[OSPAAAL]. Martinez, Olivio.MareMagnum
Poster (ca. 52.5 × 32.5 cm) printed in black and red, with an image of four armed Arabian horsemen, with Arabic text above and below, and with the title in Spanish, French and English at the foot of the poster, together with the logo of the OSPAAAL. Rare propaganda poster of the OSPAAAL, the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America, designed by Olivio Martinez. The poster depicts four Arabian (Bedouin?) men on horseback, holding guns and galloping towards the viewer, with the text "Unity of the Arab peoples - Nationalization of oil" in Arabic above and below the image. At the foot of the poster is the logo of the OSPAAAL, flanked by the same text, given English, Spanish and French. OSPAAAL is a socialist Cuban political movement against imperialism and to defend human rights. The organization was founded in 1966 and was especially active in less developed countries. The posters were often stapled into copies of Tricontinental, the organization's magazine. - With only a small fold in the lower right corner, otherwise in very good condition. R. Frick, The Tricontinental Solidarity Poster (2003).
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.
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.
Small 8vo. 6 vols., uniformly bound in contemporary brown half cloth with giltstamped spine titles. Still early printing of this revised edition of Habicht's German translation, based on a complete French translation prepared by Antoine Galland (1646-1715) and expanded by Gauttier. The manuscript which Galland had bought in 1701 is the oldest Arabic text extant (dating from 1450 or later). The German editor Maximilian Habicht (1775-1839) lived in Paris for a decade as a member of the Prussian delegation. He knew vernacular Arabic well and separately published an edition of the Arabic text of the "Nights" (cf. Fück). - Slight browning. Volumes 1 and 2 have old colour vignettes applied to the half-titles; pencil ownership of Marianne Alschech to second volume, otherwise fine. Hayn/Gotendorf V, 276. Chauvin IV, 249 (note). Cf. Fück 157.
Albumen prints: 3 cabinet cards (ca. 14 x 10 cm) and 3 cartes-de-visite (ca. 9 x 5 cm, including 1 repeat), all mounted on cardboard, two with Geiser's studio imprint. A collection of rare portraits by the Algiers-based photographer Jean Geiser (1848-1923) showing Algerian women in traditional dress, both veiled and with uncovered faces. - Occasional light staining, but well preserved.
Tall 4to (183 x 305 mm). 61 unnumbered ff. Complete Arabic manuscript with two intercalated sections (ff. 18v-23r, 53r-57r) in Ottoman Turkish. Page layout carefully organized; writing luxuriantly penned in an elegant hybrid style mixing tulut and tawqi, associated with manuscripts of highly dignified content or commissioned by a wealthy patron. Black ink, 9 lines per extensum within a gilt "gadwal" border. With a brightly coloured "sarlawh" headpiece (f. 3v) of illuminated bulb-shaped forms in gold, pink and light green, with vegetal twists unfolding on a bright blue background veined with green stems and dotted by reddish and golden buds. Contemporary giltstamped calf binding with fore-edge flap (repaired). A finely preserved manuscript comprising "'arqam" (official notes) related to the Great Mosque (Ulu Camii) of Erzurum in Eastern Turkey, occasioned by the successful completion of major restoration work on the building begun in AD 1639 under the appointed local governor Hüseyn Pasha. The manuscript's opening pages contain a summary of "the estates depending on the complex of the mosque", followed by a catalogue of places, buildings or factories belonging to or administrated by it, such as a "masbaga" (dye-works), a "mamlaha" (saltern), a "madbaga" (tannery, here given with the Turkish translation of the term, "bi't-Turki debag-hana"), etc. Leaf 2r lists both the Great Mosque's officials and contractors or stipendiaries, along with their respective wages ("li'l-mudarris asarat darahim fi kull yawm" - "to the principal of the madrasa: ten dirhams a day"; "li-'l waiz saba darahim fi kull yawm" - "to the (official) preacher of the Mosque: six dirhams a day"; to the first Imam of the Mosque four dirhams a day, etc.). The remainder of the text sets out detailed accounts for the summarized information, but also includes liturgical exaltations of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad, praised in Koran- and Sunan-derived eulogies. - Dated separately twice: first in Arabic, in the final three text lines of the Turkish section of f. 23r ("the first days [i.e. 1st/10th] of the month of Du'l-Higga of the Islamic year 1058", i.e., between 17 and 26 December 1648 AD); then at the end, last four lines of f. 60r, stating that the manuscript was completed on "the first days of the sacred month of Muharram of the year 1060"AH (i.e., between 4 and 13 January 1650 AD). - A well-preserved, complete 17th-century manuscript drawn up for the recently restored Erzurum Mosque and its extensive appurtenances, likely also in recognition of their status of inalienability, i.e. the establishment of an Islamic waqf, or mortmain regime. Thus, the manuscript records the mosque's administration in both legal and religious terms, in accordance with the Sunni law of the Ottoman Empire.
Large 4to. All 31 issues, comprising a total of 774 pp. (some lithographic, others published as a typescript, but mostly letterpress), preserving the original printed wrappers. With 2 folding plans. Bound in 1920s green half calf over marbled boards. Rare collection of the annual reports published by the administrative board of the Beirut Port holding company: the complete stretch from 1889 (when work on the harbour began) to 1922. - Even since the 1860s, the old harbour of Beirut, 150 by 100 metres in length and a mere two metres deep, was rapidly becoming too small for the ever-expanding volume of traffic. In 1887 a consortium was formed of the Compagnie Impériale Ottomane de la Route Beyrouth à Damas, the Ottoman Bank, the Comptoir d'Escompte de Paris, the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, and the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes. Reincorporated as the Paris-based "Compagnie Impériale Ottomane du Port, des Quais et Entrepôts de Beyrouth", they obtained a concession from the Porte in 1888, and construction was completed in 1895. "The new harbor, located further to the east, provided deeper anchorage (two to six meters) next to an 800-meter-long pier running almost parallel to the coast and protected by a breakwater 350 meters long. The dock area covered twenty-one hectares, with vast warehouses whose metal cladding had been designed by Gustave Eiffel" (Kassir, p. 119). Located at the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa, Beirut quickly became one of the principal ports between Europe and the Near East. Trade was hampered during the years of the First World War, but Beirut still received "more ships than any other port along the Syrian coast" (ibid., p. 122). - The first seven reports, covering the building phase, from 1889 to 1894, are printed as lithographs; from 1895 onwards they are letterpress, providing a full account of assets and liabilities, profits and losses, and resolutions adopted by the board, accompanied by extensive sets of tables. The publication was interrupted only in the war years, when the company was temporarily dispossessed, for which time the present volume instead contains a "Historique" and a "Memorandum", both published as typescripts. The series was resumed in 1921. - This collection bound for the "Banque de Syrie et du Liban" with their bookplate on the pastedown. Binding rubbed and chafed, but internally a very well-preserved set. Cf. Samir Kaffir, Beirut (UCA, 2010).
Folio (265 x 340 mm). (6), II, 47, (1) pp.; 6 pp. (ads). With 77 plates and plans (some collotype, 4 double-page). Original cloth (rebacked preserving original spine). First and only edition of this superbly illustrated description on the Muslim architecture of the more provincial towns of the state of Gujarat on the western coast of India. "Among the many varieties in the style of the Muhammadan architecture prevailing in different provinces of India, that which arose in Gujarât in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is one of the most instructive and deserving of study, as it is also the most beautiful" (preface). - The Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (1832-1916), founder of "The Indian Antiquary", did educational work in Calcutta, 1856 and Bombay, 1861, and was Secretary of the Bombay Geographical Society 1868-73. He was Head of the Archaeological Survey, Western India, 1873, and of South India, 1881. From 1886 to 1889 he was Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. - Binding rubbed; original spine rebacked. Modern endpapers. Still a fine copy.
Large 4to (158 x 240 mm). (6), 219, XL, (29) pp. With different engraved vignette on each title-page and folding engraved plate. Contemporary Spanish marbled calf, flat spine with red morocco lettering-piece. Marbled endpapers. Edges sprinkled red. First joint edition in Arabic and Spanish. - The Neoplatonist Persian philosopher Ibn Miskawayh (932-1030) worked as a chancery official and librarian for various viziers of the Abbasid empire; many of his works show and document the influence of Greek philosophy on his thought. His Arabic paraphrase occasionally contains additional passages not recorded in the original Greek text. - The "Pinax" ("Table" or "Painting") is an allegorical moral sketch of human life commonly attributed to the Greek philosopher Cebes, a student of Socrates, though the book's real author likely flourished in the first century AD. The Neoplatonist and Pythagorean perspective of late Hellenistic Stocism earned the text great popularity among later readers: "To us, all this appears sterile and trite; yet its impact was such that even the visual arts attempted to recreate a fiction whose author in fact shows little graphic flair" (Wilamowitz). One such attempt to transfer the titular "painting" into an engraving is found in the present edition. - Extremities quite insignificantly rubbed; a very appealingly preserved copy. Hoffmann I, 447. Palau 50822 ("Bella edición"). Not in Engelmann/Preuss.
Hand-coloured engraved map (scale: 70 miles to 1 inch). 692 x 668 mm, including fold-out section at right edge showing Ras al-Hadd. Matted. Exceedingly rare, large map of the Arabian Peninsula, based on surveys conducted under General F. R. Chesney (1789-1872), the explorer of the Euphrates and founder of the overland route to India. Drawn by W. H. F. Plate. This is a second, improved edition of a map that had previously appeared in 1847 under the simple title "Arabia" (kept at the British Library, referenced as IOR/X/3205 within the Qatar Digital Library). "Mesopotamia and its rivers are laid down from Surveys made during the Euphrates Expedition. The Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Southern Coast of Arabia are from those made by the Officers or the Indian Navy. The interior of the peninsula is from various sources, particularly materials furnished for the accompanying work by Aloys Sprenger M.D. and from documents obtained by Dr. Plate" (note). Finely preserved. No copy known outside the British Library. OCLC 556388606. Not in the Al-Qasimi Collection.
8vo. 108 pp. With an engraved frontispiece and 5 engraved plates, all in original hand colour. Remains of wrappers. Third edition of this early 19th century French primer. The reading matter with its lively illustrations is chiefly drawn from Aesop's Fables. - Brownstained throughout. Untrimmed, partly uncut copy with marked edge flaws; wants binding. Rare. OCLC 460509998.
6 cards, 110:70 mm each. A complete set of six so-called "Liebigbilder" issued by the German producer of beef extracts, the Liebig Extract of Meat Co., showing falconry practises throughout the world and history: by Kublai Khan in the 13th century, in mediaeval Flanders, in 16th century Belgium, in 19th century Persia and 17th century Japan. - Very well preserved.
8vo. 2 vols. (instead of 3). Contemporary purple half calf with marbled boards and endpapers. First French edition of Ibn al-‘Awwam's famous "Book of Agriculture", probably written towards the end of the 12th century and regarded as the most comprehensive agricultural treatise in Arabic. The author "gathers all the knowledge of his time concerning agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry into a huge compendium of excerpts from all the previous agronomical traditions and treatises [...] To these he often adds his own observations and experiences [...] He records, for example, his experiments in grafting the wild olive of the mountains with the domesticated olive of the plain, and his successful cultivation of saffron, under irrigation, in the mountains [...] Ibn al-‘Awwam’s treatise comprises 34 chapters dealing with all aspects of husbandry - it mentions 585 different plants, explains the cultivation of more than 50 fruit trees, and includes many valuable observations on soils, manures, grafting, and plant diseases (Sarton 1927-48, II, pp. 424-25). Ibn al-‘Awwam also includes an agricultural calendar, one of the few Andalusi agronomists to do so. The last section of his work is devoted to animal husbandry, with chapters on cattle, sheep, goats, camels, horses, mules and donkeys, geese, ducks, chickens, pigeons, peacocks and beekeeping. As well as being of great value and interest for the study of agricultural history, the Kitab al-filaha has enabled scholars to reconstruct the original texts of some previous authors whose work has only survived in abridged or fragmented form. In addition, the profusion of references, even though sometimes entangled and difficult to unravel, provides the historian with a wealth of information on the transmission of knowledge" (Filaha). - Lacks the second part of vol. 2, not published until 1867; the set thus comprises chapters 1-30 (out of 34). Well preserved. Fück 204. Mennessier de la Lance I, 667. NYPL 184. OCLC 6985613.
8vo. (4), 3, (1), 9-24, 374 pp. With 2 steel-engraved portrait plates (one bound as a frontispiece). Contemporary marbled half calf with giltstamped Arabic title to spine. First and only Arabic edition of this Life of St Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (1647-90), the French mystic who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form. First published in French in 1729. The author Jean Joseph Languet de la Villeneuve de Gergy (1677-1753) was the archbishop of Sens (Auxerre). - With separate title in Arabic. Printed entirely in Arabic save for the French title and dedicatory preface. Binding somewhat rubbed and chafed in places, paper lightly browned, but well preserved. Extremely rare; no copy in library catalogues internationally.
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.
4 vols. 8vo. (4), LIV, (8), 460 pp. (4), 535, (1) pp., final blank. (4), 504, (20) pp. (4), 479, (5) pp. Contemporary French mottled calf with gilt spine. All edges red. Marbled endpapers. First edition of this history of Arabia, at its time a standard work of reference, covering the years 629 through 1288 AD. German and English translations followed within a few years of publication (the German version was prepared by none other than the great playwright of Enlightenment, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing). - Rubbed and bumped at extremeties; occasional light browning and insignificant wrinkling to a few pages. A good copy. Gay 3586. Macro 1538 ("1758" in error). Brunet VI, 28011. Graesse IV, 399. Jöcher/Adelung IV, 724.
Large 8vo (18 × 26 cm). 3 vols. Volume 1 with 137 reproductions of manuscript pages of Ottoman Turkish text and maps and volume 2 with 4 plates. Publisher’s original printed wrappers. Only published edition of the original version of the "Kitâb-I Bahriyye" (Book of the Sea) by the great Ottoman navigator and cartographer Piri Reis (1465/79-1553). After assembling two important maps using numerous sources (in 1513 and in 1528), including a map drawn by Columbus, Piri Reis decided to collect "all his own observations and all previous information that he could not fit onto the maps" in a book. "It is basically a naval guidebook with essential data on the most important coastal routes and large maps and detailed charts [...] The main portion of the book is devoted to the Mediterranean coasts and islands [...] Piri first gives historical and geographical information and then discusses the necessary practical navigational data. The accuracy of many of his statements is indisputable" (DSB). The final chapter of the book describes the newly discovered continent Antilia "the mountains of which contain rich gold ores and in the seas, pearls [...] The chapter on the Western Sea contains all that was known about the discovery of America at the time" (DSB). First written in 1521, the manuscript was reworked in 1526 for presentation to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. This later manuscript was published twice, in 1935 and 1998, but Piri's original version is still only available in the current edition by the German scholar Paul Kahle (1875-1961). The first volume (in two bindings) is a facsimile of a manuscript in Bologna containing Piri Reis's 1521 text, with a few pages from a manuscript in Dresden in between. The second volume is an annotated German translation of the text, based on these manuscripts as well as on a manuscript in Vienna. This is still considered the best translation of the Bahriyye. - Bindings slightly soiled with the spines discoloured and slightly damaged; covers of the second part of vol. 1 almost completely loose but the book itself still structurally sound. In good condition, with vol. 2 still unopened. DSB X, pp. 616-619. Howgego, to 1800, P104. Lepore, Piccardi, Rombai, “Looking at the Kitab-i Bahriye of Piri Reis”, in: e-Perimetron VIII, no. 2 (2013), pp. 85-94. Lowry, “Pîrî Reis Revisited”, in: Journal of Ottoman Studies XXXV (2010), pp. 7-31.
4to (29 x 19.5 cm). VII, (1 blank), 147, (1 blank) pp. With 24 hand-coloured lithographed plates by William Brodrick. Publisher's blind- and gold-blocked cloth, front board with title and large illustration of a falcon. First edition of a complete and important treatise on the art of falconry by F. H. Salvin (1817-1904), in which he describes the various species of birds used in England, both hawks and falcons. ''The best English book on falconry and a very attractive publication'' (Schwerdt). - The treatise is illustrated with lithographs by William Brodrick (1814-1888); they show 21 falcons and 5 hawks; plates 22-24 depict equipment used for falconry. The stones for the first edition were destroyed after publication so the plates for the second edition (London, 1873) had to be redrawn. - With bookplate of Leon Colin Somervell on front paste-down. Some pages and plates reinforced, two plates loose, some spotting, but still in good condition. Binding discoloured and slightly worn. Nissen, IVB 147. Souhart 419. Schwerdt II, p. 145. Wood p. 541. Not in Thiebaud.
8vo. With portraits of His Majesty King Saud Ben Abdulaziz and Prince Faisal Ben Abdulaziz, and 10 maps, including 2 folding. Original publisher’s decorated wrappers. The annual report of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the fiscal year 1382–1383 AH, with text in Arabic and English. The most important topic is hydrology, including the Abha Dam project, the related Wadi Jizan and Irrigation project and the Al-Qatif water drainage project. Other topics covered include locust control, fertilizers, soil quality etc. The results of many tests are displayed on 10 maps. - With library stamps. Some minor stains and a small tear to the wrappers, but internally in very good condition.
Copper engraving with full original colour, in 3 unjoined sheets. Each sheet 47 × 71 cm. Very good condition, lovely original colour, mild toning, small nicks in blank margins and light stains in lower area. A very rare edition of Strass's large and resplendently coloured time chart depicting the inter-connecting streams of the histories of different World civilizations and nations from 3984 BC up to 1830. This large and colourful time chart employs ingenious visual methods to graphically illustrate historical events. The history of the world is presented as interwoven streams featuring the stories of its great civilizations/nations weave their way down the time chart like the paths of streams. History is shown to commence with Genesis, which is shown here to have occurred in 3984 BC, a date close to that asserted by the Ussher Chronology. This theory as to the timing of Genesis (which was said to have occurred in 4004 BC) was devised by James Ussher (1581-1656), the Archbishop of Armagh and the Primate of All Ireland (in office 1625-56), and is based on his "literal reading" of the Bible. The Ussher Chronology gained widespread popularity in certain Protestant circles during the 19th century. The time line starts at the top of the composition with the great ancient civilizations, namely, the Italians; Greeks; Asia Minor; Assyrians; Syrians; Phoenicians; Jews; Egyptians and the Chinese. Down the various streams are plotted the names and dates of different eras and rulers. The stream on the furthest right details major world events. Part way down, the civilizations in the Western and Mediterranean world converge into the 'Roman Empire' before splintering again into various new entities. The streams then continue to weave, combine and separate, mitigated by the interconnecting streams of major events and characters, towards the bottom of the time line, where the individual streams are represented by the nations and regions of Denmark; Sweden; Russia; the German States; Austria; Holland; Switzerland; France; the Italian States; States of the Church (Papal States); Spain; Great Britain; Greece; Persia; and China. William Bell, who issued his own version of the time chart in London in 1849, described the merits of Strass's conception to the study of history: "However natural it may be to assist the perspective faculty, in its assumption of abstract time, by the idea of a line [...] it is astonishing that [...] the image of a Stream should not have presented itself to any one [...] The expressions of gliding, and rolling on; or of a rapid current, applied to time, are equally familiar to us with those of long and short. Neither does it require any great discernment to trace [...] in the rise and fall of empire, an allusion to the source of a river, and to the increasing rapidity of a current, in proportion with the declivity of their channels towards the engulfing ocean. Nay, the metaphor [...] gives greater liveliness to the ideas, and impresses events more forcibly upon the mind, than the stiff regularity of the straight line. Its diversified power likewise of separating the various currents into subordinate branches, or of uniting them into one vast ocean of power [...] tends to render the idea by its beauty more attractive, by its simplicity more perspicuous, and by its resemblance more consistent" (Rosenberg & Grafton, pp.143 & 147). The present time chart is derived from Strass's exceedingly rare "Strom der Zeiten" ("Stream of Time", 1804). Strass's work proved to be highly influential and was widely copied in both Europe and America, and translated into several languages, including Russian. All of the large German editions are very rare, and the present example, in unjoined sheets with resplendent original colour, is an especially fine example. Cf. OCLC (Re: 1818 Zanna ed.) 165398011. (derivative 1849 London ed.). Daniel Rosenberg & Anthony Grafton, Cartographies of Time, pp. 143f. & 147, fig. 4:45.
65 photos. 170 x 240 mm to 106 x 60 mm. No captions or others identifying marks on the photos or in the album. Several photographs removed. Black oblong album. Later twine tie. Egyptian motif on covers (camel, pyramid, palm trees). 4to. With a menu for the 1944 Christmas Dinner of the 111 Maintenance Unit of the Royal Air Force. Several photos show military personnel, probably from this unit, including one photo of what appears to be a whole unit standing at attention in front of one-story military buildings. There are also a number of photos of Egyptians. There is a photo of the top portion of the front page of the August 1945 issue of the "Egyptian Mail" which reported the Japanese Surrender to end World War II.
10 parts in 1 volume. Large 4to. viii, 106, (2 blank), (4), 109-142, (4), 145-167, (5), 169-193, (5), 195-268, (2) pp. With 100 finely engraved plates probably after Hendrik Claudius (1655-1697), depicting South African plants. With identical engraved vignettes on each of the ten part-titles, by Jan Caspar Philips (1700-1775), showing Cape Town and Table Mountain seen from the water. First title in red & black. Without the frontispiece portrait of Burmann, as usual. Full contemporary mottled calf with gold tooled spine. Rare first and only edition of a primary source on South African flora, especially the Cape of Good Hope area, by Johannes Burmann (1707-79), Dutch physician and botanist at Amsterdam. "The nomenclature is here often in agreement with that of the Hortus Cliffortianus [of Linneaus]; Burmann accepts the Linnaean generic reform as brought about by the Genera plantarum and attempts, though not yet consistently, to coin his phrase names in a purely diagnostic way in the Linnaean manner" (Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans, p. 166). The illustrations are drawn from the Codex Simon van der Stel, the Herbarium Witsenianum, and the Codex Witsenii. The artist was most likely the physician Hendrik Claudius of Breslau, who had arrived in Cape Town in 1682 to make watercolours of the local plants, with a medical interest. Simon van der Stel ventured on an expedition to Namaqualand in 1685-86 and had drawings of plants made for him, it is possible that Claudius accompanied him and made the drawings. In Cape town copies of these drawings were made for the burgomaster of Amsterdam, Nikolaas Witsen and via that route they served as the source for the engravings in the Rariorum Africanarum Plantarum. An important work with the first illustrations of many Cape of Good Hope plants. - Bookplate on first end paper of Guy Tinant and ink ownership on the second endpaper by the same, dated 1975. Great Flower Books 53. Hunt 508. Nissen 302. Plesch 165. Stafleu, 929. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans, p. 166. For the watercolours see: Codex Witsenii.
4to. 2 parts in 1 volume. (16), 235, (1), (14), (4), 33, (1). With 111 finely etched anonymous plates, an engraved allegorical title-vignette by Adolf van der Laan (1680/1700-42) dated 1736, a number of woodcut head and tail pieces and without the portrait of Burmann, as usual. Full contemporary gold tooled mottled calf, with mottled edges. First edition of the first illustrated description of the plants of Sri Lanka, based on the famous botanical collections of Paul Hermann and Jan Hartog in The Netherlands. The plants were taken from Sri Lanka, however most of these did not exclusively exist there but grew throughout the entire South Indian Ocean region, making this book relevant for more than just the island of Ceylon. Described and illustrated plants include the Malabar nut, amaranth, cinnamon, different types of jasmin etc. Johannes Burmann (1707-79), Dutch physician and botanist at Amsterdam, was well acquainted with Carl Linnaeus. While Burmann was working on the Thesaurus Zeylanicus he was helped by Linnaeus, who was staying at Burmann's house at the time. In the same period the monumental works of Linnaeus were published that would change science. The plates are referred to as engravings, but they are most likely finely etched. Plate 18 is numbered double, causing much confusion about the number of plates with it often being described as having 110 instead of 111 plates. The dedication on *2 has 2 different states: this one opens with Nicolao Sautyn. - Some annotations in pencil. Hinges worn and some wear to the boards. Plates a bit browned as usual. In very good condition. Hunt 501. Nissen BBI 303. Stafleu & Cowan 928.
8vo. 210 pp. Illustrated with 26 colour plates. Brown cloth with gilt lettering on spine. First edition of a survey of the influence of birds of prey on the agriculture in the United States, published as bulletin no. 3 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy. Understanding the feeding pattern of these birds was crucial to gauge their role in the ecosystem. Therefore the birds were caught and dissected and their stomach contents studied. This explains why the plates show the birds with their typical food. The 26 full-page chromolithographed plates are signed JLR (J. L. Ridgway and R. Ridgway) and show most birds in their natural habitat with a kill at their paws. Number 26 is placed between 23 and 24. - Bottom of spine damaged and repaired. Nissen IVB 316.
4to. (16), 247, (1), 15, (1) pp. With 111 etched plates depicting plants, an elaborate woodcut tailpiece with an eagle feeding her young, caterpillars, dogs, and flowers, as well as a woodcut printer's vignette on the title-page. Early 18th century (?) richly gold-tooled mottled calf, in a panel design with a large centre-piece of curlicues, gold-tooled board edges, marbled end papers and gilt edges. First edition of an overview of exotic plants were recently discovered by the Dutch. The foreign plants were brought back to the Netherlands by ship from around the world and planted in various botanical gardens to be studied. With the help of new botanical technology such as greenhouses it became possible for the first time to cultivate exotic plants such as orchids in the colder European climates. Paul Hermann (1646-95) had excellent contacts and based his work on various Dutch botanical collections that held plants from the Americas, from Africa (Egypt), the South Indian Ocean regions, and Asia. Mentioned plants include passion fruit, cacti, and papaver. Hermann himself served as director of the Hortus Botanicus at the University of Leiden and contributed to this work specimens from India, Africa, and Sri Lanka. He died in 1695 while at work on a number of important publications, this one of them. His widow was able to complete the "Paradisus Batavus" and got influential English botanist William Sherard (1659-1728) to edit her husband's work. The publication raised the bar for floral publications and set the standard so high that it inspired Linnaeus to write his "Flora Zeylanica" (about the plants of Sri Lanka). - Some copies include a four-page laudatory poem to the author, not present here. Most copies of this first edition have 110 plates, while the present volume contains 111. Some of the depicted plants are the first ever to be documented in European cultivation. Although the plates are referred to as engravings it appears more likely that they are etchings. The anonymous illustrations seem to be aimed at showing the whole plant, including the roots, leaves and twigs, rather than just the blossom or fruit that the plant produces. The woodcut tailpiece is signed "C" (possibly Nagler Monogrammisten 2151). - Boards slightly warped, but still a very good copy. From the library of William Cavendish-Bentinck, the 6th Duke of Portland, with his engraved armorial bookplate on the upper pastedown. Kuijlen 115. Nissen BBI 860. The Anglo-Dutch Garden 143.