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Elephant folio (380 x 490 mm). 5 vols., comprising: Volume I: The Tomb of Nakht at Thebes. Volume II: The Tomb of Puyemre at Thebes. Part I: The Hall of Memories. Volume III: The Tomb of Puyemre at Thebes. Part II: The Chapels of Hope. Volume IV: The Tomb of the Two Sculptors at Thebes. Volume V: The Ramesside Tombs at Thebes. With 5 frontispieces (4 in color), 178 plates (21 in color), and numerous figures. Original printed wrappers, untrimmed. Limited first edition of this catalogue of the principal tombs at western Thebes published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1917 to 1927, one of 500 atlas folio sets beautifully printed on handmade Van Gelder paper. A magnificent, untrimmed set. - Published in memory of the artist and amateur archaeologist and Egyptologist Robb de Peyster Tytus (1876-1913), this series was published to shed light on the magnificent artistic treasures of the tombs at Thebes. In over 180 folio plates, 25 of which are in color and many of which are folding, statues, paintings, treasures, and the interior plans of the tombs themselves are reproduced in loving detail. - The Robb de Peyster Tytus Memorial Fund was set up by the artist's mother, Mrs. Edward J. Tytus, after his death at the age of 32. For five years the Egyptian Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art received $15,000 which were used to explore the tombs in Sheik Abd-el Qurna and the environs. Norman de Garis Davies (1865-1941) and his wife Nina collaborated with other artists, including Charles K. Wilkinson and H. R. Hopgood, for a decade to achieve the present set. Davies worked on numerous digs in Egypt (including with Petrie at Dendera and with the Egypt Explorations Fund's Archaeological Survey) before being appointed head of the graphics section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's expedition to Egypt in 1907. Along with his wife Nina and his assistant Francis Unwin, he pioneered the use of egg tempera when recording the paintings from tombs, allowing for much more accurate and satisfying results in comparison to watercolours, which, although they rendered the colour with a flat finish, were the standard way of recording tomb paintings before the advent of reliable colour photography. - Insignificant edge flaws to the wrappers. Margins of a few plates very slightly browned; altogether a very clean set. Inconspicuous contemporary bookseller's label of Paul Koehler, Leipzig, to covers of three volumes. OCLC 19290154.
Small folio (184 x 250 mm). (8), 330, (28) pp. Architectural title page engraved (Cl. Mellan sculps.). With woodcut printer's device on final page and several initials, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary full red morocco, lavishly gilt, with the arms of the Barberini family on an inlaid shield of different-coloured leather on both covers. All edges gilt. First edition, dedication copy. - One of the fundamental sources for the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571, when the Turkish forces invaded the island with 400 ships and some 100,000 men, massacring Nicosia's 20,000 inhabitants. Thus wrested from the Venetians, Cyprus would remain under Ottoman rule until 1878, when it was ceded to Britain as a protectorate; Ottoman sovereignty continued until the outbreak of World War I. - A. M. Graziani (1537-1611) studied the law at Padua before becoming secretary to Pope Sixtus and, in 1592, bishop of Amelia (in Umbria). Pope Clement VIII sent him as his nuncio to the Italian princes and states to unite them in a league against the Ottomans. Graziani having died in 1611, his account was published only posthumously: it was edited by his son Carolo, who dedicated the book to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. Barberini was created a cardinal in 1623; in 1627 he became librarian of the Vatican, and in 1632 vice-chancellor. The engraved architectural title (by Claudio Mellan after Antonio Pomeranci) shows History, "magistra vitae", seated atop an elaborate Baroque structure which incorporates Barberini's arms. This is the dedication copy bound for Cardinal Barberini himself: both covers show the crowned bee arms of the Barberini family on dark green leather, enclosed within borders of blind rules and double fillets with corner fleurons and two different bee cornerpieces, all set within a wide floral border and double gilt fillets. Even the spine is richly decorated with bee tools running up and down between a floral railing. - Corners insignificantly bumped, joints barely starting at foot. Some browning and slight waterstaining throughout, also visible on covers, but endpapers replaced with old paper. Later armorial bookplate of the collector John Stafford Reid Byers (1903-84), of Waterfoot House, Newcastle, County Down, to pastedown. Blackmer 726. Cobham/Jeffery, p. 24. Bruni/Evans, Italian 17th-c. books in Cambridge libraries STC 2547. NUC 211:420. BMC 91:156. Maggs, Cat. 697 (1940-1), no. 114 (this copy). Not in Atabey or Aboussouan. Not in Brunet, Ebert, or Graesse.
2 vols. Elephant folio. 112 pp. 224 text illus. (some in colour), 204 plates (numbered 1-205, nos. 204-205 forming one double-page plate; 7 double-page; 2 coloured), showing photographs, measured drawings, ground plans, etc. Loose as issued in original board portfolio. First edition; rare. An important survey of the architecture of Constantinople, concentrating mainly on religious buildings. The extensive scope covers the major mosques of the Ottomans, as well as Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sophia, Hagios Theodoros and the Byzantine land walls. The plates depict interior and exterior views, architectural details, street scenes, plans, and elevations. A panoramic and comprehensive overview of many centuries of architectural evolution in Istanbul. - Very scare, and virtually impossible to obtain: the last copy at Sotheby's sold for £13,150 in 2002. The only other copy available in the trade has library stamps on every plate. - Some plates evenly browned (as usual); a few plates a bit frayed. Spines repaired with tape. Atabey 545. The Ottoman World II, Cat. Sotheby's, 28 May 2002, lot 537. Not in Blackmer.
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.
Large 8vo (245 x 155 mm). 2 vols., comprising text volume and appendix of maps: 5 folding maps, all but one colour-printed, folding graph at end of text volume. Original blue-green wrappers. Complete with the very rare appendix of maps. In reaction to the 1929 violent unrest in Palestine, the British government in 1930 sent the Shaw Commission ("Palestine. Statement with regard to British policy", Cmd. 3582) to report on the situation in the Mandate. This concluded that Jewish immigration pressurized and displaced the Arab population, and rejected the view that the Jewish National Home was the principal feature of the Mandate. The Shaw Commission recommended an investigation into Palestine's economic absorptive capacity of Jewish immigration, and the present publication, Sir John Hope Simpson's report, concluded that the increasing number of Jewish land purchases was leading to a growing population of landless Arabs. Hope Simpson's recommendations of reduced Jewish immigration and restrictions on land transfers were adopted by the Passfield White Paper ("Palestine. Statement of policy by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom", Cmd. 3692) that same year. - Maps 1 and 6 with very small holes at some creasefolds and a few very short marginal tears and nicks, maps and accompanying text in appendix with light dog-earing. Map 3 apparently never issued. Wrappers to text volume faintly creased, appendix unevenly faded and extremities lightly rubbed. Extremely rare. Khalidi & Khadduri 1658. Cf. Bryars & Harper, A History of the 20th Century in 100 Maps (2014), p. 79.
2 volumes. 4to. (8), XXVI, 503, (1), 16; (8), 642, (1), (1 blank) pp. Contemporary half calf, rebacked with the original backstrips laid down. Rare third, revised edition of a massive navigational directory, with exhaustive information on the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. Including detailed entries on Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi ("Abothubbee"), Bahrain and Hormuz, not only covering navigational details, but also the inhabitants, pearl fishery, geography, commerce etc. - Compiled chiefly from recent journals of ships employed by the East India Company, by James Horsburgh (1762-1836), hydrographer and chart maker to the Company. "As hydrographer Horsburgh was primarily responsible for supervising the engraving of charts sent back to London by marine surveyors in India and ordered by the company to be published, and for examining the deposited journals of returning ships for observations which would refine the oceanic navigation charts currently in use, besides other duties of provision of information laid on him by the court" (Cook). - The book appeared in a total of eight editions between 1809 and 1864 before being superseded by Findlay's A directory for the navigation of the Indian Ocean (1869). - With an inserted manuscript note facing p. 136, vol. 1, and a short manuscript note at the foot of page 501, vol. 2. Some faint thumbing to the title-pages and rebacked, but otherwise in very good condition. Cf. Cat. NHSM, p. 73 (fifth ed.). Sabin 33047 (fifth ed.). For the author: Cook, "Horsburgh, James (1762-1836)", in: ODNB (online ed.).
8vo (120 x 180 mm). (40), 303, (31) pp. Contemporary full red morocco, both covers, spine and leading edges finely gilt. Marbled endpapers. First French edition of the Kitab al-Najah ("The Book of Salvation"), the part on logics from Ibn Sina's great scientific and philosophical encyclopedia Kitab Al-Shifa' ("The Book of Healing"). Translated by the French oriental scholar Pierre Vattier (1623-67), himself a physician like Avicenna. - Ibn Sina's system of logic is known as "Avicennian logic", in contrast to Aristotelian logic. By the 12th century, Avicennian logic had replaced Aristotelian logic as the dominant system in the Islamic world; after the Latin translations of the 12th century, his writings were also an important influence on Western mediaeval writers such as Albertus Magnus. - Light browning throughout; occasional faint waterstains to the lower margin. Very prettily gilt morocco binding; tools attributable to the binders of Macé-Ruette (cf. Esmerian, La reliure au XVIIe siècle). From the library of the French neurologist Maurice Villaret (1877-1946) with his memento-mori style bookplate to front pastedown. OCLC 978575366. Cf. GAL I, 454, 18.
4to (ca. 175 x 230 mm). Ottoman Turkish manuscript on paper. 11-277 numbered leaves (lacking the first 10 ff. from the front of the volume, all likely from the Fihrist), per extensum, 16 lines in black Naskh, words and headings in red throughout, over ten leaves with full-page illustrations and diagrams, some of these in colour, including the double-page illustration of the globe as spheres, many tables and diagrams also appearing throughout the text. Contemporary leather-backed cloth boards, cloth with stamped tughra of sultan to covers (head-over-heels). A fine early 19th century manuscript copy of the famous scholarly encyclopedia, not printed until 1835 (in Bulaq). The "Marifetname", or "Book of Gnosis" is a compilation of astronomical, astrological, mathematical, anatomical, psychological, philosophical as well as mystical religious texts. It is famous for containing the first treatment of post-Copernican astronomy by a Muslim scholar, placing the sun at the center of the universe. - Ibrahim Haqqi Erzurumi (1703-80) is considered an outstanding figure of 18th century Ottoman Turkey. Based on an immense knowledge of the Sufi branch of Islam as well as his studies in Western science, he devoted himself to the domains of both religion and science, considering both a means of approaching God. - Although Ibrahim Haqqi completed his work in 1756, very few surviving manuscripts predate the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The British Library holds a copy (MS.Or.12964) compiled in 1235 H (1820 CE), and the earliest known manuscript copy was long thought to be that in the Khalili collection, dated 1226 H / 1811 CE (J. M. Rogers, Empire of the Sultans, 1995, no. 74, pp. 121 & 123), but a copy predating this by seven years was sold by Bloomsbury in 2014 (7 December sale, lot 123), and a manuscript dated to ca. 1760 was offered by Inlibris. - While this copy of the text is in a relatively informal hand, the diagrams have been executed to an excellent standard. The text and drawings were likely executed in different workshops, as the scribe allocated far more space than necessary for the illustrator, resulting in numerous blank pages throughout the text. - Leather spine worn with slight loss to leather at extremities, cloth also worn with loss. Contemporary foliation throughout, a few scuffs and smudges. Spine cracked with a few individual gatherings becoming loose. Overall a clean copy.
20 x 13 inches. Hand-coloured. Fine example of De Jode's modern map of the Middle East, from his Speculum Orbis Terrae, published in Antwerp in 1578 and engraved by Joannes & Lucas van Deutecum. The complete title reads: "Secundae partis Asiae: typus qua oculis subijciuntur itinera nautarum qui Calecutium Indiae mercandorum aromatum caufa fre quentant, ac eorum quoqz qui terrestri itinere ade unt Suacham, Laccam, in domino Praeto Iani, nec non eorum qui Aden et ormum inuifunt, et Balsaram quoque castrum, supra Euphratem fluuium situm, omnia suis gradibus subiecta, cum longitudinis tum latitudinis / Iacobo Castaldo pedemontano authore; Gerhardus de Iode excudebat". As noted in the title, the map was prepared by Gerard De Jode's and is largely identical to Giacomo Gastaldi's highly influential map of 1559. De Jode's delineation of Arabia is vastly superior to the contemporary maps of Ortelius, showing far more accuracy and detail. Extending from the Nile to Afghanistan and centered on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf, the map depicts what was then still among the most important trading centers of the commercial world. The present example is from the first edition of De Jode's work, which can be distinguished from the second edition by the pagination on the verso (VII for the 1578 edition; 9 for the 1593 edition). The map is drawn from the rare first edition of De Jode's Speculum Orbis Terrarum. At least one commentator has opined that as few as 11 known examples of the first edition are known to have survived, making separate maps from this first edition very rare on the market. - Giacomo Gastaldi (fl. 1542-1565) is widely considered to be the most important and influential of all of the Lafreri School mapmakers. Born in Piedmont, Gastaldi worked in Venice, where he become Cosmographer to the Venetian Republic. Karrow described him as "one of the most important cartographers of the sixteenth century. He was certainly the greatest Italian mapmaker of his age..." While his achievement is obvious, it is hard to quantify. A large number of maps were published throughout this period with the geography credited to Gastaldi, but it is often difficult to know what role Gastaldi played in their creation. As a practice, he did not sign himself as publisher, although his name may be found in the title, dedication, or text to the reader. Frequently where there is no imprint one may assume that Gastaldi was the publisher. A further clue may be that many of the maps attributable to Gastaldi as publisher seem to have been engraved by Fabius Licinius. In other cases, where publication is credited to another, it is not always certain whether Gastaldi was commissioned by the publisher to compile the map, whether another less-enterprising publisher merely copied his work and attribution, or simply added Gastaldi's name in the title to add authority to the delineation. His name clearly commanded the same sort of respect that the Sanson name had in the last years of the seventeenth century, and as Guillaume de L'Isle's had in the first half of the eighteenth century. Gastaldi's first published map was of Spain, engraved on four sheets, and issued in 1544. The following year he published a map of Sicily, among the most widely copied of all his maps. In the course of a prolific career, Gastaldi subsequently produced a number of maps of Italy, and individual parts of the peninsula, with his general map of Italy, and the map of Piedmont also being very influential. Among the most important of his maps, however, were of areas outside Italy. Principal among these was his map of the World, published in 1546, a four sheet map of the countries of south-eastern Europe, published in 1559, and his series of three maps of the Middle East, Southern Asia, and South-East Asia with the Far East, issued between 1559 and 1561. In 1562, Gastaldi issued a two-sheet map of the Kingdom of Poland, and in 1564, a magnificent eight-sheet map of Africa. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century, 30/91.2. Tibbetts, Arabia in Early Maps 38.
Large 8vo. XXII, (2), 500, (folding leaf of appendix) pp. With 27 (of 32) plates, mostly folded and coloured. Modern half calf with marbled paper boards. Red morocco label to gilt spine. First edition, very rare. The volume includes seven important historical, archaeological and geographical essays covering Baghdad, the Nahrwan canal and large parts of Kurdistan, the topography of Nineveh and the old course of the River Tigris. Also included are some 30 maps and plates, many in colour, most notably the ground-plan of Baghdad. Felix Jones first saw service on the Palinurus, surveying the northern part of the Red Sea, whilst a later commission found him engaged on the Arabian survey under Haines. In 1839 he surveyed the harbour of Graine (Kuwait) and this led to an almost continuous period of service in Mesopotamia and the Gulf, ending in 1862 as Political Agent in the Persian Gulf, in which capacity he planned the British invasion of Persia. - Lacks the large maps of the Katul es Kesrawi and River Tigris. Labels to spine chipped, spine faded, occasional blue pencil markings between pages 259 & 288, and between pages 364 & 368. Generally text and plates very clean and fresh, map at page 136 torn at fold with no loss. - No pocket is present in the rebinding nor are the 3 maps which the pocket should contain. Paper slightly browned, otherwise in good condition.
Small folio (237 x 308 mm). 2 vols. (6), IX, (1), VI, 665, (1) pp. (2), VI, 817, (13) pp. Contemporary full sheep, flat spines with red morocco labels. The "Mishkat al-Masabih" ("A Nic33357he for Lamps") of Al-Khatib al-Tabrizi (also known as Wali al-Din, d. 741 H), a revised and expanded version of the "Masabih al-Sunnah" by al-Baghawi, with approximately 1500 hadith added. This important Sunni text was first translated into English by Capt. Matthews of the Bengal Artillery. Although some of the original hadith are not included and others incorrectly translated, this attempt at publishing a translation from the Arabic was a noted accomplishment for the time. - The List of Subscribers accounts for 122 copies, with an additional 100 copies noted as being published on order of the Governor General in Council for the Honourable Company. A statement in an 1848 issue of the Journal of Sacred Literature suggests that most copies of the work were destroyed at sea, yet it was still advertised for sale in 1817 in the Literary Panorama (at the price of £4.4s). - Some browning throughout, more pronounced in endpapers. A short tear to lower edge of vol. 1. A good copy of this rare Calcutta imprint, bound in India. OCLC 15466515. BLC v. 229, p. 302.
Watercolour on paper, 290 x 460 mm, matted (600 x 398 mm). Beautiful orientalist watercolour, inscribed by the artist "à Monsieur Coullon, souvenir affectueux". Lacoste, a genre painter equally adept at landscapes and architecture, was a student of Rouillet, Cambon, and Cogniet. He exhibited at the Salon from 1839 to 1907, also drawing costumes for the various Parisian scenes, including for the Opéra from 1876 to 1885. His series of watercolours painted for Verdi's "Aida" in 1880 is remarkable; a design for "Ramses" is now kept at the Getty Museum. The present orientalist scene is typical of its age but distinguished by its large format and masterly quality. It shows a Middle Eastern oasis with Moorish-type buildings near a palm grove reflected in a waterhole, surrounded by eight characters in local costumes going about their lives: a man is perched on his camel; two men are wearing red hats; two women, possibly slaves, carry jugs on their heads. In the foreground, cargo unloaded from a camel suggests a Bedouin desert stopover. - Slight foxing and waterstaining to matte, not concerning the painting.
4to. (14), 591, (23) pp, final blank. With additional engr. title page (frontispiece), 4 full-page text woodcuts (2 folding) and several smaller woodcuts in the text, as well as 1 folding woodcut plate, latterly backed with cloth. Sumptuous mid-19th-century three quarter morocco binding with gilt spine. Extremely rare and early edition of this great English hippiatric manual, first published in 1615, by one of the earliest Western owners of and dealers in Arabian horses. A distinctly modern touch is provided by the small woodcut pointing hands scattered about the margins, denoting new cures and "medicines that are most certaine and approved; and heretofore never published". Gervase (Gervais, Jarvis) Markham, as well as his father Robert, a Nottinghamshire MP and Sheriff, was the owner of valuable horses, and "is said to have imported the first Arab. In a list of Sir Henry Sidney's horses in 1589 'Pied Markham' is entered as having been sold to the French ambassador [and it, or a horse of the same name, may have been given to Markham by Sir Francis Walsingham], and Gervase sold an Arabian horse to James I for £500" (DNB). - Variously browned; occasional corner faults (no loss to text). From the library of Sir Robert Throckmorton, Bt. (1800-62), member of an eminent Anglo-Catholic noble family who sat in the House of Commons from 1831 to 1835 (his bookplate on front pastedown; a later bookplate is opposite on the flyleaf). Wing M659. Poynter 20.7. Wellcome IV, 56 (incomplete). Cf. Mennessier de la Lance II, 156. Huth p. 17 (other editions).
Folio (490 x 375 mm). (2), 70 pp. With lithographed title-page and 48 lithogr. plates. Contemporary giltstamped half calf. Rare, elaborately produced publication about Maximilian's journey to Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, Syria, and Malta, on which he was accompanied by the artist Heinrich Mayr. The harem and market scenes are obviously indebted to the French orientalist tradition; several plates show details of architecture, costumes, camel and horse care, etc. They are not identical with the better known plates in Mayr's earlier "Malerische Ansichten aus dem Orient" (Leipzig 1839). - Spine professionally rebacked. Foxing throughout, mainly confined to the plates' margins. Blackmer 1101 (French ed.). Ibrahim-Hilmy II, 26. Tobler 161. Rohricht 1871. Lipperheide Ma 28 (French ed.). Thieme/B. 477 (citing 36 plates only). Kainbacher 299, 2 ("RR").
4to. 12 double-page maps with accompanying Latin text, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary decorated calf gilt. Johannes Matalius Metellus (ca. 1517-97) was a French jurist who spent his early life travelling in Italy. Later Metellus moved to Louvain. Around 1579, he became involved in Cologne's cartographic publishing industry, when he is thought to have contributed to the "Itinerarium Orbis Christiani". He also contributed a description of Lyon to Braun & Hogenberg's "Civitates Orbis Terrarum". There is a very attractive map of Arabia. "His map of Japan is the earliest known copy of Teixeira's map, which had appeared in Ortelius" (Walter 20). Metellus was a friend of Matthias Quad, whose name is sometimes associated with the posthumous completion of the Metellus atlas of the Americas (it was published in 1598; Metellus is thought to have died in 1597). The cartographer was also in correspondence with Abraham Ortelius. At one point he gave Ortelius assistance collating Ptolemy's Cosmography with manuscripts in the Vatican. This was evidently needed for the completion of Ortelius's "Parergon Theatri". - Minor foxing generally not affecting maps, minor worming. Al-Qasimi 36. Tibbetts 59. H. P. Kraus, Monumenta Cartographica, items 45 & 52.
Folio (202 x 330 - 214 x 325 mm). Together 39 pp. Three typescript drafts in French and English of the 1957 Petroleum Act, a pioneering document of contractual relationships in the oil industry. The personal copies of Fuad Rouhani (1907-2004), later the first Secretary General of OPEC, with his annotations. - In the years immediately following the signing of the 1954 Consortium Agreement, the historic agreement that provided Western oil companies with 50% ownership in Iranian oil production, the fledgling national Iranian oil Industry received an enormous moral boost from the exploration activities conducted around Qom. The discovery of the Alborz oilfield and the Sarajeh gas field by the Iranian Oil Company not only proved Iran's growing technical capacity but it also helped to give Iran a prestige not hitherto enjoyed by any other oil producing and exporting country. Against this background it is therefore hardly surprising that when Enrico Mattei, the Chairman of ENI (the Italian State Oil Company), decided to look for oil supplies in the Middle East by offering new contractual terms, he should turn to Iran and that the government of Iran and the NIOC should greet him with open arms. What had prompted Mattei to come forward with the participation formula was his resentment at the treatment he had received from the major oil companies by being excluded from the Consortium Agreement. Since access to crude oil resources was of utmost importance for Italy and ENI, a way had to be found for entry into the Middle East oil scene. NIOC and ENI thus pioneered a new form of contractual relationship, thereafter known as 75/25 profit sharing, breaking the hallowed fifty-fifty arrangement and heralding a new era in international oil agreements. - Traces of stapling; margins somewhat worn.
Large folio (295 x 479 mm). 2 vols. (12), XXXIV, 124 pp. (4), VIII, 155, (1) pp. With engraved frontispiece, engraved portrait, 19 engraved vignettes, 10 engraved initials, and 162 engravings on 161 plates. Modern half cloth. First English edition of one "of the earliest modern studies of Egypt" (Howgego). - "The first map of the Nile between Cairo and Derr based on autopsy, indicating all locales on the river banks" (cf. Henze). The engravings show views, landscapes, ruins, antiquities, plans, and maps. Plates numbered I through CLIX; plates XVI, XXII and XVII are followed by an unnumbered plate; illustrations CXL/CXLI and CXLII/CXLIII are printed from a single plate; no. CVIII is printed from two separate plates and is not joined to form a single illustration (thus counted as two plates). - Some edge repairs near beginning and end; several plates trimmed closely. All plates stamped "Birmingham Library". Endpapers show traces of a removed bookplate, as well as a later bookplate (apparently "Fritz Machac") in hieroglyphs. Howgego I, N38. Weber II, 520. Ibrahim-Hilmy II, 74. Cox I, 382. Brunet IV, 101. Graesse IV, 687. OCLC 5716565. Cf. Gay 2169. Henze III, 622. Paulitschke 746. Blackmer 1212 (2 volumes in one).
Folio (235 x 320 mm). 2 vols. in one. (58), 614, (42) pp. (12), 632, (86) pp. Elaborate woodcut device on title-page; woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary calf, spine in six compartments, tooled and lettered in gilt. Pliny's renowned Natural History in its second publication in English (repeating, with corrections, the 1601 first publication), translated by Philemon Holland, the greatest translator of the Elizabethan age. The "Naturalis Historia" is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to the author. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work. It comprised 37 books in 10 volumes and covered over 20.000 facts on topics including the fields of botany, zoology, astronomy, geology and mineralogy as well as the exploitation of those resources. It remains a standard work for the Roman period and the advances in technology and understanding of natural phenomena at the time. Some technical advances he discusses are the only sources for those inventions, such as hushing in mining technology or the use of water mills for crushing or grinding corn. Much of what he wrote about has been confirmed by archaeology. "We know from Pliny that there were important pearl fisheries in the Gulf [...] Pliny identifies Tylos (Bahrain) as a place famous for its pearls [... He] attests that pearls were the most highly rated valuable in Roman society, and that those from the Gulf were specially praised [...] The pearl related finds at the site of El-Dur indicate the site was integrated into the maritime trade routes linking the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, India and South Arabia" (Carter). Book 6 holds a chapter that gives the first detailed account of the regions around the Gulf, including what are now Qatar, the Emirates and Oman. - Binding rubbed; front hinge splitting. Includes the final printed leaf in vol. 2, containing the publisher's advertisement to the reader that all errors have been corrected in the present edition and the errata leaf (included in the same position in 1601) has become unnecessary rather than having been mistakenly omitted. Some slight browning and brownstaining, but an excellent copy removed in 1973 from the Royal Meteorological Society (Symons Bequest, 1900) with their bookplate on the front pastedown. STC 20030. Cf. Pforzheimer 496 (1601 ed.).
4to. 3 vols. (in 6 parts) bound as 6. XXXVI, 219, (1), (11), 224-491, (1) pp. (12), 262 pp., (1 blank f.), VIII, (3), 268-376, 397-519, (1) pp. VIII, 262 pp., (1 blank f.), VIII, (3), 268-403, (1) pp. (4), 115, (1), 124 pp. With 205 engraved folding plates (irregularly numbered I-CIII), including maps, plans, views and other illustrations, depicting temples, antiquities, plants, animals, etc. Contemporary half calf, gold fillets and two title-labels on spines, sprinkled paper sides. First edition of the Dutch translation of Pococke's celebrated monograph on the Near and Middle East, praised by Gibbon as a work of "superior learning and dignity" (Decline and Fall, ch. 11, n. 69). This Dutch edition was augmented with 27 plates, an essay by the minister Rutger Schutte on the travels of the Israelites, and a index to Biblical locations found in the main work. - "Pococke travelled extensively in Europe from 1733 to 1736 and continued on to the Levant, reaching Alexandria in September 1737. He remained three years in the Eastern Mediterranean, visiting Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor and Greece. His book describes these journeys but not necessarily in chronological order. The plates of antiquities are after drawings by Pococke himself ... Pococke achieved a great reputation with this publication; the work was very popular during his lifetime and was praised by Gibbon" (Blackmer). "The quality and particularly the earliness of his observations and their record in prose, maps, and diagrams make him one of the most important near eastern travellers, ranking with Frederik Ludvig Norden and Carsten Niebuhr, in stimulating an Egyptian revival in European art and architecture, and recording much that has subsequently been lost" (ODNB). - A couple of plates in the last volume slightly browned and a few spots on the first few leaves of the first volume, otherwise a very good copy, with the leaves nearly untrimmed. The bindings somewhat rubbed along the extremities (primarily the spines), but otherwise good. Cox I, 224. Tiele, Bibl. 869. Cf. Blackmer 1323 (English ed.); for the author: Baigent, "Pococke, Richard (1704-1765"; in: ODNB (online ed.).
Folio. 31 tinted lithographed plates, all with partial hand-colouring. Contemporary red half morocco gilt. Second edition of one of the most sought-after and earliest publications by Prisse d'Avennes, who spent many years in Egypt after 1826, first as an engineer in the service of Mehmet Ali. After 1836 he explored Egypt disguised as an Arab, using the name Edris Effendi; during this period he carried out archaeological excavations in the valley of the Nile. In 1848 he first published his "Oriental Album". This unusual visual collection of "characters, costumes and modes of life in the valley of the Nile" is augmented by a commentary by the renowned orientalist and Egyptologist James Augustus St. John. - The frontispiece portrait depicts the artist's friend George Lloyd in the robes of a sheikh reclining with a hookah, and camels in the background. Lloyd, a botanist accompanying the expedition, accidentally shot himself whilst cleaning a rifle. - Light foxing, affecting some plates, with 2 plates trimmed at foot and laid down. Atabey 1001. Blackmer 1357. Colas 2427. OCLC 4423031. Cf. Brunet IV, 885 (1st ed. only). Heritage Library, Islamic Treasures, s. v. "Art" (illustration). Not in Abbey. Lipperheide Ma 30 (1st ed.).
8vo. Letterpress title page and 40 engr. plates by James and Henry Roberts, engr. index leaf, and publisher's 4-page catalogue (with woodcut image of cocks fighting). Stitched in wrappers. Fine series of plates, each depicting a famous horse with his rider or stable-hand, and recording its pedigree, qualities and racing record, together with the owner's name. The final plate shows the most famous of all, the Godolphin Arabian (here called the "Bay Arabian, the property of the Right Hon.ble the Earl of Godolphin"), foaled in Yemen around 1724: "This extraordinary horse became a private stallion soon after his arrival in this kingdom, and got a greater number of fine horses of just temper with superior speed than any Arab ever did. He was the Sire of Lath, Dismal, Cade, Bajazet, Babraham, Phenix, Dormouse, Regulus, Skewball, Sultan, Blanck, Slugg, Noble, Tarquin, Blossom, the Godolphin Gelding, Shepherdess, Amelia, and many others besides stallions and brood mares, all in the highest esteem; he dies at Hogmagogg Hills, Dec. 1753, in the 29th year of his age". - Among the other horses are Lath, the Godolphin Arabian's offspring by Roxana; Basto (son of the Byerly Turk); Old Scar, whose ancestry included the Oglethorpe Arabian and Darcy's Yellow Turk, etc. The horses pictured all ran between 1708 and 1755. The first edition was published in about 1760, and this Barker edition some forty years later. This copy has no watermarks, but the books listed in J. Barker's catalogue of publications were mostly published in the 1790s. - Spine rubbed and bumped; slight wear to edges and corners. An excellent copy with two small tears imperceptibly restored. Of the utmost rarity: the only copy recorded at auction during the last decades is the Gloucester copy (Christie's, Jan. 27, 2006, lot 592). Huth, p. 38. Cf. Podeschi 54.
8vo (223 x 148 mm). 40 engraved plates, some with vignette at foot, engraved index leaf. Modern olive green morocco gilt by Eighton, covers with triple gilt fillet, spine in six compartments, gilt lettered direct in second, others richly gilt, raised bands, top edge gilt. Fine series of plates, each depicting a famous horse with his rider or stable-hand, and recording its pedigree, qualities and racing record, together with the owner's name. The final plate shows the most famous of all, the Godolphin Arabian (here called the "Bay Arabian, the property of the Right Hon.ble the Earl of Godolphin"), foaled in Yemen around 1724: "This extraordinary horse became a private stallion soon after his arrival in this kingdom, and got a greater number of fine horses of just temper with superior speed than any Arab ever did. He was the Sire of Lath, Dismal, Cade, Bajazet, Babraham, Phenix, Dormouse, Regulus, Skewball, Sultan, Blanck, Slugg, Noble, Tarquin, Blossom, the Godolphin Gelding, Shepherdess, Amelia, and many others besides stallions and brood mares, all in the highest esteem; he died at Hogmagogg Hills, Dec. 1753, in the 29th year of his age". - Among the other horses are Lath, the Godolphin Arabian's offspring by Roxana; Basto (son of the Byerly Turk); Old Scar, whose ancestry included the Oglethorpe Arabian and Darcy's Yellow Turk, etc. The horses pictured all ran between 1708 and 1755. The first edition was published in about 1760. Rare, only two copies recorded in ABPC/AE Online. ESTC records two issues, one published and sold by Henry Roberts, the other printed for R. and R. Baldwin (as here): just one location is given for the first issue (Winterthur), and one for the second (BL). Huth records the work under a variant title, and also notes an 1820 edition. - Plate 12 shorter at margins, some spotting and browning, heavier at margins. A most handsome copy. Huth 38.
4to. 116 ff. With 26 illuminated miniatures. Native paper heavily gilt, illuminated in a fine calligraphic hand, with attractive borders. Decorated cloth. A highly interesting Persian manuscript in Nastaliq style containing the two major works of the celebrated Persian poet (1184-1291). "Gulistan" ("The Rose Garden", 1258) and "Bustan" ("The Orchard", 1257) are both filled with semi-autobiographical stories, philosophical meditations, pieces of practical wisdom, and humorous anecdotes and observations, depicted in 26 miniatures in this manuscript. - Binding rubbed and chafed, spine damaged. Some of the miniatures slightly rubbed.
Folio (full-sheet leaves, 54 x 36.5 cm). Lithographed frontispiece, title-page & dedication plus 5, [1 blank] pp. plus plates. With a lithographed frontispiece portrait of Sale by Thomas Fairland after a painting by Scarlet Davis, a lithographed illustrated title-page, a lithographed dedication to Queen Victoria (reproducing Sale's hand-written and signed dedication), a double-page "Plan of Jellalabad" (51.5 x 60 cm, lithographed by S. Leith in Edinburgh) and 34 tinted lithographic views of the city and its fortifications (in landscape format) on 22 leaves (10 full-page, 2 half-page and 11 pair of oblong half-page, numbered 1-11, showing the fortifications before and after repairs and improvements). All leaves are unwatermarked wove paper, the frontispiece on fine "India" paper mounted on thick paper, the plan on thin paper and all other lithographs on thick paper, that of the title-page grey. With a guard-leaf bound in facing each plate. All lithographs were probably printed by Hullmandel & Walton, though only the frontispiece and title-page name them. Gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, on 5 recessed supports (not aligned with the 6 false bands on the spine), each board with a frame of 3 gold double fillets alternating with 2 blind single fillets, with the title and author on the front board and the 2nd and 4th of 7 spine compartments, richly gold-tooled turn-ins, gold-tooled board edges, yellow endpapers, gilt edges, blue and white headbands. The first and only edition of a grand and spectacular visual presentation (there are only five pages of text) of the city of Jalalabad and its fortifications in eastern Afghanistan and related sites as far away as Kabul. The illustrated title-page (image size 45 x 35 cm) shows the tower known as Alexander's Column, with mountains and clouds in the background and several people at its foot (including two on horseback in the foreground: a British officer and turbaned man), the whole framed by palm trees, other plants and military attributes, with the title in grey sans-serif and slab-serif capitals with a white drop-shadow. The first 11 leaves of views (2 half-page and 10 full-page, the latter mostly with image size 26.5 x 37 cm) offer meticulously detailed views of sites in and related to Jalalabad, including four in and around Kabul. These show the architecture (including minarets, fortifications and the building where the British were held prisoner) as well as British and Afghan people engaged in military activities and trade. The 11 numbered plates that follow show two panoramas each (nos. 1 and 10 reproducing a hand-written caption) showing Jalalabad's fortifications before (below) and after (above) the repairs and improvements undertaken by Sale. A red line in the upper views indicates the parts that had been destroyed by an earthquake. - Although the title-page attributes the entire work to Robert Sale, the text begins with an account of the city and battle by Hamlet C. Wade, who served under him, followed by "Lady [Florentia] Sale's narrative of her prison & fellow prisoners" and eight short texts giving an account of the view on the title-page and those in the first 10 leaves of views (the 4th to 6th together and the 9th and 10th together), that for the third signed by Florentia Sale. - The grand presentation, the portrait of the author (Major General Robert Sale, who commanded the troops at Jalalabad during the 1842 battle) and the dedication to Queen Victoria suggest this volume commemorates a great success, but in fact it was only a minor and short-lived reprieve in Great Britain's foolish and disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842). In 1839 Great Britain hoped to put Afghanistan back under colonial control by invading it and taking Kabul, ignoring the Duke of Wellington's prescient warning that it was a foolish move, and that they would find it much more difficult to hold Kabul than to take it. The British grossly underestimated the strength of the opposition, the difficulty of the terrain and the country's anti-colonial sentiment. Forced to abandon the city after an uprising in 1841 they tried to retreat to Jalalabad but nearly all the British troops and their entourage were slaughtered in the treacherous mountain passes. Sale's troops, who futilely awaited them in Jalalabad, were surrounded and attacked by the Afghans but managed to defeat them and drive them back to Kabul. - Various sources speculatively date the present publication from ca. 1842 to ca. 1846, but at least in the present copy a footnote on the first page of the letterpress text says, "Since this has been put to press … Sir Robert Sale has gloriously fallen in the battle of Moodkee, fought 18 December, 1845 ... he was struck by a grape shot which ... proved mortal shortly after he received the wound". He died on 21 December, so the book must have been published in the last 10 days of 1845 or early in 1846. Although printed on unwatermarked wove paper, the letterpress leaves show point holes in the centres of the fore-edge and gutter margins, showing that each leaf was separately printed and each is almost certainly a whole sheet, probably of Demy format. - With an armorial bookplate showing the crest and motto ("sans changer") of the Earls of Derby, probably the 14th Earl, Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley (1799-1869), Conservative Prime Minister three times in the years 1852-68. With minor foxing, slightly more in the frontispiece and much more in one full-page plate (Baba's garden, whose paper is not as thick as the others), but otherwise in very good condition. The frontispiece (together with the 2 preceding free endleaves) has separated from the bookblock, the hinges have been restored and the binding shows a few scuff marks, but the binding remains in good condition. Magnificent and detailed tinted lithographs of buildings, fortifications, terrain and life in and around Jalalabad (and Kabul) in Afghanistan ca. 1845. Thomson, The exotic and the beautiful (Bobins coll.) 268. WorldCat (3 copies?). Not in Abbey, Travel.
4to. (8), 200 pp. With 8 engraved plates (some with touches of colour, two folded). - (Bound with) II: Wenner, Adam. Türckisches Reisebuch von Prag aus biß gen Constantinopel [...]. Nuremberg, Johann Andreas Endter & Wolfgang Endter's heirs, 1665. (8), 135, (5) pp. Title printed in red and black. Contemporary full vellum with handwritten title to spine. Exceedingly rare Mediterranean travelogue: one of two German editions published in the same year (the other, an entirely different translation, by Cunradus in Amsterdam; the Nuremberg edition cited by several bibliographies is fictitious). Dutch editions had previously appeared in 1649 (the first) and in 1661. Although the Amsterdam-published German edition dates the journey to 1640-42, the Dutch first edition as well as the present translation make it clear that it had taken place as early as 1590-92! Somer's voyage began inauspiciously - he was captured by a Turkish galley in the harbour of Famagusta and briefly enslaved, but was soon set free after the French consul at Alexandria intervened for him. In spite of this episode, he travelled the Ottoman Empire at a time of relative peace (the Long Turkish War with the Habsburgs would not break out until 1593), spending several months in Egypt, Constantinople and Palestine. His colourful account includes a description of desert sandstorms and the trade in Egyptian mummies (not all of them ancient) as well as extensive chapters on Constantinople, the Ottoman court, the ubiquitous baths, Turkish customs and manners, the Muslim faith, curses and magic, etc. Somer returned via then-Ottoman Greece and Hungary, which he also describes. An appendix (pp. 170ff.) contains A. Stockram's topical account of the voyage of the Dutch ship Arnheim, which foundered off Mauritius on the return from Batavia. The translation is credited to "Philemerus Irenicus Elisius" (i.e., Martin Meyer). Rare; the last copy in auction records sold in 1983 (Erasmushaus, an incomplete reissue with only 5 views). - Bound after this is the second edition of A. Wenner's narrative of the Imperial embassy to the Porte in 1616-18, to ratify the Treaty of Zsitvatorok. Wenner served as secretary to the embassy; his "book is a day-to-day account of the journey to Constantinople from Prague, and includes a list of all the entourage from nobles to the apothecary, goldsmith, musicians, tailors, cooks, and so on. A list of presents for the sultan, with their values, is also given" (Atabey). The Treaty of Zsitvatorok "was a landmark in Turkish-European diplomatic relations, when the Turks first began to observe the general principles and courtesies of international law, and to exchange special ambassadors on an equal footing with European nations" (Blackmer). - Some browning throughout due to paper, more pronounced in Somer's work, the title-page of which shows an unobtrusive tear in the upper edge. Contemporary handwritten ownership "Bocken" to recto of flyleaf; verso has stamp and 1978 ownership of the Viennese collector Werner Habel (1939-2015). I: VD 17, 23:231760C. Tobler 86. Röhricht p. 217, no. 820. Paulitschke 532; Ternaux-Compans, Bibliothèque asiatique et africaine, 1977 (both have "Nuremberg" in error for Frankfurt). Cf. Weber II, 216 (Amsterdam German ed.); Kat d. Scheepvart Mus. I, 254f. (Dutch eds.). Not in Atabey, Blackmer, Aboussouan, Howgego, Henze, Cox, or Chauvin. - II: VD 17, 23:234557B. Cf. Atabey 1326; Blackmer 1783; Brunet VI.2, 435 (all for the 1622 first edition). Not in Röhricht, Tobler, Aboussouan or Brunet.