Vanderbilt, William Kissam.MareMagnum
3989 risultati
Large hand-coloured four-sheet plan. Pen and ink, graphite and watercolour on paper laid on canvas. Framed and glazed. Dimensions: app. 90 x 170 cm (sheet); 105 x 205 cm (frame). Large manuscript plan in beautiful colour; a unique witness to Vanderbilt's passion and ambitions. A member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family, William Kissam (1849-1920) managed railroads and was also a horse breeder. He was one of the founders of The Jockey Club and the owner of a successful racing stable. In 1896, Vanderbilt built the American Horse Exchange at 50th Street (Manhattan). In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS William K. Vanderbilt was named in his honour. - This impressive plan represents the horse-racing stable and track at the chateau, which Vanderbilt built in 1906, with the help of Henri Guillaume and Pierre Sardou, architects. He purchased in 1903 the land in an area of Poissy called Les Gresillons, 20 miles outside Paris. At the time, he ran a breeding operation in Deauville, making the location, also called "Carrieres-sous-Poissy", particularly convenient since it is on the way from Paris to Deauville. The hippodrome comprised three oval tracks, the outer of which measured 2400 metres, as well as a straight track. A long wall separated the racing areas from the Chateau St-Louis where the Vanderbilts lived, called the Chemin Plat, now known as Avenue Vanderbilt. With the beginning of World War I, the racing stables were shut down and eventually sold. The Chateau St. Louis is now the corporate headquarters for a local quarry, which spreads over the land previously occupied by the hippodrome. As of today, only the residential building known as "Chateau Grésillons" still stands and is currently being restored. - Provenance: Ralph Esmerian (New York jeweler).
Folio (binding 250 x 335 mm, inner book 236 x 327 mm). 200 leaves, complete. Title printed in red and black within woodcut arabesque border, printer's device on final leaf. With parallel text in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Arabic and Chaldaean (in their respective types), 4 columns to a page, 41 lines. 13 woodcut floriated initials (5 Latin, 4 Hebrew, 2 Greek and 2 Arabic). Rebound in near contemporary brown calf, carefully restored, edges and corners repaired, spine fully rebacked in seven compartments with modern gilt title and date. First edition. - The first polyglot edition of any part of the Bible, and also the first polyglot work ever published. It is of the utmost importance in several further respects, constituting the second book printed in Arabic from movable type (following Gregorio de Gregorii's "Kitab salat as-sawa'i", a Horologion for the Lebanese Melchites, printed in 1514), as well as the earliest Arabic printing of any portion of the Bible. It also contains the first edition of the Aramaic text of the Psalter and offers for the first time Kabbalistic texts from the Zohar. Furthermore, Giustiniani’s commentary provides the first substantial biographical reference to Columbus, and is thus noted as an Americanum. - The learned Dominican Agostino Giustiniani (1470-1536) was Bishop of Nebbio in Corsica from 1514 and later became the first Professor of Arabic and Hebrew at Paris. On his death he bequeathed his extensive library to the state of Genoa. He edited, supervised and financed the present edition and also wrote the commentary. - His book is the first multilingual edition of any part of the Bible. Aldus Manutius had planned a Psalter in three languages as early as the late 15th century, but his project was not realised. Printed in eight parallel columns on double pages, Giustiniani’s work comprises the text in Hebrew, a literal Latin translation thereof, the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint, Arabic, Aramaic (Chaldee), a literal Latin translation from the Aramaic, and scholia in the same languages. While Giustiniani aimed to edit the entire Bibel in this form, no further sections were published. He described his difficulties in selling the edition in his History of Genoa (1537), recording an edition size of 2,000 paper copies and 50 copies on vellum. - Giustiniani’s extensive commentary includes a long note to Ps. 19:4 ("et in fines orbis omnia verba eorum"; C7r-D1r), about the Genoese Christopher Columbus, who had died in 1506, containing previously unpublished information on his second voyage: "In this interesting sketch of the life and voyages of his fellow-townsman, Bishop Giustiniani gives an interesting account of the discovery of the new world, and states some facts not mentioned elsewhere" (Sabin). - This edition is also the only book printed at Genoa in the 16th century. The Milanese printer Pietro Paulo Porro maintained a press at Turin with his brother Galeazzo. Giustiniani summoned Porro to Genoa especially for the production of this edition, and had set up a press in the house of his brother Nicolo Giustiniani Paulo. The types were designed and cut for this edition under Porro’s direction. - Mild browning throughout, with some occasional waterstaining (more pronounced near beginning). Adams B 1370. Darlow/Moule 1411, 1634 & 2401. Smitskamp, PO, 236. Alden-Landis 516/4. Harrisse, BAV no. 88 (pp. 154-158). Sabin 66468. Sander 5957. G. Roper, Early Arabic Printing in Europe, in: Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution. A Cross-Cultural Encounter (Westhofen 2002), pp. 129-150, at p. 132, with colour ill. IV. StCB 25. Vinograd Genoa 1.
Engraved map in outline colour, 119 x 53.4 cm. Backed with cloth. One of the earliest monuments of Islamic cartography, of outstanding rarity: published at roughly the same time as the famous "Cedid Atlas", also by the Imperial Engineering School in Scutari (Istanbul), this large-scale engraved wall map shows the "Northern Territories of the Ottoman Empire". This hitherto practically unknown map is clearly to be viewed in connection with the atlas which has long been considered the first and most important achievement of modern Muslim cartography. Like the Cedid Atlas, this outstanding publishing venture was commissioned under the authority of Sultan Sultan Selim III. A pioneering attempt at mapping a substantial part of the far-flung Empire, the map reaches from southern Italy and the Balkans to the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. The most detailed map of the Empire's Northern Territories available at the time and one of the first wall maps printed in Constantinople. - Occasional unobtrusive professional repairs, well preserved altogether. Esat Efendi no. 2049. Özdemir, Ottoman Cartography, p. 190f. (illustrated).
4to (165 x 213 mm). (20), 373 (but: 371), (5) pp. With 16 woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary full vellum with handwritten spine title. The rare first edition of this extremely important and early collection of alchemical writings, which unites several first printings of works previously circulated only as manuscripts. This is first edition to call Geber an "Arab", the first to use "Summa perfectionis magisterii" on the title-page, and also the first printing of the famous "Smaragdine Table" of Hermes Trismegistus. - "De Alchemia and the other works of the Geber corpus were of the greatest influence on Western chemistry, and whether they be translations or elaborations, they represent the amount of Arabic chemical knowledge made available to Latin reading people toward the end of the thirteenth century [...] they represent the best Latin knowledge on chemistry in that period" (Sarton). - The present collection, arranged by Chrysogonus Polydorus, contains four treatises by Geber: 1. Summa perfectionis; 2. Liber de investigatione perfectionis (the earliest description of the preparation of nitric acid and aqua regia); 3. Liber de inventione veritatis sive perfectionis; 4. Liber fornacum (a practical text on chemical operations). It also contains the following texts, of which at least four are printed for the first time: 5. Roger Bacon's Speculum Alchemiae (the original text from which the 1597 English "Mirror of Alchemy" edition was made); 6. Richard of Wendover's Correctorium Alchemiae; 7. Rosarius minor, de Alchemia, by an unknown author; 8. Khalid ibn Yazid's Liber Secretorum Alchemiae; 9. Hermes Trismegistus' Tabula Smaragdina; 10. Hortolanus' commentary on the Tabula. Illustrated with 16 fine woodcuts of alchemical apparatus and alchemists at work. - A complete copy in good condition showing light browning to paper, with wide margins containing extremely extensive early marginal annotations throughout. Stains to outer margin of last several leaves. A tear to the gutter of leaf c2 professionally repaired; old vellum repair to upper cover. A good copy. While the second edition of 1545, also very rare, has made a few appearances on the market, this first edition is extremely scarce. VD 16, J 15. Ferguson I, 18 & 301. Sarton II, 1044. Lamoen, Hermes Trismegistus (Amsterdam 1990), no. 70. Brüning I, 220. Darmstaedter, Geber 7. Duveen 11. Mellon Collection (Alchemy and the Occult, Yale 1968) I, 10 (note). Cf. Hoover 445 (1545 edition only). Not in Caillet or Rosenthal.
Oblong folio (550 x 635 mm). Issues I and II (of 3). With 12 (out of 18) tinted chalk lithographs by L. Ekeman-Allesson after R. Kuntz. Wants text and table of subscribers. Stored loosely in 2 original wrappers with title label and green original half calf portfolio with gilt-lettered title and borders. Traces of ties. First and only edition. Commissioned by the Board of the Württemberg Stud, the first Arabian stud in Europe, this almost unobtainable series of large format plates shows the Stud's full-blooded Arabian horses with decorative oriental backgrounds. The plates constitute extremely early examples of chalk lithographs (listed individually by Winkler, Frühzeit der dt. Lithographie, 180, 57). Kuntz (1797-1848) was known for his "excellent depictions of horses" (cf. Thieme/B.); throughout his brief career he studied thoroughbreds in England, Hungary, and Paris as well as in Germany. In 1832 he became Painter to the Court of Karlsruhe, Baden; he suffered a stroke in 1846 and died in the newly-founded Illenau mental hospital. - Very slightly stained in places, three plates slightly browned. Of the utmost rarity. This copy removed from the collection of the House of Hanover, dispersed from 2005 (largely through Sotheby's). Includes a publisher's ad (by L. Harrison, Strand) for "A Series of Lithographic Drawings of Celebrated Horses" after James Ward, dedicated to George IV. Nissen 2327. Thieme/B. X, 444 & XXII, 116. Winkler, Die Frühzeit der dt. Lithographie 180.57.
Oblong folio (405 x 310 mm). 106 plates after photographs mounted on 50 card mounts with captions, numbered 1-100 and 16a, 59b, 60a, 72a (2 photos) and 95a, one map (numbered 63a), the images of varying sizes. Includes text booklet (2 ff., 16 pp.). Loose as issued in publisher's cloth-backed decorative portfolio boards, gilt lettered "Nord-Arabien und Sinai" on upper cover. A rare photographic record of the major sites and geographic features in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Palestine. The images - taken for the most part by Moritz but some by Turkish friends in areas where he was prohibited from going - depict pilgrims on the Hajj to Mecca, Bedouins, the building of the Hejaz railway between Damascus and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Jiddah, Petra, and Mt. Sinai. Moritz (1859-1939) was an Arabist and archaeologist who from 1896 to 1911 headed the Khedival Library and Archive in Cairo. It was from there that he made numerous research trips to the Sinai and Hejaz, taking the present photographs between 1905 and 1915. - Plates and text are well preserved, with only a few occasional minor chips to the edges of the mounts. Portfolio uncommonly well preserved and only a little rubbed at the extremeties. NDB XVIII, 149. OCLC 2889101.
Royal folio (375 x 488 mm). VII, (1), 204, VIII pp. With 64 plates (46 full-page, 17 half-page and 1 folding), mostly engraved after Ludwig Christian Fuhrmann, some after drawings by the author; 8 engraved text vignettes, 1 engraved tughra as headpiece; lithographed dedication. Modern half calf over contemporary marbled boards with printed title label on spine. First edition. - The very rare original edition of this important account of a journey through Turkey and Asia Minor. According to Brunet the finest publication ever to leave a Polish press, it was soon translated into German as "Malerische Reise in einigen Provinzen des Osmanischen Reichs" (last sold for £20,400 at Sotheby's 2004 Natural History and Travel Sale; no copy of the present original edition has appeared at German auctions during the last decades). - The Polish statesman Count Edward Raczynski (1786-1845), a patron of the arts and founder of the Raczynski Library in Poznan, travelled to Constantinople by way of Odessa during the months of July through November 1814. He was accompanied by the artist Ludwig Christian Fuhrmann (1783-1829), and most of the plates are engraved after his drawings. Raczynski also visited the Troad, the peninsula containing the ruins of Troy, of which a detailed description is given. This beautifully illustrated work is highly sought after for its many detailed engravings, including a folding map of Istanbul, illustrations of the ruins of Troy and Assos, the bay of Lesbos, a portrait of Sultan Muhammad IV, the mosque of the Sultan, etc. - In the present set, most of the plates are early or proofs prints, still lacking numbers and/or captions, which are frequently supplied in meticulous pencil calligraphy (in Polish and English). Leaves of pp. 1/2 and 3/4 transposed; the former bound showing page 2 before 1. Interior severely browned throughout as common. Tears to title and dedication repaired; a few edge flaws due to brittleness of paper. Only 5 copies of this original edition listed in library catalogues internationally (BL, BnF, LoC, Stabi Berlin, NL Sweden). Brunet IV, 20412. Weber 133 (note). Not in Atabey. Cf. Blackmer 1375 (1824 German edition).
Oblong folio (560 x 370 mm). 101 plates (72 lithophotographs "Procedé Poitevin", 2 lithographs, and 27 plans, of which 10 folding) and 4 leaves of letterpress text. Stored loosely in contemporary marbled boards with original printed cover label; cloth spine professionally renewed. Cloth ties. Rare, early photobook on the archaeological excavations in Turkey and the Levant during the 1850s, a work which assured the architect-explorer Pierre Tremaux (1818-95) an eminent place in the history of photography. Includes views of Aphrodisias, Corycus, Ephesus, Hierapolis, Jerusalem, Magnesia, Milet, Perga, Priene, Seleucia, Smyrna, Tarsus, etc. - The calotypes here reproduced are among the earliest photographs taken in Asia Minor and are thus of great documentary interest. They were lithographed using the process discovered in 1855 by Alphonse Poitevin (1811-82), later awarded the Grand Prix du Duc de Luynes; Trémaux's work was one of the first to use this method. - "Pierre Trémaux was an architect who trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He was also interested in travel, ethnology, architecture and geography. He is known for one epic series of voyages to Asia Minor, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The fruits of these travels were published in a series of books" (Jacobson). Having set out in 1847, Trémaux began taking photographs around 1853-54. While the results of his efforts were technically uneven, obliging him to substitute his salt prints with lithographs, the rare images that survive have ensured the photographer's lasting reputation. The entire subscription was announced for a series of 215 plates provisionally titled "Atlas de vues pittoresques, scenes des moeurs, types de vegetation remarquable", but the publication was interrupted in 1864, never to be completed. - Some edge flaws and duststaining to margins. Scattered foxing, more pronounced in some examples, others nearly flawless. Exceptionally rare: the work has appeared at auction only three times in 25 years; it was missing from the two great orientalist collections of Atabey and Blackmer. Provenance: from the collection of the French engineer and archaeologist Paul Gaudin (1858-1921), a major patron of the Asia Minor collections in the Louvre, the Istanbul Museum, British Museum, and other institutions. Ken Jacobson, Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 (Quaritch, 2007), p. 273. Goldschmidt & Naef, The Truthful Lens: A Survey of the Photographically Illustrated Book 1844-1914 (New York, 1980), p. 225. Andre Jammes & Eugenia Parry Janis, The Art of French Calotype (Princeton, 1983), p. 251.
Watercolour on paper, some on 2 sheets, mounted (sizes approximately from 155 x 230 to 300 x 480 mm), some with inscription or sketches on verso, most with captions either mounted, laid down or written directly on image. James Weir (d. 1820) was Captain of Marines on HMS Audacious from 1795 to 1800, and was also an accomplished watercolourist. Some of the earliest watercolours in this group were produced when the Audacious was on patrol off the Portuguese coast in 1796. Others were painted in the months leading up to the Battle of the Nile, when the Audacious was part of Nelson's squadron searching for the French fleet off the Italian coast after it had escaped from Toulon. Others were painted in the months leading up to the Battle of the Nile, when the Audacious was part of Nelson's squadron searching for the French fleet off the Italian coast after it had escaped from Toulon. He also depicted Nelson's flagship, HMS Vanguard, anchored at Naples Bay for repairs in October 1798, when he first met Emma Hamilton. Also shown are views of Syracuse and surrounding area, the Valley of Temples at Agrigento, Catania and Mount Etna, the Temple of Venus at Baia, the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Olympus, the interior of the Temple of Concord, Mount Nuovo and Pozzuoli near Naples, the Temple of Ceres at Segesta, Convent of St. Nicolo Argentum, the Iron Mine of Elba. The fleet at Palermo is also depicted, where Nelson had accompanied the royal court of the Two Sicilies after they fled Naples. - Very minor scattered tears or repairs, a few restored or trimmed, light staining or spotting.
8vo (222 x 150 mm). 16 ff., mostly with 24 text lines to each page (text area 155 x 70 mm). Written in excellent Naskh script with black ink on waxed paper. Headings and highlighted words in red. Two (folded) plates on velin paper (watermark: A. Stace 1802). With carefully executed pen-and-ink drawings with notes in red (167 x 194 mm each). Contemporary red half leather. Covered with Ebru paper, with leather edges and marbled endpapers. The original Ottoman Turkish manuscript of one of the most important texts in the history of electrical engineering and science: the complete treatise on electrical fluid, as drafted by the Turkish engineer Yahya Naci the same year. "In the early 19th century, the teaching of science at the Imperial Engineering School in Istanbul was mostly based on the material translated from textbooks compiled for the French 'grandes écoles'. Translations and compilations were generally made by the professors of the school. Yahya Naci Efendi (d. 1824), a lecturer in French language and sciences, compiled in 1812 a treatise introducing the properties of electricity through experiments. His aim was also to show that the lightning flash and the thunderbolt were electrical phenomenons. Yahya Naci's main source was the chapter on electricity of Mathurin-Jacques Brisson's (d. 1795) 'Traité Elémentaire de Physique', a popular book of physics in French colleges. This translation is important because Yahya Naci endeavoured to create Ottoman terms from Arabic regarding electricity and because it points to the initiatives in introducing experimentation in the teaching in the Imperial Engineering School" (Günergün, cf. below). The colophon states the name of the scribe as "Yahya Naqi" and the date "Zilqa'da 1227 H.", proving that the present volume contains the author's long-lost original manuscript. - In very fine condition; only a few insignificant spots. Feza Günergün, Deneylerle elektrigi tanitan bir Türkçe eser: Yahya Naci Efendi'nin Risale-i Seyyale-i Berkiyye'si. In: Osmanli Bilimi Arastirmalari IX/1-2 (2007-2008), pp. 19-50.
Engraved map with original outline colour and manuscript calligraphy in red ink. With a fine inset plan of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi in the upper right corner, as well as an ovoid title cartouche, both bordered by Neo-Classical Ottoman-inspired designs. On thick laid, watermarked paper. 60 x 140 cm. Exceedingly rare engraved wall map comissioned by the Sublime Porte, brilliantly labelled and hand-coloured in Istanbul by court calligraphers. A masterpiece of cartography and Islamic calligraphy, the map presents the theatre of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-74 in its earliest stages. Focussed on the southern Ukraine, it extends from the Mouths of the Danube, in the west, to the Caspian Sea, in the east, rendering the region as it was common before the Russian surveys of the 1770s. The Russo-Ottoman boundary, as it existed between 1739 and 1774, is clearly delineated, with the Ottoman lands outlined in green and Russian territories in yellow, whilst the Polish territories, in the northwest, are outlined in pink. Until the war, the Ottomans controlled Crimea and the southern Ukraine in their entirety, along with most of the Caucasus. - As the Ottoman Empire lacked publishing capabilities, the Porte often relied upon their ancient ally, France, to supply them with custom-printed material, conveyed to the Topkapi Palace via the French Embassy in Istanbul's Pera neighbourhood. The skeleton of the map, engraved in Paris, depicts topographic features and the locations of key cities and fortifications, but omits all text: all names of regions and major settlements were added in Turkey in luxurious red ink. The masterly penmanship would have been executed by a specialized imperial calligrapher: the rich, expensive red ink was reserved for sacred and high-level legal documents under the Sultan's patronage and was only very seldom applied to cartography, indicating that the present map would have been held in particular esteem by the Imperial Court. - A single other example of the map with the Topkapi calligrapher's manuscript work, executed in a similar fashion, survives in the Biblioteca Nacional de España (MR/42/415), very likely once a high-level diplomatic gift to Madrid from Sultan Mustafa III, anxious to improve his diplomatic and trading links with the Bourbons. In addition, a single blank example of the engraved map template is held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (CPL GE DD-2987, 3089 B), formerly in the collection of the famous cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, who is known to have had privileged access to maps created for the French diplomatic corps. - Resplendent original calligraphy, several old tears professionally repaired without loss. An extremely rare survival in fine condition. Biblioteca Nacional de España, MR/42/415. Elena Santiago Páez, La Historia en los mapas manuscritos de la Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional, 1984), no. 336 (p. 266). Not in Özdemir, Ottoman Cartography (2008).
Oblong folio (488 x 292 mm). 1 leaf (calligraphic ink title), 21 salt paper print photos including two panoramas. Near-contemporary Qajar lacquered papier-mâché binding, likely Persian, with court motifs on both panels, front flyleaf with sticker of "E. Picart, Papétier, 14 Rue du Bac, Paris". Pink and silver decorative floral endpapers. Early, uncommonly extensive album of photographs of Constantinople (including some of Athens and Crimea), most signed by the photographer, James Robertson, created during his stay in Istanbul between 1853 and 1857. Of the 21 photographs present, no fewer than 14 show Constantinople and Scutari: they include a magnificent panorama of the city and across the Golden Horn, seen from Camp Daoud Pasha, sweeping views of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the Hagia Sophia and other mosques, the ancient hippodrome with its obelisks, views of the Seraglio, Nusretiye Mosque and Tophane Square, the Fountain of Ahmed III, Süleymaniye Mosque, street scenes, etc. Comparable albums with Constantinople photographs by Robertson are located at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (including the magnificent four-volume album of the Comte de Paris), the Getty Research Institute, Harvard (12 photographs, of which only a few show Constantinople), and other institutions with loose prints such as Princeton (four photographs, one of Constantinople) and the State Library of Victoria (31 photos, of which only four are of Constantinople). In all this is one of the strongest albums known with Constantinople content. The five photographs of Athens include a view of the Acropolis, the Tower of the Winds, the Erechtheion, the Parthenon, and the Temple of Hephaestus (Theseion); the latter two photographs are also in the large Robertson album at the Getty. Two final images show Sevastopol in Crimea (the docks and a large, cloth-backed panorama). Each image is accompanied on the opposite leaf by a handwritten French caption of the place recorded. - Far too little is known about the pioneering Scottish photographer James Robertson (1813-88), who moved at an early date to Constantinople to take the position of Chief Engraver for the Royal Mint, as part of the modernization of the country. He was related by marriage to the younger Felice Beato, a pioneer of 19th century photography, with whom he later opened a studio and recorded the Crimean war, the earliest conflict to be thus recorded. It is possible that the Beato brothers - Felice and Antonio - learnt their craft from Robertson; this album, however, pre-dates that partnership, as the photographs are signed by Robertson only. From 1853 onwards, a collection of Robertson's photographs was published with the title "Photographic Views of Constantinople" (by Joseph Cundall at the Photographic Union). - Upper cover shows severe chipping to polychrome lacquer; lower cover in better condition though also with defects. In excellent condition internally, photographs in general in good to very good prints, a few a little faded. N. Perez, Focus East: Early Photography in the near East (1839-1885), New York, 1988, pp. 210f. R. Taylor, Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860, p. 363. J. Hannavy, Encyclopedia of 19th Century Photography, pp. 1200f.
Folio (213 x 310 mm). (1), 108 pp. Contemporary carta rustica binding. The "al-Taysir" ("Theysir") of Ibn Zuhr, and the "al-Kulliyyat" ("Colliget") of Ibn Rushd, here edited by Hieronymus Surianus. This is the fourth edition in all, the first having appeared in Venice in 1490. Printed by the press of Gregorius de Gregoriis, which in the same year had produced the first book entirely printed in Arabic, the famous Fano Book of Hours. - The "Taysir" and the "Kulliyyat" were composed as complements to a comprehensive medical work on the anatomy of organs, health, disease, clinical symptoms, drugs and food, hygiene and therapeutics. Ibn Rushd, not himself a practicing physician, wrote on the generalities of medicine and invited Ibn Zuhr, one of the pre-eminent clinicians and medical therapists of Moorish Spain, to write on the particulars. The resulting book was Ibn Zuhr's most important work, and it was highly influential in the West until the Renaissance. - "Although a true follower of Hippocrates and Galen, [Ibn Zuhr] developed numerous original ideas through his medical experimentation and observation. [He] wrote on the therapeutic value of good diets and on antidotes against poisons, and cautioned against deliberate uses of purgatives in treating the sick, who needed curing medications, not 'poisons' [...] He also recommended tracheotomy" (DSB XIV, 637f.). - Provenance: Hand-drawn armorial shield, "Maureni" (?), Verona, 1656. A clean, appealing copy with insignificant worm damage to binding, affecting the margin of the first two and the last two leaves (professionally repaired; no loss to text). No copy in trade records. BM-STC Italian 2. Durling 368 (imperfect). Waller 563. OCLC 978244354. Not in Adams or Wellcome.
Folio. (24), 1162, (2) pp. With woodcut printer’s device on the final leaf by Urs Graf, 14 double-page maps as well as 37 double-page views and approximately 900 woodcuts in the text. Modern vellum. A very early edition of Münster’s monumental work. The Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster (1488-1552), a German cartographer and cosmographer, was one of the most successful and popular books of the 16th century. It passed through 24 editions in 100 years, and was most important in reviving geography in 16th-century Europe, being the most valued of all cosmographies. - In very good condition, with some very slight overall discoloration; map of the Americas shows unobtrusive rust mark. VD 16, M 6717. Burmeister 89. Hantzsch 77.32. BM-STC German 633. Adams M 1910. Sabin 51381. Borba de Moraes II, 90. BNHCat M 834. Brunet III, 1945. Graesse IV, 622.
Engraved map of the Arabian peninsula, printed (as usual) on two joined folio leaves (together 563 x 396 mm). Framed (79:63 cm). Highly important early map of the Arabian Peninsula and adjoining regions, from the extraordinary 1478 Rome edition of Ptolemy's "Geography", created under the direction of Conrad Swenheym (who apprenticed with Gutenberg). The second map of the Peninsula ever published, in its first state, this is the earliest obtainable printed map of Arabia, preceded only by the less detailed and crudely engraved specimen in the Bologna edition of Ptolemy, which is generally regarded as unobtainable. - The present map is an excellent example of Swenheym's finely engraved map of Arabia, based upon Ptolemy. Among the towns shown are Medina (Lathrippa) and the archaeological sites of Zubarah (Catara) and Al-Dur (Domana). The association of Macoraba with Mecca is disputed. Shirley notes that "[t]he new copper plates engraved at Rome for the 1478 edition of Ptolemy's 'Geography' are much superior in clarity and craftsmanship to those of the Bologna edition. There is evidence that work on the Rome edition had been started in 1473 or 1474, and several of the plates may well have been engraved before those printed [by Taddeo Crivelli] at Bologna in 1477. The printing was carried out by two skilled printers of German origin: Conrad Sweynheym and his successor Arnold Buckinck; the publisher was Domitius Calderinus. Many consider the Rome plates to be the finest Ptolemaic plates produced until Gerard Mercator engraved his classical world atlas of 1578" (p. 3). - Until the 1477 edition was definitively dated, the 1478 edition was believed to be the first printed atlas. Buckinck completed the work started by Sweynheym, whose method of using a printing press for the copperplate maps, together with the fine engraving, produced excellent results. Christopher Colombus owned a copy of this edition, which he annotated. The plates for the 1478 Rome Ptolemy were later purchased by Petrus de Turre in 1490, who published the second, unchanged edition of the map; it was again reprinted in 1507. The editions are identical, although there are different watermarks in the paper (though there is some debate as to whether the watermarks are in fact completely reliable in determining the editions). - Some faint stains along the edges of the paper and in the gutter. In very good condition. Al Ankary 3. Nordenskiöld 201.21. Tibbetts 4. Campbell, Letter Punches: a Little-Known Feature of Early Engraved Maps. Print Quarterly, Volume IV, No. 2, June 1987, pp. 151-154. For the atlas: Shirley, Mapping of the world 4.
8vo (155 x 204 mm). Ottoman manuscript on laid paper. 134 pp. on 68 ff., written space ca. 90 x 140-145 mm. 15 lines, per extensum, written in a heavily Persian-influenced naskh style in black ink, gilt ("taddib") section titles, rubricated and sometimes written in gilt for emphasis, no catchwords, but extensively vocalized Turkish text with Arabic diacritics. Gilt gadval borders around introductory double page, remainder of text within double red rules. Frequent marginalia and occasional glosses, with some prayers and charms. Early full leather binding with fore-edge flap, spine and flap hinges reinforced with later leather. Complete Ottoman medical manuscript, copied by the scribe Celalu'd-din Mehmud al-'Ala'i in 1408 CE, still during the lifetime of the book's author, the Anatolian religious scholar and physician Haci Pasha (known in the Arabic tradition as Haggi Basha Galalu'd-Din al-Hidr bin 'Ali bin al-Hattab al-Aydini). - The introduction (1v-2r) sets out the work's content and structure, presented, with Arabic technical terms adopted into Turkish, as a compendium ("muhtasar") and facilitation ("teshil") of medical knowledge, offering a discussion of definitions, medical practices, the administration of solids and liquids, and a description of diseases with their symptoms and related therapies. The following sections treat dietary matters including regimens for exercise ("hereket"), meals ("gazalar"), hot baths ("hammamlar") and vomiting ("istifrag"), as well as self-medication (4v-15v), fevers ("buhran", 16r-17r), and the therapeutic and prophylactic properties of various foods (17v-26r). The third and by far the most extensive section (26r-67r) provides definitions and summary descriptions of the most common ailments with their aetiologies (proceeding from symptomological analysis, "alamet") and treatments. A single final page (67v) entitled "Kitabu'l-Ihtilac" ("Book of attraction or palpitations") contains apotropaic phrases to be pronounced over the patient and a short poem in 11 couplets, followed by the four-line colophon (68r). - Haci Pasha was a famous 14th century physician from Anatolia who moved to Cairo, then the thriving capital of Mamluk Egypt, to refine his medical knowledge during what is today regarded as the beginning of the most famous period of Ottoman medicine. The present treatise enjoyed significant success for many decades and directly influenced the work of one of the most renowned Ottoman physicians of the 15th century, Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu (1385-1468), who composed the first surgical atlas in Ottoman Turkish. - Margins somewhat fingerstained in places with a light waterstain throughout, but generally very well preserved.
10 text volumes bound in 11 (8vo) and 2 atlas vols. (oblong folio), altogether 13 vols. With a total of 300 engr. plates (13 folding, 2 in original hand colour, some with touches of colour) and 160 engr. portraits as well as 6 (1 folding) facsimiles, almost all on China paper. Green grained half morocco, spines gilt. First edition, almost never encountered complete as thus. Important source for the history and activities of the 1798 French expedition to Egypt, published in ten text volumes by Louis Reybaud and two atlas volumes. The portraits of the members of the expedition (usually forming part of the text volumes) have here been bound separately; also contains two additional portraits (not counted). "The 160 profile portraits by Dutertre [...] are of particular interest" (Blackmer). Many of the plates showing views, antiquities, maps etc. were engraved after drawings by Vivant Denon, whose work opened up the Middle East for western eyes as no other had done before (cf. Henze II, 50). - Plates numbered 1-309 (each of the 13 folding plates counting as a double), followed by "dernière planche" and 3 maps. Five of the facsimiles have been bound at the end of the second atlas volume, another in vol. 3. The text volumes contain the "Histoire ancienne" (vols. 1-2) and the "Histoire moderne de l'Égypte" (vols. 9-10) as well as the expedition report proper (vols. 3-8). All text volumes have four title pages (slightly departing from those in Blackmer's copy). Vol. 1 also contains a "Rapport" of the work for the Académie by G. Saint-Hilaire, dated Nov. 1836, which names Louis Reybaud as "principal rédacteur". - A magnificent set in period bindings, interior clean and spotless throughout. No complete copy recorded at auction within the last decades. Blackmer 1476. Gay 2209. Cf. Hage Chahine 4277 and Ibrahim-Hilmy I, 80 (both citing individual text volumes only).
Oblong folio (335 x 245 mm). 188 silver gelatin photographs, one hand-tinted, mostly 105 x 80 mm, mounted in photo corners with handwritten captions. Original green cloth binding with hand-drawn map of Africa, Europe, and Asia on the front pastedown labelled "England to Aden 4643 miles" and four small maps of Kuwait, Ceylon, Iraq, and India mounted on rear pastedown with hand-coloured borders in blue and orange. A previously unknown collection of unique photographs by an anonymous British serviceman, documenting an interwar deployment to Aden and featuring one of earliest known photographs of Sheikh Juma bin Maktoum bin Hasher Al Maktoum (b. 1891) and Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Hasher Al Maktoum (1878-1958) of Dubai. Early photographs of Dubai or its rulers are quite uncommon, making this an exceptionally important piece. Here, the brothers are shown touring a British Royal Navy cruiser. Sheikh Juma (on the left) was the founder of the Al Maktoum branch of the Dubai royal family; his brother, Sheikh Saeed (on the right), was the longest-tenured ruler of Dubai, and presided over many of the huge economic changes of the first half of the 20th century. Both were deeply important to the formation of Dubai as it is today, but relics of their lives are extremely scarce. - Another rare photograph captures the Sultan of Oman Said bin Taimur (1910-72) as a young man touring a British light cruiser no more than a few months after the start of his reign in 1932. At only twenty-one, Said inherited both the sultanate and the difficulties faced by his predecessor. Though his reign was not easy, he was famously successful in uniting the warring factions within the sultanate. - The photographer behind this collection was likely a serviceman based on the H.M.S. Emerald, an Emerald-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy which would go on to provide support service during the D-Day landings at Gold Beach in WWII, but spent much of her career in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. The serviceman has snapped a shot of a Fairey Flycatcher pontoon plane with the registration number N9670 - the Flycatcher known to have been assigned to the Emerald - photographed from the deck, and the Emerald appears repeatedly throughout the collection. Though the Emerald had a long tenure in the Gulf, photographs of the crash of the same ill-fated Fairey Flycatcher N9670 date the collection to circa December 1931, and the appearance of the young Sultan of Oman can only have been taken after the start of his reign on the 10th of February, 1932, covering a reasonable span of six months or more. Additionally, the Hawkins-class heavy cruiser H.M.S. Effingham appears in tow at the East Indies Station Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, which could only have occurred in early 1932, as later that same year she was sent back to Britain as part of the Reserve Fleet. - The photographs of ship life are full of action: men bathing over the side in the warm waters off Gibraltar, views of the Suez Canal, the use of a "smoke box" on the ship to generate a smokescreen, and torpedo drills, one capturing a launched torpedo in motion. However, no small part of the collection is dedicated to rare early views of Bahrein, Oman, and Iran. Bahrain is introduced by the Flycatcher plane crash; the British desired to impress their allies among the local dignitaries in Bahrain with a demonstration of military power, and sent Flight Lt. Peter Dabney Heinemann out in the Flycatcher to machine-gun targets which had been floated in the sea just off Bahrain. Heinemann reportedly lost control and spun out, and was killed when the plane crashed into the sea. Seven photographs show the British retrieving the wreckage, and the following photographs show a funeral procession in Manama, the bed of a military truck laid out in carpets acts as a hearse, and the burial in the Old Christian Cemetery. Two more photographs show a cityscape view of Manama and the clock tower of the Church of Christ in Bahrein. - Photographs of Old Muscat show the al-Jalali and al-Mirani forts, the former then still in use as a prison, and a view of the city "from hill top". Rounding out the tour of the Gulf, two photographs show the Abadan oil refinery in Iran. - The photographer spent some time in the Indian Ocean, and made port at Columbo, Trincomalee, Anuradhapura, Kandy, and Diyatalawa in Sri Lanka, as well as Karachi, Negapatam, Visakhapatnam, Kolkata (Calcutta), Sittwe (Akyab), and Port Blair. In Karachi, several photographs show the city's newly constructed airship mast and the cavernous airship shed, built as one of the main "terminals" of Britain's Imperial Airship Communications Scheme. The mast and shed were never used: a decade before the more famous Hindenburg disaster, the inaugural flight of the Scheme saw the R101 Airship leave London bound for Karachi, only to crash over France, killing all but six of the fifty-four crew and passengers and effectively ending the Scheme. Also of interest are several photographs of the large prison at Fort Blair, and include a photograph of an inmate strapped onto a "flogging board". - A touch of light wear; a few photographs are apparently missing as shown by their empty mounts; however, in excellent condition. Altogether a tour de force, featuring incredibly rare portraits of dignitaries and numerous photographs of cities of the Arabian Gulf.
4to (168 x 212 mm). 8 watercolour drawings, some heightened with white or gold, captioned in German in a late 16th-c. hand, on 8 leaves and a further 24 blank leaves (for the watermark cf. Briquet 917: Nuremberg 1554 or 1565-82). Contemporary limp vellum without ties. An album of eight splendid costume paintings, by a talented, unidentified artist who may have been a member of the entourage of a German ambassador to the Porte. The subjects in this collection are captioned: "Der Kriechen Patriarch" (the Greek Patriarch); "Der Türckisch Keiser" (the Turkish Sultan); "Der Türckisch Babst" (the Grand Mufti); "Türckische weiber wie sie pflegen auf der gaßen zu gehen" (Turkish women, as it is their wont to dress in the street); "Also sizen die Türckischen weiber" (Thus sit the Turkish women); "Ein Epirotische frau wie sie in Iren Heusern zu Galata pflegen zu gehen" (a woman of Epirus, as they walk about in their houses in Galata); "Ein Kriegische fraw" (a Greek woman); and "Ein Armenerin" (an Armenian woman). - Great attention to both accuracy and details is shown: indeed, the suite may be related to another set of similar drawings in the Gennadius Library (A896 B), dated to about 1573 (cf. Blackmer Cat.). There is also some resemblance in style and presentation to certain of the costume illustrations in Nicolas de Nicolay's Navigations (1568, and later editions). Although Nicolay travelled in the Levant in the 1550s and was long thought to have drawn his costume subjects from life, doubt has been cast on this view, and it is now generally considered that he drew his subjects from the work of other artists and illustrators. - A little light dust-soiling, binding with minor wear, soiling and wormholes. Provenance: from the collection of Ferdinand Sigismund Kress von Kressenstein (1641-1704), councilman of Nuremberg whose father signed the Peace of Westphalia treaty (his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown). Later in the library of Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein (1906-89), with his armorial bookplate on the flyleaf. Latterly in the collection of Henry Myron Blackmer II (1923-88), with his bookplate to the pastedown, sold at Sotheby's in 1989 (Blackmer sale, lot 80) and purchased by Herry W. Schaefer (1934-2016). Blackmer 1887 (with two illustrations: p. 42 and frontispiece facing p. 1). Cf. Haydn Williams, "Additional printed sources for Ligozzi's series of figures of the Ottoman Empire", in: Master Drawings, vol. 51, no. 2 [Summer 2013], pp. 195-220; Metin And, Istanbul in the 16th century: the city, the palace, daily life (Istanbul, 1994).
A pair of original watercolours with traces of pencil, measuring 333 x 485 mm each. Framed and matted, captioned on the mat in Indian ink. Exceptionally rare: a pair of near-contemporary watercolours reflecting the English popular imagination of a crucial event in UAE history, the disastrous first sack of Ras Al-Khaimah in late 1809. - The punitive expedition was carried out by a 16-ship fleet of the British navy headed by HMS Chiffone under the command of Captain Wainwright, allegedly in retaliation for repeated acts of piracy against British ships perpetrated by the Qawasim, but certainly a convenient means for the British to expand their power in the Gulf on behalf of the East India Company. The battle, a massacre that is still locally remembered in story and song, was the beginning of a new era: that of British control in the Gulf. - The fleet sailed from Bombay on 14 September 1809, reaching Muscat on 11 November and descending on Ras Al-Khaimah in the dawn of the 12th. All day long the British ships bombarded the town’s defences and homes. In the early morning of 13 November, 600 of the more than 1,300 British soldiers landed on the beach and, after bitter fighting, soon breached Ras Al-Khaimah’s defences. Having demolished the town, the Chiffonne and the rest of the fleet sailed along the coast, wrecking additional fortresses. - The atmospheric watercolours depict the landing operation, with the Chiffonne firing its cannons and the British soldiers reaching the beach, in one picture setting fire to a pirate ship. The set of drawings at hand, apparently the work of a talented enthusiast, may even pre-date the publication of the aquatints by Richard Temple in his famous “Sixteen Views of Places in the Persian Gulph Taken in the Years 1809-10”, published in 1813 from his own drawings made on location as a private in the 65th Regiment. - Provenance: once sold through the London rare book and autograph dealer Frank T. Sabin (1846-1915), with his labels on the back. Latterly in a private UK collection. Cf. Sultan Muhammad Al-Qasimi, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London, 1985). Charles E. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag (Exeter, 1997).
8 vols. 1mo and folio. With 7 (of 8) engraved frontispieces (lacking that of volume 4), 4 engraved dedications, 117 engraved maps on 61 leaves, 7 engraved plates and 502 engravings in text. Further with 127 (of 128) title-pages (including a general title-page, a title-page to 7 (of 8) volumes, lacking that of volume 4, and 118 for the separate works). Volume 1-3 & 5-8: contemporary mottled calf, gold-tooled spine and board edges; volume 4: modern calf. Large paper copy of the so-called "folio-edition" (although here mostly printed as 1mo) of Van der Aa's voluminous collection of important voyages to the East and West Indies and other countries, undertaken by all European countries, other than the Dutch. Including voyages by Acosta, Balbi, Cabot, Cavendish, Chester, Columbus, Cortes, Coutinho, Da Cunha, Drake, Evesko, Frobisher, Gallonye, Da Gama, Garay, Garcia, Gilbert, Jenkinson, Harcourt, Herberer, Magallanes, Mildenhal and Cartwright, Mouette, Petelin and Andrasko, Raleigh, Saris, De Soto, etc. - The work is falsely attributed on the title-page to Johan Lodewijk Gottfried, by Van der Aa, most likely because he made good money publishing Gottfried's "Chronicle" in 1702. In reality Gottfried had nothing to do with the present work. The work was edited and co-published by Pieter van der Aa, known for his ambitious projects. Where other publishers were primarily concerned about the profits, Van der Aa wanted to publish outstanding books. For the present series of travels he either reused and revised older Dutch translations or had the original accounts translated for the first time into Dutch. In 1706 he already started publishing the translated voyages both in small (8vo) and large instalments (folio or 1mo), and a year later he published a 28-volume set of the 8vo editions. The folio editions were afterwards issued and divided in four large collections of two volumes each. The present issue, is a reissue of these four collections with their own independent title-pages and frontispieces, and ads a new general title-page and list of subscribers. - While all sets seem to be described as "folio" the present set is printed mainly as 1mo, with some occasional quires in folio. And as the large editions of the two volume sets were available on normal paper (80 guilders) and on large paper (100 guilders; Hoftijzer, p. 43), it seems very likely the present set is one printed on large paper. All leaves are unwatermarked and the 1mo leaves are only slightly trimmed (measuring 396 x 238 mm with the tranchefiles often still visible) the folio leaves are trimmed more and don't have visible tranchefiles. The fourth volume is from a different set which is trimmed down much more, but also combines both 1mo and folio leaves. - Some occasional spots, a couple minor restorations and a few wormholes; a very good set, but with the fourth volume from a different and heavily trimmed set (though printed on the same large paper), in a modern binding and lacking the frontispiece and the title-page to the volume. The seven volumes with contemporary bindings slightly worn along the extremities and with some minor wear on the sides, but otherwise very good. Cordier (Sinica) 1942f. Muller, America 1889. Sabin 3 (note). Tiele, Bibl. 10. For Van der Aa: P.G. Hoftijzer, Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733), Leids drukker en boekverkoper (1999).
A set of nine volumes, 8vo and 4to. A rare survival: an ensemble of books, mainly medical, formerly in the library of Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire, whose famous collection was dispersed following his deposition in 1909. - Of the nine volumes in the present collection, more than half a devoted to medicine. They include a rare account of Turkish military and civil hospitals by the French physician Paul Aubry (1887), constituting an exceptional documentation of health care infrastructure in the Ottoman world. Further, there is a detailed account of the outbreak of the plague in the Levant by the Swedish polymath Jacques Graberg (1841), also describing the situation in Tangier in 1818 and 1819, which the author had witnessed himself. Finally, the collection comprises three rare volumes from the Ottoman Turkish translation of Adolf von Strümpell's medical textbook on internal diseases (1888-91), here focusing on diseases of the heart and the arteries, diseases of the brain, and diseases of the kidneys and bladder. - Additional volumes discuss the political and religious history of Japan, or the Greek Ten Thousand and their march to the Battle of Cunaxa and back in 401 BC. Other titles are more immediately connected with Turkey, giving a capsule history of the Ottoman Empire in French and Turkish verse, or and extremely rare political analysis of the Turkey's position in the critical months preceding the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78. - The volumes bear the requisite traces of the Sultan's library marks. All are presentation volumes inscribed to the Sultan by the author (some even inscribed in Turkish and Arabic), or are bound in special presentation bindings, or the in Sultan's personal library bindings with his tughra on the covers. - Sultan Abdul Hamid (Abdülhamid) II (1842-1918) was the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to exert effective contol over the fracturing state and also remembered as a poet, translator and one of the dynasty's greatest bibliophiles. While his passion for books is memorialized by the many precious donations he gave to libraries all over the world and which mostly have remained intact to this day (including the 400-volume "Abdul-Hamid II Collection of Books and Serials" gifted to the Library of Congress), his own library was dispersed in the years following his deposition: books were removed to other palaces and even sold to Western collectors; the greatest part of his collection is today preserved in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. - Detailed catalogue available upon request.
Arabic manuscript on paper with somewhat wavy laid lines only (335 x 239 mm; text area 263 x 176 mm), 544 ff., written in a tidy nasta'liq, 35 lines to the page, text frame of red and blue rules, important words and phrases in red or in larger naskhi; chapter headings repeated in margins in a bold calligraphic script, several marginal annotations in various contemporary and later hands. Early 20th century brown roan preserving covers of contemporary morocco binding blind-stamped with a single tool to form a central motif of three interlocking lozenges, smaller lozenges above and below, blind-stamped corner-pieces. Very rare Arabic translation of Al-Jurjani's important medical compendium, the first major medical text written in the Persian language. - Al-Jurjani (d. 1136) "went to live in Khwarizm in 504/1110 and became attached to the Khwarizmshahs Kutb al-Din Muhammad, to whom he dedicated his 'Dhakirah', and Atsiz b. Muhammad [...] His 'Dhakirah Khwarizmshahi', probably the first medical Encyclopaedia written in Persian and containing about 450,000 words, is one of the most important works of its kind; it also exists in an Arabic version, and was translated into Turkish and (in an abbreviated form) into Hebrew" (Encyclopaedia of Islam). - Modelled on the Qanun of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the "Dhakirah" is divided into ten books, covering: definition and utility of medicine, and the structure and powers of the human body; health and disease, in general, including causes and symptoms of disease, and accidents of the body; the preservation of health; diagnosis, crisis and prognosis; fevers and their treatment; local diseases and their treatment; tumours, ulcers and so forth; the care of the external parts of the body (hair, skin, nails, and so on); poisons and antidotes; and simple and compound drugs. - Binding stained and rubbed. Various seal impressions (some erased) on first and second leaves and at end of text. Paper shows some splashes, soiling and staining, first leaf re-attached and with loss of one or two words on verso (sense recoverable), margins of last few leaves strengthened, but generally in good, sound condition. Provenance: Abdul-Malik bin Mahmud al-Mausuli al-tabib ("the physician"), with his ownership inscription dated 5 Rajab 913 AH (10 Nov. 1507) at the Mu'ayiddi hospital in Mosul; the distinguished German ophthalmologist and Arabist Max Meyerhof (1874-1945), with his bookplate on the front pastedown. GAL I, 487 & S I, 889. Cf. Keshavarz, A descriptive and analytical catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, pp. 52-54 & p. 149. Fihrist records no copies of the Arabic translation.
Oblong folio. With 18 tinted chalk lithographs by L. Ekeman-Allesson after R. Kuntz. With lith. title, lith. dedication and 3 ff. of letterpress text. Stored in a modern half morocco leather case. First and only edition. Commissioned by the Board of the Württemberg Stud, the first Arabian stud in Europe, this almost unobtainable series of large format plates shows the Stud's full-blooded Arabian horses with decorative oriental backgrounds. The plates constitute extremely early examples of chalk lithographs (listed individually by Winkler, Frühzeit der dt. Lithographie, 180, 57). Kuntz (1797-1848) was known for his "excellent depictions of horses" (cf. Thieme/B.); throughout his brief career he studied thoroughbreds in England, Hungary, and Paris as well as in Germany. In 1832 he became Painter to the Court of Karlsruhe, Baden; he suffered a stroke in 1846 and died in the newly-founded Illenau mental hospital. - Of the utmost rarity, no copy of the complete series with all three issues as present here traceable in auction records. Nissen 2327. Thieme/B. X, 444 & XXII, 116. Winkler, Die Frühzeit der dt. Lithographie 180.57.
Folio (210 x 308 mm). 60 pp. With 27 engraved and etched plates (some double-page). Contemporary speckled sheep. Marbled pastedowns. First and only edition, printed at the second printing press established in Istanbul. "A rare and very interesting work outlining the military reforms and the regulations for the New Troops established by Selim III in 1796/97" (Blackmer). The author, Mahmoud Ra'if, was a member of the reform movement instigated in Turkey by Sultan Selim III, who tried to change the traditional political structures of the Ottoman Empire and replace them with a political state that owed much to his youthful contact with Europe, and more particularly, the influence of the French Revolution. After his succession in 1789, Selim took steps to establish a new state under the Nizam-Jedid ("new order") regulations - from which the present work derives - underpinning his state with the formation of a new army and military infrastructure. Among the moves towards "Europeanisation" were the installation of printing presses at the military engineering school (where the present work, the first from the press in roman types, was printed), and the establishment of Ottoman embassies in the capitals of Europe, including London, where Mahmoud Ra'if served as secretary to the Ottoman Ambassador in the mid 1790s. As outsiders feared, the very reforms which are the subject of his work led to Selim's murder in 1808, while the author himself was "cut to pieces" by the enraged Janissaries whose elite position had been threatened. "The establishment of these troops - the Nizam-Jedid - and the jealousy which this aroused was one of the main factors leading to the revolt of the Janissaries in 1808 which cost Selim, and later the author of this work, their lives" (Blackmer). - Binding very slightly worn, interior clean and flawless throughout. Provenance: armorial bookplate of the Swedish diplomat Johan Henrik Tawast (1763-1841), who was seconded to Constantinople in 1812-13 to help negotiate the Russian-Turkish peace treaty of Bucharest; his autograph note "Scutari, 9 janvier 1813. 16 piastres, 20 pares" inscribed to front pastedown. Latterly in the collection of Thomas Fremantle, 3rd Baron Cottesloe (1862-1956), commander of the Territorial Army and president of the Society for Army History Research. Atabey 752. Blackmer 1060.
