[Qur'an Juz'].MareMagnum
367 357 résultats
4to (188 x 254 mm). Arabic manuscript on paper. 51 ff. Script in bold black sini, 5 lines within red rules, vowel markers in black and corrections in red, surah headers in red, illuminated double-page frontispiece 'Unwan decorated with geometrical and floral designs in gold and colours in a typical Yunnan style of mainly gold on a red ground highlighted with green and blue. 16th century full brown leather with fore-edge flap, prettily ruled and stamped in blind with Islamic and Chinese-influenced designs. Very early Qur'an Juz (one of thirty parts of varying lengths into which the Qur'an is divided) written in 16th century China. - Arab presence in China dates back as far as the first Caliphate: the Prophet's companion Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas is traditionally credited with introducing Islam to China as ambassador in 650. Indeed, many major cities in China, such as Xi'an (or Chang'an, as it was known during the height of the Silk Road) and Beijing, boast a long and rich Muslim history. Qur'an sections written by Chinese Muslims show Chinese influence clearly in both the decoration and the script, which is derived from naskh. Juz' 19 begins with surah 25, al-Furqan (The Criterion), contains in full surah 26, ash-Shu'ara (The Poets), and closes with the beginning of surah 27, an-Naml (The Ant). - The colophon in red script on the recto of the last leaf states that the manuscript was "copied by Shams al-Din ibn Musa al-Sini in the month of Safar of the year 953 AH in the city of Yunnan, one of the Chinese cities which has been honoured and blessed by Islam". - Binding rebacked and spine and endpapers professionally replaced; subtle paper repairs. An excellent example of the Islamic Chinese style of Qur'anic calligraphy and illumination. Provenance: Private UK collection formed in the 1960s and 1970s.
4to (161 x 212 mm). (3), 91 ff. With 13 woodcut hand-coloured illustrations in the text (lacking the 4 double-page engraved plates). Contemporary half calf binding with marbled covers and fore-edge flap. Rare first edition of this illustrated history of the New World in Ottoman Turkish: the first book published in Turkey to contain illustrations, the earliest book about the New World published in the Ottoman Empire, and one of the first titles printed by a Muslim in Turkey. The contemporary colouring of the woodcuts, which depict curious oddities, fantastic creatures and the native people of the New World, lends this specimen a visual appearance very different from that of the rather plain copies in which this book is usually known (14 copies recorded by OCLC). The only similarly embellished copy of the Hind al-Gharbi we could trace is the one held by the Lilly Library. - "Although ascribed in Turkish bibliographies to one Mehmed Ibn Hasan üs-Su'udi, the authorship is uncertain [...] Despite the title, this is not a history of the West Indies. It opens with a general geographical and cosmological discussion, and follows with an account of the discovery of the New World, with considerable fantastic elaboration in the spirit of the more fabulous passages of Abu Hamid and Qazwini. Among the illustrations are depictions of trees whose fruits are in human form, long-snouted horses, mermen at battle with land-dwellers, and other men and beasts of nightmarish aspect" (Watson). - This work, which survives in a number of manuscripts (none as complete as this printed edition), was composed in Istanbul around 1580. After a synthesis of Islamic geographical and cosmographical writings (notably drawing from al-Mas'udi, who is the most frequently cited source, and Ibn al-Wardi, mentioned almost 20 times), the book relates the discovery of the New World. It is this Chapter 3, which comprises the final two thirds of the text, in which the unidentified author describes the explorations and discoveries by Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, Cortés and Pizarro. As Goodrich's study of the book's sources shows, this section is derived directly from Italian editions of 16th century texts, particularly works by López de Gómara, Peter Martyr, Agustín de Zárate, and Oviedo, which the author excerpted, rearranged, and translated into Turkish. Complete copies are rare: the book was printed in an edition of only 500 copies, many of which were subsequently defaced or destroyed for contravening the Islamic dictum against representing living things. - The "Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi" is only the fourth book printed in the Arabic alphabet in the Ottoman Empire, produced by Ibraham Müteferrika, an Hungarian convert to Islam who believed he could help arrest the decline of the Empire through his printing press. He established his shop in 1729 in the palace of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha and was granted a license to print all but religious works (which remained the province of scribes). - A few corners or edges clipped or trimmed, remargined by an early collector. Lacks the engraved maps and astronomical chart present in some copies. Old inscription in Arabic (dated 1341 H) and ownership of the French diplomat Louis Lagarde (dated 1923 CE) to front flyleaf. John Carter Brown 463. Toderini III, p. 41, no. IV. Karatay 250. Sabin 94396. William J. Watson, "Ibrahim Müteferrika and Turkish Incunabula," in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 88, no. 3 (1968), pp. 435-441, no. 4. Özege 19828. OCLC 416474553. Cf. T. D. Goodrich, The Ottoman Turks and the New World (Wiesbaden 1990).
8vo. 60 pp. The complete text (setting copy) of his long essay on current political events in Russia, written shortly before the Revolution of 1905: "As the forces of [Russian despotism; stricken out and corrected to:] Czardom are driven back and crippled more and more, both on sea and on land, curious attempts are being made in England to impress public opinion with the idea that, if [inserted: ever] she were [stricken out: to] actively to turn against Russia, she would have to reckon with an armed alliance between Russia and Germany [...]". With numerous revisions in ink and pencil as well as setting instructions ("all minion on this page" etc.); a few leaves assembled from paragraphs clipped from other sheets and glued together. Occasional edge flaws, but very well preserved. - Even as a law student in Heidelberg, the Mannheim-born Blind promoted a political revolution that would produce a unified, democratic German republic; after a brief imprisonment he participated in the failed Baden insurrection of 1848 led by Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve. Blind first met Marx at the Karlsruhe Republican Committee in May 1848, where Marx and Engels declared their frustration with the course of the uprising. As Engels remembered, the 21-year-old Blind was one of only two members of the committee who had supported their opinion. Indeed, Blind was taken prisoner and sentenced to eight years’ confinement, but was soon freed by fellow revolutionaries and escaped to France, and later to England. During Marx’s early weeks of refuge in London he even lodged with Blind: in a letter to Freiligrath written on 5 September 1849, he gives Blind’s address as his own. Blind permanently settled in London in 1852 and continued to advance the cause of democracy as a writer. He was well-connected among European republicans and corresponded with Garibaldi, Kossuth, and Louis Blanc. A man of wide education and interests, Blind composed not only political propaganda and journalism but also biography and works on history and mythology, as well as on German and Indian literature. Published in the "North American Review", vol. CLXXIX (October 1904), no. 575, pp. 481-493.
4to (170 x 240 mm). Persian manuscript on polished paper. 137 (instead of 143) ff. (lacking ff. 97-102) in elegant black nasta'liq script, 14 lines, 2 columns. With an illuminated shamsa on fol. 1r (specifying the name of the sponsor Khawaja Nasir as well as the place and date of production) and an illuminated 'unwan headpiece on fol. 1v. Light brown full morocco with blindstamped borders, corners and central ornaments. An elegantly executed Eastern Persian manuscript that chronicles the epic life and victories of one of history's most famous emperors and military leaders, Timur Leng (Tamerlane), from his birth near Samarqand in modern-day Uzbekistan in 1336. "Certainly the most famous of Hatefi’s poems [... The work] extols Timur’s deeds in accordance with the main works of Timurid historiography such as Sharaf-al-Din Yazdi's Zafar-nama [...] Hatefi’s Timur-nama became a model for subsequent poems. It certainly introduced a new genre which was developed further by Hatefi himself [...] Written in 1498, the Timur-nama has been published twice in India (1869, 1958)" (Encyclopaedia Iranica XII, 55-57). - Abdallah Hatefi (Hatifi) was the nephew of 'Abd-al-Rahman Jami, one of the greatest Persian poets and composers of Sufi mystical works. The Timur-nama, modeled after Nizami's "Iskandar-nama", appears to be his only completed work. The oldest extant copy was completed the year after Hatifi's death, 927 H (1521 CE), and was stored in the India Office Library. - Descended from the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, Timur participated in various military campaigns from a young age, and his victories quickly made him known as a highly skilled military leader. After a decade of internal political wrangling, he became ruler of the Timurid Empire in 1369. For the next 35 years, until his death in 1405, Timur continued to lead a number of great expeditions and wars; his conquests stretched as far west as Baghdad and the Black Sea, the shores of the Arabian Gulf, and far into modern Afghanistan and northwestern India; he took Herat, where this manuscript is written, in 1381. Timur began military campaigns against the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I and the Mamluks in Syria, as well as expeditions to Armenia and Georgia. His final campaign was in the winter of 1404, but he was stricken with fever and plague and died in February of the following year. His line continued through the glory of the Timurid period under his direct descendants, including Babur (1483-1531), the famous founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, who continued to rule until 1857. - An beautiful manuscript containing an illuminated headpiece of the greatest refinement; the illuminated border of the shamsah on fol. 1r. is a hallmark of Herati work. Surrounding the shamsa are several stamped waqf seals and various inscriptions by previous owners; fol. 140v has an inscription by Muhammad Taqi Qarakuzlu, dated 1237 H (1821 CE). - Provenance: Arts of the Islamic World, Sotheby's, 5 April 2006, lot 30. Sam Fogg, 2009.
4to (146 x 201 mm). (6), 164 ff. With woodcut border surrounding title-page and woodcut initials throughout. 19th century full calf ruled in blind, bound for the Inner Temple Library, London, with two morocco spine labels. All edges red. First English edition of one of the most important historical works of the first great age of discovery, "very rare" (Hill). The author mentions several journeys to the "Moores of Arabia" (27r), such as one in 1487 "to Toro, which is a place that hath his harbour in the Straights of the red Sea in the Coast of Arabia", and other places "in the selfe same Straightes of the Redde Sea" (2v), the ships also passing by "Ormuse" (Hormuz, 3r) on their return journey from India to Cairo. - Most of the "Historie" is devoted to the great Portuguese thrust into Asia in the early 16th century, chronicling their epic expansion to India, the East Indies, and China between 1497 and 1505. Castanheda himself spent some two decades in the Portuguese colonies in the East, and so was well equipped to write this account. It is one of the primary sources for the early Portuguese trading empire, a model that the British were beginning to emulate at the time of publication. This work is equally important, however, for its American content, being the first to describe in detail the voyage of Cabral and his discovery of Brazil in 1500, while on his way out to the East Indies. Cabral's landing is the first recorded there, recounted in Chapters 29-31 of the present work. "A most interesting and rare book" (Sabin). - Originally published at Coimbra in 1551, the book was translated by "Nicholas Lichefield" (probably Thomas Nicholas, the well-known translator of the Tudor era). This edition is appropriately dedicated to Sir Francis Drake. - Binding lightly rubbed in places, but still very presentable. A few near-contemporary annotations and manicules. Upper corner of title-page professionally repaired. Front pastedown shows engraved armorial bookplate (ca. 1700) of the barrister-at-law Herbert Jacob of St Stephen's (Hackington) in Canterbury, who bequeathed his books to the Inner Temple, London. Subsequently removed from the Inner Temple Library, now bearing their winged-horse crest in gilt on upper cover, engraved bookplate on pastedown and two different ink stamps to title-page and variously throughout. Offered by Hordern House, Sydney, in 1998 and sold to the San Francisco collector Bruce McKinney; the lower pastedown shows the bookplate of his 2009 sale. A scarce title with good provenance, in an appealing modern binding. Alden/Landis 582/54. Hill 1035. Borba de Moraes 166f. Palau IV, 262. Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance 274-279. STC 16806. Sabin 11391. Streeter Sale 26. Not in Church.
4to. (6), 96 ff. With a woodcut initial coloured in red and green and several diagrams. Rubricated throughout. - (Bound after) II: Aristotle. Meteorologia. (Nuremberg, Friedrich Peypus, 11 Nov. 1512). 94, (6) ff. (final blank). With 8 large woodcuts in the text, some with touches of contemporary colour. Rubricated throughout. - (Bound with) III: Abraham ben 'Ezra (Aben Ezra, Avenares). In re iudiciali opera. (Venice, Petrus Liechtenstein, 1507). 96 ff. (f. 92 blank). Rubricated throughout, some initials coloured green. Contemporary wooden boards on three raised double bands with leather spine. Two brass clasps (repaired). I: Editio princeps of this "work composed in Arabic probably exactly in the form in which it is preserved in Latin, typical of the encyclopaedic period but limited [...] to certain early sources" (Carmody), uniting the Judaic and Islamic astrological traditions. The form, arranged in twelve parts according to each house, is based on the doctrines of Sahl al-Tustari. The various tracts are constructed from chapters compiled systematically from such writers as Mâshâ'allâh (including the first printing of 'De electionibus') and al-Kindi. The crucial factor that they were translated intact in their present form from Arabic "is apparent in the unified Latin style and terminology" (ibid.). The collection includes a number of quotations attributed to Ptolemy; the rare mention of "Abuali" refers perhaps to Abu 'Ali al-Khayyâj. - "Masha'allah, [a Jew from Basra,] was one of those early 'Abbasid astrologers who introduced the Sassanian version of the predictive art to the Arabs; he was particularly indebted to the Pahlavi translation of Dorotheus of Sidon and to the 'Zik i Shahriyaran', or Royal Astronomical Tables, issued under the patronage of Khusrau Anushirwan in 556. He was also acquainted with some Greek material (perhaps through Arabic versions of Syriac texts) and would have acquired some knowledge of Indian science, both through the Pahlavi texts that he read and through such Indian scientists as the teacher of al-Fazari and Kanaka, who visited the courts of al-Mansur and Harun al-Rashid. It is during al-Mansur's reign that Masha'allah's name first appears: he participated in the astrological deliberations that led to the decision to found Bagdad [...] Masha'allah wrote on virtually every aspect of astrology [...] ['De electionibus'], which quotes Dorotheus, is ascribed to Masha'allah and Ptolemy but is probably by neither" (DSB IX, 159 ff.). - Extremely rare. A very clean copy with only an insignificant inkstain in the lower margin of ff. 12v and 13r and tiny traces of worming in the upper margin of the final two leaves. A few contemporary handwritten marginalia; f. 80v has a contemporary handwritten ownership of Wigand, Baron Redwitz (1476-56), bishop of Bamberg, who as a young man had travelled to Palestine and is remembered as a conservative but not fanatical Catholic cleric during the tumultuous years of the Reformation. - Bound with this work in the same appealing Renaissance volume are two other rare, thematically related contemporary treatises. - II: Aristotle's "Meteorology", long known in the West only through a Latin translation based on the Arabic version "al-'Athar al-`Ulwiyyah". This is the very rare illustrated first edition of Faber's expanded translation, including an extensive commentary by Johannes Cochlaeus, who also mentions the recently-discovered American continent ("Nova illa Americi terra", f. 62v). Comprising the first three of Aristotle's four books (on the heavens, water, and wind), it also constitutes "one of the main sources of medieval geology" (Stillwell, Awakening 577). "Cochlaeus's discussion of the relationship between motion and heat appears quite modern" (cf. Spahn). The woodcuts, coloured in earth tones or simply accented by the rubricator, show spheres as well as light and cloud phenomena; a large woodcut (f. 60v) shows the climate zones of the ancient world. - A single, tiny wormhole in the blank lower margin throughout; another small wormhole in the first two leaves (repaired in A1, insignificant loss to a few letters in A2). A clean and wide-margined copy. - III: The first collected edition of ten astrological treatises by the 12th-century Jewish mathematician and astronomer Ibn Ezra from Tudela in Spain. During his lifetime the town was under the Muslim rule of the emirs of Zaragoza; later he lived in Muslim Andalusia. "Ibn Ezra disseminated rationalistic and scientific Arabic learning in France, England and ltaly [... He] wrote a number of astrological works that were very popular [...] all of them appeared in Latin in 1507. They are rich in original ideas and in the history of scientific subjects" (DSB). - Contemporary marginalia in red, green, and brown ink throughout. Some insignificant browning. The well-preserved binding shows a hunting scene blindstamped into the leather. A fine assembly of important natural scientific works: published by Christian editors and printers in the early Renaissance, they bring together the Muslim and Jewish traditions that were the driving forces behind mediaeval science. I: Edit 16, CNCE 63196. BM-STC ltalian 424. Houzeau/Lancaster 751 ("volume tres rare"). DSB IX, 162. Carmody p. 112. Not in Adams, Mortimer, Essling, Stillwell, Honeyman. - II: VD 16, L 959. Cranz/Schmitt 13. Hoffmann I, 321. Schweiger I, 60. IA 107.806. Alden/Landwehr 512/1. Zinner 953. Brüggemann/Brunken 29. Spahn, Cochläus, p. 16. - III: Edit 16, CNCE 35576. IA 100.150. Adams A 38. Proctor-Is. 12998. Stillwell, Awakening 2. Houzeau/Lancaster 3927 ("rare"). Thorndike II, 917 & 927. DSB IV, 502.
Folio (422 x 528 cm). Lithogr. t. p. and 60 lithogr. plates, all in original hand colour, captions often raised in gilt. With 10 leaves of letterpress text. 10 instalments in the original printed wrappers as issued. Stored in contemporary green half calf with giltstamped spine and cover label. Ties. - (Includes): Die Uebergangsländer von Asien und Afrika, begreifend: Arabien nebst Mesopotamien und Syrien und das Nilgebiet. Munich, C. Wenng, 1845. Engraved map with contemporary border colour. 640 x 544 mm. Scale 1:7,000,000. Only edition of the rare variant with all the plates and in their splendid original colour: the personal copy of Duke Maximilian in Bavaria. "Published in ten parts. The plates show costume of the period and also that of earlier times, taken from paintings" (Hiler). The picturesque views, which include Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, La Valletta, Luxor, and Thebes, genre scenes and landscapes, are all framed within a decorative border and arranged as a small painting. The Nuremberg artist Mayr, especially well-known for his depictions of battles scenes and horses, was personal painter to Duke Maximilian, whom he accompanied on his 1838 journey of the Orient. The group had departed from Munich on January 20 with a small entourage, travelling via Venice, Korfu, Patras, Athens, Alexandria, and Cairo to the Holy Land. They returned to Munich after eight months on 17 September 1838; the following year, Maximilian was made honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. - Some foxing to letterpress explanatory text, plates beautifully preserved with only the backing paper showing occasional duststaining. From the library of Duke Maximilian at Tegernsee Castle, retaining the original shelfmark label on the spine. - Includes the extremely rare map of the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East which was published only in 1845, at the instigation of the naturalist Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert (1780-1860) and the geologist Joseph von Russegger (1802-63), to satisfy this frequently noted lack in Mayr's production (some foxing, but also finely preserved). Ibrahim-Hilmy II, 26. Gay 90 (only 36 plates). Lipperheide Ma 22 (= 1589). Hiler 578. Tobler 161. Graesse IV, 457. Engelmann 124. Kainbacher 265 ("a rarity"). Thieme/Becker XXIV, 477. Nagler VIII, 498f. ("highly memorable drawings"). ADB XXI, 139ff. Not in Blackmer or Abbey (Travel). Not in Colas.
3 parts in 3 folio volumes (302 x 205 mm). (4), 34, 436 ff. 30, 248 ff. 6, 34, 455 (not 456) ff. With a total of 51 engravings in the text (7 full-page) and 12 double-page maps and plans (2 full-page). 20th-c. full brown morocco, double-gilt fillet on the covers, spine ribbed and decorated with gilt fleurons, mottled edges. Stored in custom-made calf-edged slipcases. Perfectly complete copy of this superb collection of travels, composed of the first edition of the 3rd part and the second edition of the 1st and 2nd part. The second edition, widely enlarged, of the 1st part, is the first and only one to present the 3 double-page maps representing Africa and India that had not been printed in the first edition of 1550, and which would not be reprinted in the 3rd edition of 1563 since the wood plates of these 3 maps had been destroyed in the fire that ravaged Giunti's workshop in 1557. - "This work, which served as a model to Hakluyt, was the first systematical collection of voyages that had so far appeared [...] It [...] is carefully and intelligently done" (Cox). "All authors are unanimous of their praise of Ramusio's choice of published narratives. Locke, the English philosopher, states that it is 'the most perfect work of that nature in any language'. Harrisse writes, 'The publication of Ramusio's "Raccolta" may be said to open an era in the literary history of Voyage and Navigation. Instead of accounts carelessly copied and translated from previous collections, perpetuating errors and anachronisms, we find in this valuable work original narratives which betray the hand of a scholar of great critical acumen'" (Borba de M.). The first volume, mainly dedicated to Africa and South Asia, happily includes several travel reports of the utmost importance for the exploration of the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region. Lodovico Varthema's travel report, famous for detailing the first recorded visit of a Westerner to Mecca, indeed the first western encounter with the Arab world, contains accounts of the holy cities of as well as of the port of Jeddah, information on Bedouin life and costume, etc. (ff. 162-166). - The account of Vasco da Gama's voyage to India is comparable in importance only to Columbus’s in the west, as it “opened the way for the maritime invasion of the East by Europe” (PMM 42). Da Gama’s pioneering sea voyage ranks amongst the greatest historic events of the second millennium and as “one of the defining moments in the history of exploration” (BBC History, online). It is also considered the turning point in the political history of the Arabian Gulf region, followed as it was by a prolonged period of east-west commerce, conquest and conflict. Critically, the excerpt here published includes details on "una isola [i. e., Julfar] verso il colfo Persico dove altro non si fa che pescar perle" (I, f. 132). - Duarte Barbosa's report includes accounts of Mecca and Medina (f. 323), the ports of Jeddah (ibid.) and Aden (f. 324), the Arab kingdom of Hormuz (ff. 324-327), Julfar and the islands in the Arabian Gulf (f. 325, with reference to pearl-diving), etc. Also, we find the very early and highly influential, albeit imprecise data on the Kuwait region: place names such as Lorom, Gostaque, Bacido, Conga, Menahaon (p. 325) etc. which Slot discusses at some length: "Much of the toponymic information in the Kuwait region on the maps from the Gastaldi group is based on an erroneous interpretation of Duarte Barbosa's text. From this text come the strange names of places in the area of Kuwait like Costaqui (Kuhistaq) which should in fact be placed on the other side of the Gulf [...] Loron [...] might be an error for the Karun River which is on the Persian side just east of the Shatt al-Arab. Then follows inside the inlet of the Gulf of Kuwait the name Manahon. Then follows around this 'Gulf of Kuwait' three names which are cased by erroneous plotting [...]: Congo (Bandar Kong), Costaqui (Kuhistaq) and Bacido (Basaidu) with the offshore island of Queximi (Qism). These are names taken from [...] Duarte Barbosa's book and erroneously plotted on this coast" (Origins of Kuwait, p. 15). - The volume also includes a set of three woodcut maps by Gastaldi: the first showing Africa, the second showing the Indian subcontinent, the Strait of Hormuz, the Eastern half of the Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, while the third shows Southeast Asia and the East Indies. These were a great advance on earlier maps, including even Gastaldi's own, taking into account new information provided by Portuguese explorers. Many of the topographic names in the Gulf region derive from the forms used by these navigators and can be identified, sometimes tentatively, from their place on the first two of these maps and from the early accounts of the voyages: "Cor. Dulfar" (Dhofar), the island "Macira" (Masirah), "C. Resalgate" (Ras al Had?), "Galatia" (the ancient site Qalhat), "Mazcate" (Muscat), the island "Quexumo" (Qeshm), "Ormus" (Hormuz), and there is even an unlabelled city close to the present-day Abu Dhabi. - Occasional handwritten ink notes. Waterstain on the lower part of vol. 2, ff. 31-35; some browned leaves; otherwise fine, a washed copy. Provenance: Professor Eva G. R. Taylor (1879-1966), historian of science and the first woman to hold an academic chair of geography in the UK, presented to Birkbeck College, University of London (bookplate) and sold through Sotheby's in 1990. Sabin 67731, 67737, 67740. Harrisse 304. Church 99. Borba de Moraes² 698f. Bosch 46. Cox I, 28. Cordier, BS 1939. Fumagalli (Bibl. Etiopica) 83 (note). Gay 258. Adams R 135, 137, 140. Brunet IV, 1100f. Slot, The Origins of Kuwait (1998), p. 15 & 187.
895 x 945 mm. Polyconic projection, constant ratio linear horizontal scale 1:4,000,000. Blue-line print. Framed. The only known example: a highly detailed map of the Arabian Peninsula, published by the "Arabian American Oil Co." in March 1942, two years before the company was formally so renamed, and the first effort to produce a large-scale map of the entire Peninsula that satisfied modern technical needs. Clearly produced in a very limited edition for internal use at the crucial, transitional moment in Arabian oil exploration, this is the earliest known map to use the name that still survives in "Saudi Aramco", issued at a time when the company was still officially Standard Oil of California. - The legend identifies railways, primary and secondary roads as well as "explorers' routes", oil pipelines, intermittent streams, airports, towns, "Arab wells", oases, "sand areas", "sabkhas", and "marsh". The Maidan-i-Naftun and Naft Safid oilfields in Iran (and the pipelines that link them to the A.I.O.C. Refinery at Abadan) are illustrated, as are the Kirkuk oilfield and the pipelines running from there to Haifa and Tripoli. Dammam and Dhahran, the sites of the first commercial oil wells in Saudi Arabia, also feature on the map. Aside from that, however, there is no illustrated oil development in the Middle East: the map effectively illustrates the blank slate that was Arabian oil exploration in the early 1940s. On the coast of what was then Trucial Oman, Sharjah, Dubai (with airfield) and Abu Dhabi are identified; the areas to the southwest of Abu Dhabi City are labelled "Sabkha es Salmiyah" and "Taff". Shows adjoining areas from the Bosporus to Somaliland and the USSR. - The "compiler and tracer" (cartographer and draughtsman) is identified as the Aramco engineer G. S. Sheets; separate fields to indicate "checked by" and "revisions" remain blank. Sheets had joined Aramco's predecessor, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, in 1939 and immediately began work in Dhahran as a geological draftsman in the Production (Exploration) department. Upon his return to the U.S. he prepared several geological maps including the present one and acted as liaison with the Army Map Service. In 1942 he became attached as a civilian to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Army Map Service, but he returned to Arabia in 1944 and in 1955 became staff assistant to the director of Concession Affairs. - In excellent state of preservation. Extremely rare: OCLC locates only two examples, both of which appear to be photocopies (Library of Congress and American University of Beirut). While the large 1963 map of Arabia that succeeded this, also produced by Aramco geologists, has occasionally appeared in the trade, no other original of this early map could be traced in libraries or in auction or trade records. A unique survival. OCLC 1048657705.
4to. 2 pp. on 2 ff. In English. To the U.S. diplomat J. Franklin Ray, director of the Far East Office of the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), acknowledging the dangers encountered by convoys delivering aid, and suggesting the establishment of liaison offices in both Communist and Nationalist areas: "I am very appreciative of your thoughtfulness in sending me the attached report made by the UNRRA inspector which gives me more understanding towards the difficulties encountered by the UNRRA and CNRRA transportation convoy in passing through the combat regions. It is comprehensible that the relief work in combat regions is hazardous; therefore it is inadvisable to ask the UNRRA or CNRRA personnel to carry it on at the risk of their lives. We suggest hereby to you that under the present circumstances separate liaison offices should be established in Nationalist and Communist areas respectively so as to facilitate the relief work. With the institution of these liaison offices, the relief personnel can carry out their work in cooperation with the local governments and military authorities, without being endangered by travelling between the areas and running through blockade lines and combat regions. Dr. T. F. Tsiang has already associated himself with my suggestion [...]". - With pencil annotations by Ray concerning further action: "We agree & are working actively on this as rapidly as necessary personnel can be mobilized [...]". - One of the principal leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhou Enlai had played a key role fomenting unrest in Shanghai in the 1920s and was one of Mao's most trusted lieutenants by the time of the Long March. He was involved in intelligence and diplomatic work during the war with Japan. Premier of the PRC from its foundation until his death in 1976, he was additionally Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1958. - The letter was written when Zhou was representing the CCP at the Marshall Mission which, under American leadership, attempted to bring about a united government in China following the defeat of the Japanese. The Communists and Nationalists had signed a ceasefire in January 1946 but there was deep distrust between the two sides. By the summer of 1946 there were frequent clashes between Communists and Nationalists, especially in Manchuria, and negotiations were on the verge of collapse. This letter shows Zhou working to ensure the safety of aid convoys on behalf of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and also the Nationalist Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA). - J(efferson) Franklin Ray (1905-91) served in several United Nations and State Department positions. He was director of UNRRA's Far East Office from 1945 to 1947; he was also a member of the 1948 and 1949 delegation to the Far Eastern Commission. Most of his posthumous papers are kept at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. - Traces of rust and pin holes to the upper left corner. Upper edge clipped without loss. Provenance: Stargardt, sale of 12 June 1986, lot 1223. Extremely rare.
High Holborn, for the Council by Edward Truelove, 1871. Small 8vo. Near contemporary quarter cloth with silver lettering to front board. Binding with signs of use, but overall good. One closed marginal tear and title-page with a few brownspots, otherwise very nice and clean. 35 pp.
4to (150 x 208 mm). 70 ff. (numbered 3-71 and 74) of hand-drawn costumes. India ink and gouache heightened in silver and gilt on laid, watermarked paper, polished in the oriental style. Bound in full modern fawn calf signed by J. E. Baudrillart, covers ruled in blind, spine sparsely gilt with title. Top edge gilt. Marbled endpapers. A beautifully crafted album comprising seventy portraits painted by a Turkish artist in colours, gold and silver, illustrating the various offices at the Ottoman court, people of various occupations, different ethnic groups, and their traditional costumes. Most of the portraits are accompanied by captions inscribed in Osmanli at the bottom of the page. One of them, representing Sultan Mehmet IV (1642-93, ruled 1648-87) on his throne, has in the lower part an inscription in French, "Mehemet Grand Seigneur / 1660" (no. 67). Among the further subjects depicted are Janissaries, a porter (hamal), a davul player, messengers of the court, the bearer of the Sultan's sword, women adorned in various costumes, and foreigners. - Albums of this kind were known as muraqqa': compiled from various sources, they were often created to order, by or for Europeans, as gifts to members of Western embassies or as travel souvenirs. European courts appreciated them as valuable sources of diplomatic information. Several similar examples from the second half of the 17th century have survived, among which one of the most famous is the so-called Rålamb Dräktboken (Raland Book of Costumes), acquired in 1657/58 by Claes Ralamb, the Swedish ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and now kept at the Royal Library of Sweden. - A magnificent survival, handsomely bound by Jean-Eudes Baudrillart of Paris. F. Hitzel (ed.), Turkophilia révélée. L'art ottoman dans les collections privées. Catalogue d’exposition publié à l’occasion du 14e congrès international d’art Turc, Collège de France (Galerie Charpentier), 19-23 Sept. 2011, pp. 72f.
74 x 48 cm. A fine example of Giacomo Gastaldi's map of Southeast Asia, China, and India, perhaps the single most influential map of the region published in the 16th century. - Gastaldi's map has a remarkable history, one that presents a microcosm of Italian mapmaking in the middle of the 16th century. It begins with the publication of a single section in 1559, which was intended as a separate map. Additional sections were added in 1561, creating the portion of the existing map which extends south to the Equator. In 1565, two additional sections were added, in order to show all of Indonesia and the neighbouring islands as far south as Java Minor. - "In its original form the map extended only to the equator, so that most of the Indonesian islands were not included. To remedy this, in about 1565, two narrow sheets were made by the great Italian engraver Paolo Forlani to supplement the main body of Gastaldi's map [...] This lower addition bears an inscription in the lower left corner which reads 'si vende...' [...] indicating the location of the shop of the publisher Bertelli" (Suarez). - Of all of Gastaldi's Asian continental maps, this one more than any other "had a major influence on the work of Ortelius and de Jode [...] In their representation of the coastlines his maps are superior to all previously known maps of Asia, either drawn by hand or printed" (Schilder, in: The Map Collector 17, p. 7). - On the right-hand side of the map, Gastaldi provides a list of about 100 place names on the map, showing both their ancient and modern names. In his excellent study of Gastaldi's maps of Asia and their relationship to the accounts of Marco Polo's travels, Nordinskold notes that while Gastaldi has clearly incorporated information from Marco Polo's travels, Gastaldi relied also upon the accounts of other contemporary travelers to the East. Most notably, the dedication to Marcus Fugger (1529-97) is strong evidence that Gastaldi had access to the Fugger family library, one of the most important libraries compiled in the 15th and 16th centuries. During the 16th century, the Fugger Library was perhaps the best private library in the world, surpassing even the Vatican Library. - Nordinskold goes on to note: "Finally, it must be remembered that Gastaldi, under the guidance of Ramusio, is supposed to have aided in repairing or repainting the famous wall-maps in Sala dello scudo in Venice [...] If such was the case, it may be considered probable that the monumental maps of Africa and Asia by Gastaldi have had some connection to [Gastaldi's map of Asia], that these copper-plate engravings are a reproduction of the originals of the wall maps in that form which was given them in the middle of the 16th century". Quirino notes that Gastaldi's map is the first appearance of the name "Philippines" ("Philippina") on a printed document. - The map is rare on the market. We note no examples of this first edition of the map on at auction or in recorded dealer catalogs in at least 15 years. Tooley, Italian Atlases 63. Karrow 30/92 (note). Woodward, Forlani 36 (note). Suarez, South East Asia, pp. 130-157 Quirino, Philippine Cart., p. XV & 95. Nordinskold, The Influence of the "Travels of Marco Polo" on Jacobo Gastaldi's Maps of Asia, in: The Geographical Journal 13, No. 4.
An archive of 807 loose photographs, 541 in colour (including several duplicates, some printed in a different format), including 65 photos depicting falcons (3 duplicates, 36 in colour) and 14 photographs of camels (1 in colour). A large collection of 807 photographs, providing a unique view into the private life of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1918-2004), ruler of Abu Dhabi and founding father of the United Arab Emirates. The photographs depict Sheikh Zayed and his family, including Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (b. 1948), relatives and friends partaking in various leisure activities. Also included are some photographs of children, probably including Sheikh Zayed's sons, possibly Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (b. 1961). The pictures date from a significant period in the history of Abu Dhabi, the years leading up to the foundation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971, and from the earliest years of the new federation. - A group of pictures is possibly taken in Pakistan, many depicting a large manor where a party arrives by helicopter. Sheikh Zayed enjoyed visiting the country to go horse riding and hunting with his falcons. Many photographs depict casual dinner parties, gatherings, and meetings in the open air. Other photographs show a large party setting off on horseback, falcons, camel races, cars, etc. - Some photos slightly curled along the edges, some slightly discoloured. Overall in very good condition.
An archive of 183 photographs: 133 loose b/w photos (ca. 30 x 25 cm), 30 smaller photos (ca. 5 x 6 cm) numbered and mounted together on a single sheet of paper, and 20 photos in the album. Original black half morocco, with green cloth sides with title and emblem of Pakistan's United Bank Limited on upper board. Includes numerous rolls of original medium format negatives. A trove of unpublished photographs depicting two official visits to Pakistan by HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The earlier one, in 1967, is documented by a separate photo album containing images of the visit to Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, between 16 and 28 November 1967. (Almost 20 years later, in 1986, Sheikh Zayed would donate a hospital to the city, now the "Shaikh Zayed Medical Complex", which is one of the premier medical institutions in the country.) The album opens with a picture of HH Sheikh Zayed arriving in his car; later pictures show him being honoured and presented with an album very similar to the present one, and in the company of officials representing Pakistan's UBL bank (United Bank Limited). - The 30 small photographs show an audience with Sheikh Zayed as well as a banquet in his honour, attended by various Pakistani dignitaries including Agha Hasan Abedi (1922-95), the illustrious founder of UBL. These photos, apparently clipped from a set of medium format contact prints, are mounted on a sheet of coated black photographic paper. - The largest set in size and number shows the state visit that took place on 20-22 January 1970 at the invitation of President Yahya Khan (1917-80). It provides extensive documentation of how the large Abu Dhabi delegation is formally received by Yahya Khan, who served as president of Pakistan between March 1969 and December 1971. Many show HH Sheikh Zayed shaking hands with and speaking to President Yahya; others show the airport reception, formal dinners, speeches, but also informal conversations, members of the delegation handling falcons, and numerous high-ranking Abu Dhabi retainers. Among the persons depicted is again Agha Hasan Abedi, but there are also several pictures of Butti Bin Bishr, secretary to Sheikh Zayed, and of Ahmed Bin Khalifa Al Suwaidi, the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UAE and the Personal Representative of Sheikh Zayed. - President Yahya Khan had been "one of the very first international leaders to reach out to Sheikh Zayed after the UAE had been founded and had, prior to this, in July 1970, been instrumental in creating an agreement to provide technical assistance to the then Trucial States. With the December 1971 union agreement approaching, Pakistan was quick to forge even closer ties, and Khan had been one of the first foreign leaders to offer his congratulations and reiterate his country's support when the UAE was born. Full diplomatic ties were then quickly established, and Pakistan became one of the first to extend recognition to the new country [...] All his life Sheikh Zayed had held a personal affinity for Pakistan. He had hunted there extensively, came to know the people, its culture and lands, and enjoyed close ties with leaders" (Wilson). - Binding of the album slightly rubbed. Some of the loose photographs slightly scuffed along the edges, occasional nicks or slight tears, but on the whole in excellent state of preservation. The majority of the photographs are entirely unmarked, save for the odd Arabic inscription or stamp on the reverse. A fine, unpublished set, entirely unknown and without counterparts in the UAEhistory, 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. Cf. Graeme H. Wilson: Zayed - Man Who Built a Nation (Dubai 2013), pp. 111f.
4to (160 x 214 mm). (80), (4 blank), (32), (4 blank), (19), (1 blank), (13), (1 blank), (81), (1 blank) leaves. Contemporary full calf with cover borders ruled in gilt and prettily gilt spine. All edges gilt. Considered lost: a volume of Ali Ufki Bey's famous Bible translation, "the lineal ancestor of today’s Turkish Bible" (Privratsky), the last manuscript in private hands. - A project born of Protestant disappointment with the outcome of the 30 Years' War, the 17th century enterprise to translate the Bible into Turkish was informed by Christian eschatological hopes that Protestantism and Islam might form a political alliance to defeat the common enemy, idolatrous Catholicism, and bring about world peace. To advance this cause, the Czech-born educator John Amos Comenius championed a Turkish translation of the Holy Scripture, whose power alone, it was assumed, would soon convert the Muslim world to Christianity. Enjoying financial backing from the wealthy arms dealer Laurens de Geer and the academic support of Jacob Golius, professor of Turkish at Leiden, Comenius's venture was entrusted to the Dutch ambassador in Constantinople, Levinus Warner. - Though himself proficient in Turkish, Warner chose to contract a translator rather than perform the arduous task himself. After his first recruit, the Jewish dragoman Hâki (Yahya bin Isaak), delivered a manuscript version around 1661 which was found deficient, Warner in 1662 entrusted the work to Ali Ufki Bey, a talented linguist and former servant of the Sultan's. Born Wojciech Bobowski in Lwów around 1610, he had been captured by Tatars as a young man, sold into Ottoman slavery, and given the name Ali. He subsequently served at the Topkapi Palace as a respected musician and translator for about 20 years, eventually gaining his freedom in 1657. - Ali Bey completed his task in December 1664; in 1665 he then proceeded to have a few fair copies produced under his supervision. One of these, in 5 volumes, is very nearly complete; another contains only Isaiah and several books of the Apocrypha. These copies, sent to Golius together with Ali Bey's rough draft in four volumes, today form part of the Warner Collection at Leiden University Library. - Only in 1888 did the Leiden Library accession an additional manuscript copy (Cod. Or. 3100), containing part of the New Testament in the hand of one of Ali's secretaries, with interlinear and marginal corrections by Ali Bey himself. The present volume is the missing part of this New Testament copy, comprising Acts, Romans, Philippians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, and Revelation. Written under Ali Bey's direction and copied from his personal draft, it, too, contains marginalia and corrections in his own hand (we thank Dr Arnoud Vrolijk, curator of the Warner collection, for his kind confirmation). - Ali Bey's translation, aimed at Muslims as a target audience and full of popular Islamic cultural references, did not find favour with Golius and his colleagues. After Warner, de Geer, and Golius all died in quick succession between 1665 and 1667, the Turkish Bible project ground to a halt, in spite of the fact that Ali Bey was anxious to continue it. Not until 1819 would the New Testament alone be published in a revision of his translation (in Paris), and only eight years later would Ali Bey's entire Turkish Bible see print. A critical edition of his manuscript is still outstanding, and there is ample material for research. It remains unknown from what language Bobowski translated the Bible: "A study of Ali Bey's spellings of proper names, e.g. Petro, Se’mun, Filipo, Pilato, could reveal much about his connections with Christian tradition. Several of these are Italian spellings and suggest a Catholic connection. The fact that Ali Bey refers to St John the Baptist as Yuhanna Ma’madant, a Christian construction of John’s name in Arabic, suggests that he was in contact with the Oriental churches also, perhaps the Syrian Orthodox Church” (Privratsky, p. 19f.). - Provenance: early 18th century autograph ownership of the Hamburg theologian Johann Friedrich Winckler (1679-1738), professor of theology in Hamburg, on the title-page, and successive ownership of the Dutch theologian and orientalist Hendrik Sypkens (1736-1812) below. Subsequently owned by Nicolaus Wilhelm Schroeder (1721-98), professor of oriental languages at Groningen, and sold as no. 24 of his estate auction by van Boekeren in 1835. Purchased in the 1960s from Wrister's bookshop (Utrecht) by a Dutch theologian and acquired from him directly. Pars altera bibliothecae Schroederianae (Groningen 1834), p. 6, no. 24. Cf. Bruce Privratsky, A History of Turkish Bible Translations, v. S (2014), pp. 18-26. Darlow/Moule 9453 (the 1819 printed NT).
Folio (322 x 212 mm). 50 watercolour miniatures on paper, ca. 9 x 14 cm, pasted on coloured cardboard within multiple gilt and pen-ruled frames, bound as a fan-fold book with cloth hinges. Near-contemporary black leather covers, stored in blind-stamped black slipcase with top flap. An exceptional series of 50 meticulously executed miniatures, compiled and painted by an anonymous artist. 41 of the delicate watercolours represent famous calligraphers, 5 (1 in grisaille) presumably represent sufis, and one more (not coloured) shows a seated prince, while 3 miniatures (2 in grisaille) depict flowers. - The main series of calligraphers begins with Yaqut al-Musta'simi, who lived in Baghdad under the Abbasid dynasty in the 13th century, and reaches so far as to include artists from the first half of the 19th century (the most recent date of death being that of Aqa Fath-'Ali Sirazi, 1852/53). Their names are captioned under the image, all in the same hand in nasta'liq script (with a single exception in sikasta). Most calligraphers are shown kneeling, with one knee raised on which they rest their paper - the typical posture of a scribe. One is shown writing at a desk, another seated on a low stool; yet another is busy sharpening his pen. The poet Wisal Sirazi is seen writing on his knee, but has a small table with an inkwell and paper in front of him. Nearly all are depicted holding their reed pen in hand, with various writing implements next to or in front of them, such as inkwells, pen cases, extra pens and paper, pen-knife, and sometimes a hookah (indeed, two scribes are shown smoking). Others have in front of them a candle and teapot, flowers or a bowl of fruit. They are shown wearing different kinds of turbans or a black astrakhan "kulah", the Qajar headdress. All the miniatures bear numbers between 1 and 50 on the reverse of the mounting boards, though they are not bound in order. - Provenance: apparently from the collection of Paul Manteau, a French (or Belgian?) official in Iran, with a press-copied salary receipt loosely inserted: "Je reconnais avoir reçu de Son Altesse Impériale Djellal-e-Daulet la somme de Soixante Tomans représentant le montant de mes appointements du mois de Châval année 1310. Téhéran le 11 avril 1893. Paul Manteau". As Shawwal 1310 began on 18 April 1893 AD, Manteau would have received his salary in advance, proving that the capacity in which he served could not have been altogether minor. Sultan Husayn Mirza Jalal al-Dawlih (b. 1868/69), his employer, was the eldest son of prince Mas'ud Mirza Zill al-Sultan (1850-1918) and grandson of the Qajar ruler Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96). In the later 19th century, numerous French and particularly Belgian officials worked in Iran: especially from 1898 onwards, Belgium posted to Persia a large number of officials whose task was to organize or reorganize various administrative departments. However, Manteau does not appear in Annette Destrée's standard account of "Les fonctionnaires belges au service de la Perse, 1898-1915" (Téhéran/Liège 1976): he clearly arrived before the great Belgian influx and may have left the country before 1898. - Some of the cloth concertina hinges professionally repaired, but finely preserved altogether.
500 x 420 mm. Oval manuscript map in ink and watercolour (blue, brown, green and red; map image including water 295 x 380 mm, the land alone 220 x 305 mm) on a half sheet of extremely large Dutch laid paper (watermark: D&C Blauw IV), with dozens of features labelled in Persian (written in black ink in the nastaliq script) and with animals (including elephants and a dragon), people and 4 European ships. Framed and matted. An 18th century manuscript copy, in colour, of a lost map in the Islamic tradition, with dozens of inscriptions in Persian and extensive pictorial imagery showing numerous mosques, elephants in southern Africa, eastern India and what may be northern Bengal or part of Southeast Asia, snakes and a dragon (with four feet and two pair of wings) in East Asia, birds north of the Caucasus and people in Europe north of the Alps. The regions with people and animals (excluding the dragon and snakes) are also the only regions shown wooded. The oval land is surrounded by oceans with a European ship at each of the four cardinal compass directions: three 3-masted ships flying flags with St George's cross (used by the crusaders, Knights Templar and English and French troops from the 12th century and by the Genoese and others from the 13th century: while it is not St George come to slay the dragon, these European ships in an Islamic map remain a puzzle), and at the south a 2-masted ship with no rectangular flag, all four ships accompanied by rowboats. Inlets can be identified as the Arabian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea (?) and another in the Far East. A wide straight band of mountains runs west to east from coast to coast, apparently representing the Alps, the Caucasus and the Himalayas, with a few additional mountains in southern India and elsewhere. One can clearly see the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as well as the rivers of the Indus and Ganges valleys. After one passes beyond Bengal it becomes more difficult to identify the topographic features that ought to represent Southeast and East Asia: there is no island to represent Japan, and the peninsula that faintly resembles Korea seems more likely to be China. While some pictorial elements and lettering are designed to be viewed from various sides as one turns the map, there is a distinct bias in the lettering and some of the pictures for west at the head, which is quite unusual (most Islamic maps have south at the head). - We have found no record of any closely similar map, but the topography certainly owes something to the traditional Islamic world maps, perhaps by the 10th-century Abu al-Hasan al-Harrani or his followers such as the 15th-century Ibn al-Wardi. Like most maps in the Islamic tradition (including those of al-Bakri and al-Istakhri), these follow the Greek tradition of Anaximander (6th century BC) in depicting the world as an almost perfectly geometric circle surrounded by the great river or sea Oceanus, and also representing other features with abstract forms. They show the Nile running into the Mediterranean and (almost as its continuation north of the Mediterranean) a channel leading to the Black Sea, which continues via the river Phasis to the northern coast, forming a boundary between Europe and Asia. The present map is much more naturalistic, with an oval form and irregular coastlines. The inlets and rivers also have more naturalistic forms, and the map shows much more detail than do the traditional Greek and Islamic maps (one can recognize Qatar and Ceylon/Sri Lanka, and one of the two islands in the Mediterranean probably represents Crete (is the other Ceylon, Sicily, an oversized Malta, or something else?). Yet in spite of its greater detail and naturalism, its geography is in some ways less accurate than that of its more abstract ancestors. Like the al-Harrani and al-Wardi maps, the Nile has an L shape (though not rigidly geometric like theirs), but the southern end connects to the Red Sea and the northern end passes east of the Mediterranean, continuing directly into the channel leading to the northern coast (with no graphic distinction between the Black Sea and the channel to Oceanus). The Nile also appears to contain an enormous island, but the tower at its northern end might possibly represent the 13th-century minaret at Luxor. The Mediterranean appears as a triangular inlet without even a bulge to suggest Greece or Italy, which many Islamic and Greek maps show clearly. Africa and India extend no farther south than the Arabian Peninsula, with only the Red Sea and the Gulfs separating them. Some Mughal maps, such as that of Sadiq Isfahani (ca. 1647), share the more naturalistic depiction, and Isfahani also depicts Ceylon similarly, but his map shows few geographic or topographic similarities. - Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the present map is the depiction of mosques and minarets, which are so detailed that many can be identified even without recourse to the Persian inscriptions. The rectangular wall of the Great Mosque at Mecca appears clearly with the Ka'bah in the centre and four minarets, one at each corner. This also suggests a latest possible date for the lost original, for three more minarets were added in quick succession, apparently between 1603 and 1629. A recent study suggests that the Ka'bah began to appear in Islamic maps only ca. 1450 (Karen Pinto, "Medieval Islamic maps", 2016, not seen, but cf. Arnoud Vrolijk in Mols & Buitelaar, eds., "Hajj: global interactions through pilgrimage", 2015, p. 216), suggesting that the lost model for the present map with many mosques, some shown in detail, was at least several decades later. This evidence for a date, combined with the naturalistic depiction, suggests the lost model for the present map might have originated in the Islamic realms of 16th-century India. The Great Mosque at Medina is also clearly depicted. Pending more information about the Persian inscriptions (which apparently name regions, cities, mosques, topographic features and curiosities), we can only guess at the other mosques or minarets. We noted one perhaps at Luxor. Two on the eastern side of the Euphrates might be at Basra and Aleppo (with some pyramids in between), while one in North Africa looks like the Great Mosque at Taza and the other might be at Fez. There may some buildings in East Asia, by the mountains near the dragon, but they may merely be smoke or flames from what appear to be burning rocks. A couple of other sites show fortress-like walls (in red in the northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula and India) without a mosque or minaret. - The map is stunning as a work of art, a fusion of age-old tradition with modern techniques of illustration and figural representation, executed in pastel colours with the mountains and ships in several shades of brown, Oceanus and the inlets light blue, the rivers grey, the forests and dragon green and occasional small details in red or pink. In spite of its large size, the map is drawn on a half sheet, so that the whole sheet would measure at least 84 x 50 cm, considerably larger than Imperial and one of the largest sheet sizes produced in the 18th century. The chainlines are about 28.5 mm apart. The watermark or countermark would fall in the middle of the map image, so that it is not identifiable in the framed map. One can make out only some diagonal lines that might belong to a letter W. The map is numbered "No 95" in an 18th-century hand at the upper left, so it may have once been part of a manuscript atlas. - Formerly folded once horizontally and vertically. In very good condition. An 18th century copy of a lost 16th century (?) Islamic map of the world, showing seven mosques or minarets, unlike any other map known to us.
Folio (235 x 170 mm). Italian manuscript in two parts with 29 original pen and ink drawings (15 and 14), written in black ink in a neat, legible hand, 28 lines to a page. (1), 95, (1) pp. (including illustrations numbered in pencil, upper right, but recto only). Collation, including illustrations: [1 f., 1 p.], [21 ff., 35 pp.], [6 pp.], [17 ff., 26 pp.], [5 pp.] (several sheets cut so that a tab only remains of the second page, and all illustrations tipped in). Contemporary half vellum over marbled paper boards. Generally written on both recto and verso, except for the two title-pages and the illustrations (recto only); all but first and last page enclosed with a single line border, in pencil for text pages and in ink for illustrations. Unpublished manuscript giving a vivid and event-filled first person account of a journey from Urbino to Constantinople, well legible and beautifully presented with 29 equally unique pen-and-ink illustrations. - A unique account of a journey from Urbino to Constantinople and back, in 1769-70, hand-written and accompanied by 29 original drawings, which offer views of islands rarely if ever depicted in contemporary travel accounts or series. No counterpart has been found for the illustrations, which appear to have been prepared from eye-witness records. That the artist may have been the author himself is suggested by the fact that he makes no mention of a separate artist, and by the manner in which he introduces the first illustration: 'Il Paise è piccolo come vedrassi della figura, che di curiosita, ed intelligenza di lettori porro a piedi di questo capitolo' (p. 5v). The story of his adventure is equally idiosyncratic, incorporating both a record of foreign places, people and customs common to other such literature, and also an account of a personal tragedy and a dangerous sea-voyage. The manuscript falls within a tradition of cultural exchange and travel writing between Europeans and the Orient; but unlike Luigi Mayer, for example, employed to make drawings of the historical buildings of Constantinople by the English ambassador Sir Robert Ainslie shortly afterwards, or J. B. Hilair, whose paintings made on a trip throughout the Empire with the French ambassador Count Choiseul-Gouffier in 1776, and engraved and published in Gouffier's "Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce" (1778-82), Gianni appears to be an entirely independent figure. Though the manuscript is set out like a printed book and was presumably destined for wider distribution in that form as a money-making enterprise, Gianni does not seem to have been commissioned, nor to have hoped for patronage. His stated aim is simply to give a true account to his readers, in case they might wish to undertake a similar journey. His route takes him through great cities such as Venice, Athens, Smyrna and Gallipoli, ancient sites such as Troy and Heraklia, through the Peloponnesus and islands such as Mykonos, Corfu, Maitos and Skios, all of which he describes and depicts in detail. Meanwhile, although he says that he is not writing in order to leave "una viva ricordanza di me, come di soggetto qualificato", that is precisely what he does: the second part of the book recounts his search for his son from whom he had heard nothing but that he had married a Greek girl. Reunited with him through a doctor who has been helping the boy through an illness, he tries to persuade the young couple to return with him to Urbino, but this plan is thwarted by the machinations of the doctor. His journey home, alone, is enlivened by an encounter with corsairs, a near shipwreck, a boy falling overboard and a violent storm. The value of this book lies not only in the unique, unpublished text and illustrations, and legible and attractive presentation, but also in the combination of commonly-found themes such as dress and customs, with an entirely personal and richly-told narrative of one man's search for his son. - One illustration (Smirne) has been trimmed along the right edge after having been bound in. Etched armorial bookplate of an unidentified noble bishop on front pastedown.
Folding map of Arabia (180 x 135 cm), coloured in outline, dissected and mounted on cloth (24 sections). The exceptionally rare first independently issued edition of this famous, meticulously prepared map of Arabia and the Gulf. The "Hunter map" is an enormous, wall-size chart showing an astounding degree of detail. The "Gulf portion being largely based on actual surveys can be considered fairly accurate. [...] Kuwait (except that portion based upon actual surveys) Hasa, Jabal Shammar, Qasim, 'Aridh, Oman, Hadhramaut are the result of exhaustive use of detail supplied by travellers supplemented by months and months of enquiry by local Political Officers. The map of these portions can certainly claim superiority over any previous work of the kind" (Notes on the Map of Arabia and the Persian Gulf [...] compiled by Capt. F. Fraser-Hunter 1905-1908 [Calcutta, 1910], p. 1). - The Canadian-born Hunter later became a major figure in British India's Intelligence Service. As the author recalled in his 1919 "Reminiscences", "a great deal of the information on the map was from sources considered secret at the time" (p. 357). Special surveys of the country's interior areas were carried out to achieve a hitherto unprecedented degree of accuracy: "The map was a distinct advance on anything which existed, as in 1908 no general map of Arabia on such a large scale existed" (p. 360). - Hunter's map was first issued in a very limited press-run to accompany John G. Lorimer's "Gazetteer of the Gulf" (1908); at that time it still bore the title, "Map of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia". It was subsequently used (and praised) by St John Philby during his journey across Arabia. Indeed, reliable topographical information was an invaluable asset not least to the local Sheikhdoms in their territorial disputes during this politically volatile age: Hunter recounts that on one occasion, the Sheikh of Umm-al-Qaiwan went so far as to torture his relative, the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi, into signing away his right to strategically important islands in the Arabian Gulf, a stratagem foiled only by the happy intervention of the British Political Resident. - Stamp of the University Library of Nijmegen on the cloth backing. A very few minute traces of worming, otherwise in fine, spotless condition. Never seen in the trade: the only two copies of this map in auction records were both of the 1914 issue (Christie's, 2012, and Sotheby's, 2013). Not in Al Ankary or Al-Qasimi.
Oblong 8vo. 1 page. To the sister of leading Social Democrat Hugo Haase (1863-1919), sending wishes regarding the wedding ceremony of a member of her family: "[…] We are very pleased by the surprising news and congratulate you all, especially the bride and groom, with all our heart […]". - Sophia Borissowna Ryss, called Sonja (1884-1964), was from 1912 onwards the second wife of Karl Liebknecht. - Small traces of mounting on reverse; very rare.
Folio (29 x 22 cm). 63, (10) ff. Manuscript in Dutch, written in ink on paper, with two loosely inserted supplements (2 bifolia), with a calligraphic title-page (in script lettering with an interior white line giving an incised effect) and 39 pages of (mostly) ink and grey ink wash drawings of inscriptions, musical instruments, buildings, etc., including 3 pages of Kufic inscriptions in black ink with vowel points in red and decorations in red, yellow and green, and a few other written inscriptions showing the styles of script, plus a small drawing of an inscription and a few written examples in the text. Contemporary half canvas, sides covered with printed pattern paper (a matrix of 4-petalled rosettes on a background of horizontal and vertical lines, and dots, in red, blue and yellow, sewn on 3 vellum tapes and tacketted to the canvas spine through a vellum liner. A Dutch illustrated manuscript devoted to the Arabian Peninsula and neighbouring regions, compiled in 1785 by (and the illustrations drawn by) Johan Louis Gerlagh (1735-98), a director of the Dutch West India Company and East India Company (WIC and VOC). He takes a special interest in the various and styles of script, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and at least six styles of Arabic script (kufic, naskh, ta'liq, thuluth, ruq'ah and maghribi), but he also discusses and illustrates bas-reliefs, buildings (including the Great Mosques at Mecca and Medina), musical instruments, footware, a scarab, etc., and provides tables of data concerning tides, compass corrections and temperatures, and accounts of the Islamic calendar, precious stones, weights and measures and coins. The title describes the manuscript as notes from Carsten Niebuhr's "Reize naar Arabië en andere omliggende landen", a Dutch translation (Amsterdam & Utrecht 1776-78) of the German "Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien" (Copenhagen 1774-78), but Gerlagh apparently treats Niebuhr's complementary "Beschryving van Arabie" (1774, first published in German in 1772) as an additional volume of the Reize. All the illustrations and most of the text are copied from these two publications. Gerlagh does make use of other sources, however, quoting from Bernhard von Breidenbach's "Peregrinatio in Terra Sanctum" (1486); Heinrich Buenting's "Itinerarium scripturae" (1581); Fredrik Hasselquist's "Travels in the Levant" (1766); J. F. Martinet's "Historie der waereld" (1780-87), and Joseph de la Porte's "Nieuwe reisiger, beschryving van de oude en nieuwe weereldt" (1766-91). - Gerlagh came from a patrician family that had ties with the WIC by at least 1720 (including a director by 1730) and the VOC by at least 1735. He himself was a director of both by 1764. Although he is recorded moving from Tholen to Oosterhout (northeast of Breda) in 1779, this may have been a second residence, for he had already set up in Hoeven (west of Breda) where he served as "schout" (head of the municipality) from 1771 to 1794, his wife died there in 1786 and he died there in 1798, so he probably produced the present manuscript there. His amateur drawings and sketchbooks, most of them in Museum Gouda, have been exhibited. - The manuscript collates: [A]14 (- A9) [B]10 (B1 + [chi]2; - B7, 9, 10) [C]2 [D]4 [E]2 [F]4 [G]6 (± G1, 2, 3, 6) [H]4 [I]2 [K]-[N]4 2[chi]1 [O]-[P]4 [Q]2 = 73 ff., with E2 and H4 blank except for the leaf numbers (ff. 30 & 34). The main paper stock (including the endpapers at the front and probably also at the back) is watermarked: crowned GR in laurel branches, in a circle = Dutch garden (with "Pro Patria" above toward the centre of the sheet) above "H K P" (the main mark can appear in the left or right half sheet). We have not found or identified the initials HKP. After the last numbered leaf (2[chi]) a new part of the text begins with a different paper stock to the end of the manuscript (quires O-Q), similar but with no initials below the Dutch garden, in the general style of Heawood 3700 (1747) and Voorn, Noord-Holland 140 (1790). The cancel leaf G6± may come from the same stock, while the cancel leaves G1±, G2± and G3± show a different stock or stocks: G3± with a lion with 7 arrows, lance and freedom hat (pedestal with "VRYHEYT") in a crowned ring (double lines inside and out) containing (in mirror image) "Pro patria eiusque libertate"), in the general style of Heawood 3148 (1745) and Voorn, Noord-Holland 104-111 (1713-49); and G1± and G2± with the countermark "J[an] H[onig] & zoon", that form shown with a different main mark in Voorn, Noord-Holland 133 (1741). The firm name in the present form, with the present "zoon" (son), is recorded from 1735 to at least 1764 (probably at least 1768), changing to "zonen" (sons) probably by 1774 and certainly by 1793. So the paper used for these three cancel leaves may be several years older than the manuscript itself. - The manuscript is internally in good condition, with most deckles preserved. Binding worn but professionally restored. A good example of the fascination of leading figures in the VOC and WIC with the Arabian Peninsula and vicinity and with Islamic culture. For Niebuhr and his accounts of Arabia: Hamilton, Europe and the Arab world 48; Howgego, to 1800, N24; for Gerlagh: Katalogus ... tekenwerk-schilderwerk van Johann Louis Gerlagh (1987); A. Romeijn, De stadsregering van Tholen (1577-1795) (2001), pp. 229f.
4to. (73), (1 blank) ff. With woodcut allegorical and architectural title-page with putti and mythological women holding drapes hanging from an arch and the Royal Portuguese coat of arms at the foot, 40 woodcut (geometrical and optical) figures in text, Rodericus's large full-page emblematic woodcut printer's device (a dragon with the motto "Salus vitae" on a banderole) and many woodcut initials. Bound in a period-style Italian calf binding, gold-tooled spine, blind-tooled frames on front and back boards and gold-tooled centerpieces on the front and back board with "Petri Nonii" on the front board and "MDXLII" on the back board. First edition of two of the most important and rarest scientific works on twilight and optics. The first is written by the greatest Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunez (1492-1577), who served as cosmographer royal to the court of João III. His "De crepusculis" discusses new solutions for problems concerning twilight (such as the shortest twilight period) and the refraction of light, and announces his new instrument for measuring exceedingly small angles, now called a “nonius”. - The second work, also entitled "De crepusculis", was written (according to the title-page) by the greatest Islamic physicist Ibn Al-Haytham (965-1039), from living in the Arabian Peninsula, whose seminal work on optics broke with ancient Greek theories. In fact, the work is now attributed to the great Andalusian father of spherical trigonometry, the 11th-century mathematician and astronomer Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Mu’adh, who was described by Averroës as "advanced and high-ranking" (Sabra, p. 85), but about whom very little is known. His work discusses the density of the atmosphere and establishes a relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude. It also notes that twilight only ceases or begins when the sun reaches 19 degrees below the horizon. It was translated from Arabic into Latin by Gerard de Cremona (1114-87), who brought Arabic science to the West. This work is one of the artifacts through which Islamic civilisation made significant and crucial contributions to scientific knowledge in the pre-modern age during their golden age of Arabic science, although the Latin translations in this field only provide "a dim reflection of the true splendour of achievements" (Gerli, p. 804). - With an owner's inscription at the head of the title-page and a handwritten impressum on the title-page in the same hand, three faint library stamps (two of a library in Douai) and with marks of an erased bookplate on the front pastedown. Binding very slightly worn around the spine, some small stains on the endpapers, but otherwise a beautiful copy in very good condition. Adams N 375. DSB X, 160f. Honeyman 2353. Houzeau/Lancaster 1188 & 2473. King Manuel 48. Palau 196.748. Poggendorff II, 305. Sabra, "The authorship of the Liber de crepusculis", in: Isis 58.1 (1967), pp. 77-85. Stilwell 781 & 863. Cf. Carmody, Arabic Astronomical and Astrological Sciences in Latin Translation; Gerli, Medieval Iberia (2003), p. 804. Not in Vagnetti.
8vo. 8 vols. (6 volumes & 2 supplements): v. 1. Tribes north of the Kabul River. 1907. (4), IV, XIX, (1), 591, (1) pp. With 8 plans and 2 separate maps in both cover pockets. - v. 1, suppl. A. Operations against the Mohmands (including operations in the Khaiber, 1st-7th May) 1908. 1910. (4), II, (2), 60, LVIII pp. With 2 maps in lower cover pocket. - v. 2. North-west frontier tribes between the Kabul and Gumal Rivers. 1908. (4), III, (1), 461, (1) pp. With 6 folding plans and 1 separate map in lower cover pocket. - v. 2, suppl. A. Operations against the Zakka Khel Afridis 1908. 1908. (8), 49, (1) pp. With 3 maps in lower cover pocket. - v. 3. Baluchistan and the First Afghan War. (6), VII, (3), 466 pp. With 2 folding tables, 2 plans (1 folding), and 4 separate folding maps in lower cover pocket. - v. 4. North and north-eastern frontier tribes. 1907. (4), IV, 249, (1) pp. With 7 maps and plans and 1 separate folding map in lower cover pocket. - v. 5. Burma. 1907. X, (6), 468 pp. With a folding map in lower cover pocket. - v. 6. Expeditions overseas. 1911. (4), X, (2), 515, (1) pp. With 14 maps (many folding) and 5 separate folding maps in lower cover pocket. Uniformly bound in contemporary quarter calf over green cloth covers with giltstamped spine labels. An excessively rare counterpart to Lorimer's simultaneously published Gazetteer of the Gulf: like it, classified at the time of its issuing as a confidential British government document and still well-nigh unobtainable in the original printing, this third and last issue of Paget's and Mason's "Frontier and Overseas Expeditions" remains the most important single source on Raj-based military frontier operations carried out up to the First World War. The work was first compiled in 1873 by Colonel W. H. Paget as "A Record of Expeditions against the North-West Frontier Tribes", with the intention of providing a "valuable guide" to such British commanders and policymakers as "might have future dealings with these turbulent neighbours". It was revised in 1884 by A. H. Mason of the Royal Engineers. Three decades later, the frontiers of British influence had vastly expanded: they now reached to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and a newly compiled record of expeditions was urgently required. Under the editorship of Lieutenant C. F. Aspinall and Major R. G. Burton, the work known as "Paget & Mason" was thoroughly overhauled and expanded to six volumes, replete with maps and each dealing with a distinct geographical division, with two supplements. Only a few hundred copies would have been printed for circulation to British government departments, regimental libraries, and agencies. The present set, issued to the 7th Division Military Society in 1908 (later the Bareilly Brigade Military Library), bears the giltstamped copy numbers 217, 220, 221, 222, 258, 262, and 1134 (supplement). - The sixth volume deals in depth with "The Arabian Peninsula and the Islands of Perim and Socotra". It includes a sketch of the geographical situation before discussing in more detail the First Expedition to Ras-al-Khaimah in 1809 ("political causes - composition of the force - arrival at Masqat - arrival at Ras-al-Khaimah - description of Ras-al-Khaimah - landing of main body - capture of Ras-al-Khaimah - bravery of enemy - burning of pirate vessels - losses - Lingeh - repulse of the troops - re-embarkation - daring action by Lt. Hall, IN - attack on Shanas - desperate resistance"). It is noteworthy that the British officers here felt compelled to record the military gallantry of the al-Qasimi in their resistance to the British forces. Similarly, the Second Expedition to Ras-al-Khaimah in 1819 is treated, as is the Bani-Bu-Ali Expedition of 1810 (mentioning the results of "bad diplomacy" and "bad tactics", and citing the bravery of an Imam who displayed "great personal courage" while endeavouring to save an artilleryman). Further sections are given over to the islands of Perim (occupied in 1799 and again in 1856) and Sokotra, of which British infantry took possession in 1834 after "the Sultan would not come to terms". Additional chapters treat the Persian side of the Gulf and military expeditions to the same. - Corners somewhat bumped, but altogether a tightly bound, handsome and well-preserved set. 1910 and 1911 stamps of the Bareilly Brigade Military Library to most volumes (but stamp of W. B. Salmon to the supplement to vol. 2). Warning "For Official Use Only" stamped in gilt to spine labels throughout, with most title-pages being correspondingly imprinted (in red ink up to vol. 2). As the publisher's original inserted slip advises, the General Map of Afghanistan called for in the list of maps to volume 3 was not, in fact, completed and therefore was never issued with the set. Of the utmost rarity: not reproduced within the Cambridge Archive Editions series, although incomplete reprints appeared in Quetta in 1979 and in Delhi in 1983. - Provenance: 1) 7th Division Military Society, 1908; 2) Bareilly Brigade Military Library, 1910/11; 3) U.S. private collection. OCLC 821799.
Oblong 1º (475 × 630 mm). 6 lithographed plates of horses, plus 1 additional lithographed view of the stud, all coloured by Pirscher himself with highlights in gum arabic. The first plate of the series with Pirscher's autograph signature and dated "1828". Unique set of Pirscher's famous series picturing the Duke's horses, coloured by Pirscher himself and obviously prepared for the owner of stud. The first horse depicted is Mirza, a "Silver grey national Arabian with red spots on his left shoulder, presented to the King of England by the Shah of Persia in 1819. As the Persian envoy assured the King, this was the noblest and most excellent Arabian ever to have stood in his master's stables". The other illustrations show mainly descendants of Mirza, who was transferred to the Ducal stables in 1821. The series was later expanded by another instalment to a total of 16 plates, with three of the seven plates redrawn and showing different backgrounds. Thieme/Becker lists the series as complete with 6 plates as present, as does Steinacker (cf. below). Apart from the present copy, neither the first series (as thus) nor the second, expanded edition is known in a coloured version. The use of body colours in this set underlines the fact that Pirscher's lithographs, issued in black and white only, were never intended for colouring, and that this set was eleborately redone and modified (with numerous details - such as the trees and bushes in Mirza's portrait - added by hand) by the artist himself to form a unique dedication copy for his sponsor. Karl Dietrich Pirscher (1791-1857) is one of the pioneers of lithography in Braunschweig. His horse plates are considered his best work and were praised as "probably the most splendid specimens of their kind created in the entire 19th century" (Steinacker). Provenance: 1. The Duke of Braunschweig's collection. 2. I. H. Anderhub library, dispersed by auction in 1963 (in which it constituted the second most expensive item, with an estimate of DM 2600). Slightly browned; some minor fraying to the extremities of the leaves and a few specks, otherwise in very good condition. Bibliotheca Hippologica I. H. Anderhub 238 (this set). Steinacker, Die graphischen Künste in Braunschweig, 114. Thieme/Becker XXVII, 90. Not in Bibl. hippologica Johan Dejager; Huth; Mennessier de la Lance; Podeschi.