Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2013 Issue

A Varied List from Antiquariaat Forum and Asher Rare Books

Hapsburg royalty.

Hapsburg royalty.

Antiquariaat Forum and Asher Rare Books have published a 2013 June List. This was published in advance of the recent London Antiquarian Book Fair, so there is a good mix of material from various countries offered by the Dutch booksellers. As for the type of material, it is too varied to adequately describe. We can say that it is primarily nonfiction, often works of travel, science, politics and the like. Here are a few samples.

Item 54 is a history of Austria and the House of Hapsburg, about three centuries worth, though it still cuts off in the middle. The title is Annales rerum belli domique ab Austriacis Habspurgicae gentis principus... It provides a genealogy of the family, portraits (see image on front cover of this catalogue), and coats of arms. The work was written by Dutchman Gerardus de Roo, and edited by his friend Conrad Dietz, secretary to Archduke Ferdinand II. It was published in 1592. The years covered are 1273-1555. The starting date of 1273 marks the beginning of the Hapsburg dynasty when Rudolph I became King of Germany, but it continued long after 1555, ruling countries as late as the 20th century. Priced at €8,500 (euros, or approximately US $11,317).

Item 40 is an interesting and lengthy piece from the era of the Seven Years War. The title is L'Observateur hollandois... seven volumes containing 46 letters sent to a Dutchman by Jacob Nicolas Moreau. The letters were an attempt to stir up anti-British feeling during this war between England and France. It includes much information on the French and English colonies in North America where this battle was being waged under the name of the French and Indian War. Moreau would be disappointed by the outcome, but he would go on to obtain much support from the French court. He was an ardent royalist, whose later works would include an attack on the Encyclopaedists and others of the Enlightenment, as he supported the absolute power of the monarchy. It would also earn him various appointments at the court, including as tutor to future King Louis XVI and librarian to Marie-Antoinette. Perhaps he wasn't quite as evil as he sounds, as he believed everything should be done for the people, just nothing by them. His opinions would not be such as to set him well during the revolution. He was relieved of all duties in 1790 and the fortune he made in his years serving the King was confiscated. He was confined to his house, and yet, amazingly enough, he was never carted off to the guillotine. He survived even the Reign of Terror and lived to the beginning of the 19th century. €4,950 (US $6,590).

Item 61 is a treatise on fossilized invertebrates, trilobites in particular: Naturhistorische abhandlungen und erläuterungen besonders die petrefactenkunde. The author is given as Adolph von Tilesius, who evidently is Wilhelm Gottlieb Tilesius von Tilenau. Tilesius was a naturalist, physician and explorer who participated in von Krusenstern's first Russian circumnavigation and later assembled the first wooly mammoth from its skeleton. This book focuses particularly on trilobites, those exoskeletal creatures that once swam or slithered along the bottom of the world's oceans in great numbers. They were perhaps the most dominant of life forms in the Cambrian period, beginning a little over 500 million years ago, when suddenly all sorts of life forms suddenly appeared after billions of years of single cell or primitive multi-cell animals. Thousands of species of these creatures developed, and for another 250 million years they continued to inhabit the oceans, finally disappearing in a massive extinction event, greater than that which later eliminated the dinosaurs, 250 million years ago. €12,500 (US $16,643).

Next up we hear A Voice from the Bush in Australia. That voice belonged to Thomas Pope Besnard, an Irishman who moved to the land down under and thought others should join him. This 1839 book consists of letters Besnard wrote from New South Wales, describing the opportunities available in this country. He made a living as an overseer of a chain gang (his charges probably didn't have such a positive view of Australia). Presumably, there were better opportunities for his fellow Irishmen Besnard hoped to convince to come. Item 7. €4,000 (US $5,325).

Rare Book Monthly

  • Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: (Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie). Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece, 2 vols, 1st edition, 1782-1822. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Gentlemen's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, by Sylvanus Urban, 11 volumes. £700-1,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Shackleton (Ernest). The Heart of the Antarctic, 2 vols, 1st ed, presentation copy, 1909. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Drayton (Michael). Poly Olbion..., London: 1622. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Scheuchzer (Johann Jacob). Ouresiphoites Helveticus, 4 parts in 1, 2nd ed, 1723. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Roberts (Henry, after). Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ..., [1784]. £500-800
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Maffei (Giovanni), Indiarum orientalium Occidentaliumque Descriptio..., 1589. £1,200-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Ortelius (Abraham), Typus Orbis Terrarum, [1598]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Bible [English]. [The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New..., 1613]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Pierpont Morgan Collection. Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, 1904 & 1906. £2,000-3,000
  • Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR

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