such as the merger of Hancock Oil Company with Signal Oil and Gas Company in 1958. Rouhani, who was involved in the negotiations on behalf of Iran, was one of the founders of OPEC a few years later in 1961, and became OPEC's first Secretary General. - Extremities slightly rubbed, first leaf a little fingersoiled. A very good copy of the historic contract that overturned nationalization and placed control over Iran's oil in the hands of a group of international oil companies. Cf. OCLC 922021728.
8vo (125 x 197 mm). 206 ff. (foliated in pencil 1-204 + 1 endpaper in an early 19th century hand). Ottoman Turkish manuscript on paper (largely polished paper, but including 18 leaves of silhouette paper with a floral pattern in pink and mint green) in several hands. Contemporary limp leather with remant impression of library chain. Handsome manuscript collection of the most important poets of the Ottoman classical period, including but not limited to Bâkî (1526-1600), Isa Necati (d. 1509), Muhammad ibn Sulaiman Fuzuli (1480-1556), Hayâlî (c.1500-57), and Yahya Efendi (1494-1570). The eighteen leaves of silhouetted paper are an important preservation of a popular but rarely preserved mediaeval and early modern book decoration practice. To dye silhouetted paper, Ottoman papermakers used stencils or pads of felt to bleed designs into the paper itself, creating a beautiful, airy impression of colour and pattern on which a scribe would write. These were high-cost, coveted items in both the East and the West. Perhaps consequently, this manuscript, likely produced in Western Anatolia, had by 1596 made its way to Silesian Breslau (Wroclaw), in what is now Poland. An elaborate librarian's inscription, dated and signed "G. Scheidt", identifies its new home as the library of the Church of St Mary Magdalene. - The inscription notes that the text was donated to the library by "Fridrich von Schliwicz und Klein Wandriß zu Zieserwicz". Friedrich von Schliewitz was a Silesian nobleman who gifted a total of five Turkish manuscripts to St Mary Magdalene Library in 1596, all of which received chains of libri catenati (the remnant punched hole of which is visible on the leather covers of this manuscript) and the elaborately painted crest commissioned by the library from Breslau painter Matthias Heintze (d. 1622). Georg Scheidt (d. 1601) was a teacher at the Mary Magdalene grammar school between 1569 and 1575 before becoming a librarian to the local church library (cf. Zeitschrift des Vereins p. 218, and Schönborn, p. 28). After his death he was replaced by Christoph Sarcephalus, who completed the inventory which forms the library's earliest known catalogue (cf. Garber, p. 568). - The present manuscript itself boasts numerous marginal notes in an early hand, as well as marginalia on fol. 109, depicting a horse in red ink. Covers a bit worn, some early paper repairs. In all a well-preserved and well-travelled early modern text. - Provenance: from the collection of the Turkish-German artist Nedim Sönmez (b. 1957), of Izmir, a specialist for decorated paper, to whom it belonged since 1988. Previously the manuscript had been in a private German collection in Bremen. Carl Brockelmann, Verzeichnis der arabischen, persischen, türkischen und hebräischen Handschriften der Stadtbibliothek zu Breslau, no. 31. Cf. Klaus Garber, Bücherhochburg des Ostens, in: Garber (ed.), Kulturgeschichte Schlesiens in der Frühen Neuzeit I, p. 568. Carl Schönborn, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Schule und des Gymnasiums zu St. Maria Magdalena in Breslau, p. 28. Zeitschrift des Vereins für Geschichte und Alterthum Schlesiens 13.13 (1876), p. 218.
Oblong folio (455 x 365 mm). 28 matte photographs (195 x 280 mm or the reverse), individually mounted on cards, recto only. Contemporary sewn red half morocco gilt, flat spine, upper cover titled in gilt and with the photographer's name in gilt. Marbled endpapers. Fine album of 28 black/white mounted photographs showing officials and dignitaries, horse and camel trainers, riders, and races at an unknown celebration or festival during the last days of the Khedivate and Ottoman rule in Egypt. A similar album, comprising merely 24 photographs, is kept at the UC Santa Barbara, Special Research Collections (Bernath Mss 185). - Several mounts loosened or detached. Binding worn at extremeties, some waterstaining to covers.
40 photographs (29 in colour and 11 black-and-white). Various sizes (300 x 207 mm to 125 x 125 mm). Stored in large, six-leaf self-adhesive tan leather album (oblong folio, 43 x 34 cm). Includes 51 original colour slides. A privately assembled photo album showing the ruling family of Dubai during a state visit to Pakistan, apparently in the early 1970s. Pakistan was the first country to accord formal recognition to the United Arab Emirates after the state's emergence in 1971. - Nearly half of the images show HH Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (1912-90), the father of the modern Emirate of Dubai, in conversation, at dinners, and relaxing in the garden. Other photos show his sons, the crown prince and later ruler HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum (1943-2006), the present ruler HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The collection was assembled by Azhar Abbas Hashmi, a high-ranking officer of the Pakistani UBL bank (United Bank Limited), founded in 1959 by Agha Hasan Abedi (1922-95), who is seen in seven photographs with HH Sheikh Rashid as well as with his two older sons. While several pictures show the members of the royal family in negotiations with the Karachi banking officials, there are also fascinating images of a falconry tour to the Pakistani countryside (including a fine portrait of HH Sheikh Ahmed with a falcon perched on his arm). The more than fifty original colour slides show other scenes of the same visit; only four of the images are among the prints included in the album. - Some occasional creases and even the odd tear, but in general finely preserved. Three photos printed by Karachi's "Eveready Studio", some inscribed in ballpoint with identification on the reverse ("Mr. S. L. Anwar, HH, Mr. Masood Naqvi, Mr. Iqbal Khateeb / Mr. Hashmi showing the prospect drawings"), one in Arabic, another with ownership stamp: "Azhar Abbas Hashmi, Vice President Gulf Operations, International Division, UBL, HO, Karachi". An unpublished set, entirely unknown and without counterparts in the online Keystone or Hulton/Getty press photo archives, from the estate of Azhar Abbas Hashmi (1940-2016), Pakistani financial manager and eminent literary patron with close ties to Karachi University. Long with UBL, Hashmi would serve as the bank's vice-president before founding several important cultural organisations and becoming known as a man of letters in his own right. It was because of Hashmi’s close connections to the Gulf states that Abu Dhabi provided funds to build the Karachi University’s faculty of Islamic studies, along with Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre and Jamiya Masjid Ibrahi.
Tall 8vo (150 x 246 mm). Persian manuscript on sturdy cream paper. 254 (instead of 264) ff., 15 lines per extensum, paginated by later hands (lacking pp. 35-42 and 45-46; pp. 43-44 transposed after p. 30). Cursive nasta'liq calligraphy in black ink, catchwords in red. Illustrated with 56 (instead of 77) coloured horse drawings in the text (numbered in pencil by a later hand). Later illustrated binding with black leather spine and lacquered wooden boards with coloured floral designs. A late 18th century Indian manuscript copy of a celebrated treatise on horsemanship, the "Farasnama" ("The Coloured Book of Horses"). Constituting a Persian translation of the Sanskrit "Salihotra", its topics include horse-breeding, grazing, dressage, veterinary advice and horseracing. - The "Salihotra" is attributed to Durgarasi, son of Surgarasi, who is believed to have composed it for Mahmud Ghaznavi (d. 1030). A note on p. 2 of the present manuscript indicates that the text was translated from Sanskrit into Persian during the reign of Shah Jahan (d. 1666); other traditions give credit to 'Abdullah bin Safi, who was active under the earlier reign of Bahmanid ruler Ahmad Shah Wali (d. 1436). The present manuscript contains numerous coloured drawings of thoroughbred horses, along with observations on their salient traits, the illnesses to which they are prone, and prescriptions for their treatment. Their execution is an interesting illustration of the iconoclastic tendencies characterising painting under the later Mughal emperors. - Occasional slight traces of worming; some waterstaining to margins; some leaves remargined by an early owner. In spite of the loss of five leaves that would have contained an additional 21 horse illustrations, a fine manuscript in an attractive illustrated lacquer binding.
Large 8vo (170 x 274 mm). Arabic manuscript on polished Indian laid paper. 328 leaves, 19 lines per extensum. Naskh script in black and occasional red ink; a few leaves of commentary loosely inserted. Contemporary full leather, spine rebacked, with oriental medaillon stamps to both covers. Expansive Arabic commentary on the "Qanunchah" ("Qanunceh", "Small Canon") of Mahmud al-Jaghmini, the important Persian medical compendium based on Ibn Sina's famous Arabic "Qanun". Al-Jaghmini's handbook of medicine was widely used at Eastern Persian schools as an introductory medical instruction manual for at least three centuries, but also found favour in India early. "One of the first works of medicine compiled in the Indian subcontinent was 'Sharh ul Qanunchah'. It was authored by Syed Abul Fath bin Syed Ismail al-Husaini al-Lahori during the sixteenth century and was a commentary of the well-known 'Qanunchah' of Chaghmini" (Alam, p. 369). The present manuscript was copied by Muhammad Kayyal (?) in Dhul-Qidah 1198 H. - Frequent, early remarginings to edges; some brownstaining and a few waterstains. Binding rubbed and rather bumped at extremeties. 19th century waqf stamps. A prettily written 18th century manuscript specimen of this important 16th century Indian commentary on a principal medical text. Cf. Mumtaz Alam, "Shift to Arabic? Medical Literature and Writing During Medieval India", in: Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 71 (2010/11), pp. 365-376.
107 volumes, many containing multiple articles. 8vo. Some illustrated with plates and maps. Half calf with marbled sides and gilt lettering on spine or cloth with marbled sides and label on spine. Handsomely bound, extraordinary collection of important scientific journal articles by 19th and 20th century Western explorers of Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, the Himalayas, India (including Assam, Bengal, Kashmir, and Punjab), Karakoram, Pakistan (including Sindh), and Tibet, with content covering anthropology, archaeology, exploration, geography, geology, glaciology, history, language and grammar, mountaineering, and politics. At the time these were the far outskirts of the world for Western science, where a lot was yet to be learned. Often the maps in these journals are the first modern maps of such regions and findings were the first to be scientifically published. - Generally in very good condition. Please inquire for a full list of contents.
