Browse

A nice collection of eleven physiologies, one of the many such little books illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7).

A nice collection of physiologies, one of the many such little books illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7). Richard Sieburth, ‘Same difference: the French Physiologies, 1840–1842’, Notebooks in Cultural Analysis (Duke UP, 1984), pp. 163–200.

A nice collection of eight physiologies, one of the many such little books illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7). Richard Sieburth, ‘Same difference: the French Physiologies, 1840–1842’, Notebooks in Cultural Analysis (Duke UP, 1984), pp. 163–200.

A satire on contemporary student life, one of the many such little books illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7). Richard Sieburth, ‘Same difference: the French Physiologies, 1840–1842’, Notebooks in Cultural Analysis (Duke UP, 1984), pp. 163–200.

A satire on contemporary fashion, one of the many such little books illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7). Richard Sieburth, ‘Same difference: the French Physiologies, 1840–1842’, Notebooks in Cultural Analysis (Duke UP, 1984), pp. 163–200.

A satire on educated women, one of the many such little books illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7). Richard Sieburth, ‘Same difference: the French Physiologies, 1840–1842’, Notebooks in Cultural Analysis, (Duke UP, 1984), pp. 163–200.

A diminutive juvenile magazine for a single year, Spring to Winter, in eight parts which were probably first kept separately in bluish paper wrappers then soon bound together in cloth. Young George Grove records Black Country landmarks with some good thumbnail drawings (including West Bromwich Church, the New Wesleyan Chapel and Telford’s Galton Bridge) together with seasonal nature notes and accounts of natural phenomena. Each issue contains a section on astronomy (with diagrams) and on dogs and (latterly) cats with several breeds depicted. There are also some original stories, including ‘The School Girls’ and additional ‘scraps’ and riddles.

First edition. A major catalogue of over 700 Empire-style neoclassical plaster ornaments for exteriors and interiors, plus some schemes for entire rooms. Beunat had evidently learned the art of plaster moulding in England before patenting his method in France and establishing his factory at Sarrebourg (Moselle) in 1805.

An illustrated companion to the private china collection of Mrs Sophia Wilson of Ledstone (Yorks), beginning a history of ceramics from its beginning to the date of composition, including the origins of porcelain in China, and recent developments in Europe by Wedgwood and the factories of Sèvres, Dresden and Berlin. There is also an interesting account of the process of contemporary British transfer decoration, illustrated with an original transfer paper:

‘When the paper comes from the printing press, it is, of course, found to be stamped with the intended pattern. It is then delivered, while wet with the colour, to a girl, who cuts off the supefluous paper with a pair of scissors, and passes it to another girl, who immediately applies it to a piece of biscuit ware, and then delivers it to a third who fixes it more firmly by rubbing it very hard with a piece of flannel tightly rolled’ [and so on].

The lithographs are evidently original (and probably not published elsewhere) and the manuscript may have been destined for private publication in lithograph, since we know that Dodds prepared a similar collection guide for Mrs Wilson’s collection of fossils Companion to the Minerals and Fossils, Contained in the Ledstone Museum (1827), privately printed. It is also known that the Wilsons had moved by 1834 to another part of Yorkshire, living at Oxton Hall near Tadcaster from 1841.

Sophia Wilson was evidently a major collector. The last few pages of the manuscript contain a description of her china rooms: with a vast Chinese ceiling lamp, two Sèvres urns (the gift of George IV), ‘a group representing a bower formed of espaliers and flowers in which is a negro with a flower basket, the gift of the Marchioness of Hertford’, together with other gifts from the Earl of Strathmore, the Countess of Darlington, Countess Fitzwilliam and the Countess of Lonsdale (and several others).

The author, George Dodds, was curate of Rochdale (Lancs), then Gainsborough (Lincs). He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge and became chaplain to the Marquis of Queensberry.

First edition of probbaly the first book dedicated exclusively to calico printing (L’indienne). The author describes pattern design, woodblock cutting, methods of block printing, and numerous colour formulae. The latter, as explained in the introduction can equally be adapted to silk dying and painting for makers of artificial flowers, for fan painting and for colouring straw, wood, leather and paper. The book also provides a valuable account of the different designs ‘a l’indienne’ (chintz) then in vogue.

Printed calicos were the dominant force in English and French fashion of the eighteenth-century, having first been introduced as original imported from India in the seventeenth century and then eagerly copied by Europeans. By Delormois’s time, the English led the way in technical innovation, but were soon matched by the superb productions of pioneers such as Oberkampf, the originator of toile de jouy.

Separately published, the work was marketed as a ‘suite’ to Delormois’s ealrier Nouveau Teinturier parfait (1716), and contains a half-title and drophead title to that effect.

Lettice Hallett (1787–1859) was the eldest daughter of the Radical reformer William Hallett of Denford Park, near Kintbury, in Berkshire. She married solicitor Nash Crosier Hilliard (1789–1844), of Grey’s Inn, in 1819. The three-page section of writing here, dated 20 November 1825, records ‘A list of the several person of the respective Families of Nash Crosier Hilliard and of Lettice Elizabeth Hilliard living at this Period’: Hilliards, Halletts, Nelsons, and Fowles. The first section, for which the book has been turned on its side, in oblong format, contains poetry: a 24-line poem ‘On Science’ (‘E’er yet the Morn of Science rose on Earth …’) by ‘W. D.’; ‘Lines found deeply engraved on the Bark of a large Tree in the Neighbourhood of Mentz [i.e. Mainz] in Germany’; ‘Music’ by William Strode (1598–1645; ‘When whispering strains do softly steal …’); ‘To a Friend in Distress’ (‘Shrink not to meet with adverse fate or part, / When black the scene, then bravely arm your heart …’); ‘The Morning before the Ball’, ‘The Morning after the Ball’, and extracts from ‘The Traveller’ and ‘The Deserted Village’ by Goldsmith.

The other end of the book (for which the book has been flipped over to write) is taken up by a history of England, seemingly paraphrased, and expanded, by Lettice from Trusler’s Compendium of Useful Knowledge (1784 and later editions), from the Ancient Britons up to William the Conqueror and his sons.

A miniature lotto set, rare complete with all the printed cards and counters.

First edition with an illustration. A treatise on miniature painting on glass, in the form of a dialogue between the author and his female pupil, a marquise. Vispré’s method was based on the transfer application of an engraving to a glass or mirrored surface, allowing the amateur artist to make superb reproductions in ‘under three hours’. The book, which first appeared in 1755 (without a plate), seems to have been as much an advertisement for Vispré as both a tutor and supplier of artists’ materials to a fashionable clientele, and the two earlier editions (like this one, surprisingly rare) give his address in the rue Pavée, beside the Comédie Italienne.

By 1766, when this edition appeared, Vispré had settled in London making his way as a successful portrait painter and miniaturist, exhibiting first with the Society of Artists and then quite frequently at the Royal Academy. This edition is the first to include a plate, perhaps designed to be used by the pupil as a test piece.

A striking and well preserved dressed print cut from one of the popular devotional prints by Martin Engelbrecht. The weeping Magdalene has been laid to a glazed paper giving a dramatic black-sky background, her robes are embellished with three different brocade fabrics (two with metallic thread), and the print further enhanced with hand-colouring, some metallic lace and ground glass. As often, the ‘dressing’ has been ingeniously applied both under and over the surface of the original engraving. The print includes Mary’s traditional attributes of a cross, a book, a myrrh jar and skull, while her left foot rests on a globe or orb.

The fashion for ‘dressing’ prints existed probably from the origin of printed illustrations themselves, though it was a widespread, predominantly female recreation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often with a devotional intent. It is hard to be sure when the print was dressed or adorned. The print dates from the mid eighteenth century. Having been stitched at 10 points around the margin to a ruled backing paper, it must have been framed in the following century, to judge by the framer’s label. The colouring and character of the applied materials suggest it was adorned in the eighteenth century, though the problem of dating is compounded by the widespread use and recycling of earlier materials. Altered and Adorned by Suzanne Karr Schmidt

An atmospheric series of watercoloured prints of the German-controlled Dutch-Belgian border in 1915, some showing the German electric fence, by a Belgian artist in exile in Holland. Issued in very small numbers (perhaps no more than 20 copies), it is marked ‘Série 1’, but no more were produced.

In 1915, to put an end to clandestine cross-border traffic, the German authorities decided to close the border between Holland and Belgium, by erecting a high-voltage wire fence. It was erected between April and August 1915. On Belgian territory, it ran from the German border, just behind Vaals (Limbourg), all the way to the Belgian coast. The Elektrische Grenzabsperrungszaun claimed many lives, often due to a lack of knowledge of how electricity works, but very quickly, and smugglers refined their methods and the border was never completely sealed.

Willems had studied in England (notably the watercolours of Turner) but was at home with his family in Belgium when war broke out, fleeing to Holland in 1914, where these remarkable and evocative prints were produced and published the following year.

The present aquatint was produced by physionotrace, ‘the first system invented to produce multiple copies of a portrait, invented in 1786 by Gilles-Louis Chrétien (1774–1811). In his apparatus a profile cast by a lamp onto a glass plate was traced by an operator using a pointer connected, by a system of levers like a pantograph, to an engraving tool moving over a copper plate. The aquatint and roulette finished engraved intaglio plate, usually circular and small (50 mm), with details of features and costume, could be inked and printed many times. One description mentions that a sitting could take as little as six minutes and within four days a dozen impressions could be delivered, hand-colored if desired, with the copper plate, for fifteen francs …

‘Physionotrace was very popular in France, where it had a detrimental effect on miniature painting and engraving. At the Salon of 1793, one hundred physionotrace portraits where exhibited. Three years later that number increased to six hundred. The physionotrace portrait replaced the miniature and was used as frontispiece illustrations in a number of books, but it was not until the advent of photography that the portrait was truly democratized’ (Photoconservation.com, sub Printing Processes). Thomas Jefferson had his portrait done in Paris by physionotrace in 1789 (now lost, though a print was made in 1801: see Alfred L. Bush, The Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson, p. 9).

Chrétien was a cellist in the chambre du roi at Versailles and worked initially with the miniaturist Edme Quenedey des Riceys to produce his portraits. They separated in 1789, and Chrétien went into partnership with the engraver Jean Fouquet (d.1799), responsible for the etching here. The subject is Edme Mentelle (1730–1815), geographer, who was elected to the Institut de France in 1795.

A large Victorian indenture later decorated by Angus McBean as a surrealist collage, depicting Pamela Stanley as the young Queen Victoria in Laurence Houseman’s Victoria regina at the Gate Theatre in 1938. The photograph is derived from the surreal series done for and published in the weekly Sketch magazine. In 1937 the Lord Chamberlain ruled that no British sovereign may be portrayed on the stage until 100 years after his or her accession. For this reason, Houseman’s Victoria Regina could not be staged until the centenary of Queen Victoria's accession, 20 June 1937.

The photograph (head and arms) is McBean’s’ Pamela Stanley (Lady Cunynghame) as Queen Victoria in 'Victoria Regina'’ (Laurence Houseman), bromide print, 1938 (original size 289 mm x 239 mm).

The Hon. Margaret Pamela Stanley was the daughter of the 5th Baron Stanley of Alderley and acted on the stage and in films in the 1930s as Pamela Stanley. Her greatest success was as Queen Victoria in Laurence Housman’s Victoria Regina, first presented in 1935. Stanley subsequently appeared on Broadway as Ophelia opposite Leslie Howard in Hamlet before a triumphant return to London in her role as Queen Victoria in June 1937. Provenance: The Angus McBean Collection, 12 April 2013, Lacy, Scott & Knight (Bury St Edmunds), lot 242.

A ladder-shaped folding toy — rare graphic satire on the separation of George IV and Queen Caroline published after the opening of the ‘trial’ of Queen Caroline on 17 August 1820. It was printed to be sold with a popular pamphlet of the same name, which ran to numerous editions that year, but the two are rarely found preserved together, and the toy/print very rare (lacking in most library copies). This copy has never been folded into a ladder and is loose, as sold, in its original plain paper wrapper. The form of the print is based on another contemporary paper toy (The Matrimonial Ladder) on the ups and downs of marriage, which was being offered by sellers of books, prints and novelties in 1820.

‘George IV’s determination, following his succession to the throne in 1820, to finally obtain a divorce from his estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick, sparked an opposition campaign, both in Parliament and in the country, which threatened the survival of Lord Liverpool’s Tory administration. It also led to extensive proceedings in the House of Lords, which took on the appearance of a state trial. On 5 June 1820 Caroline, who had been living abroad for the past six years, arrived unexpectedly in England to claim her right to be crowned queen. The government, under intense pressure from the king, reluctantly agreed to introduce a bill of pains and penalties into the House of Lords, which would have annulled the royal marriage and deprived Caroline of her title. She thereupon became the unlikely beneficiary of a wave of indignant public sympathy, being perceived as a ‘wronged woman’ who was bravely struggling to uphold her rights against a callous political establishment’ (’The Queen Caroline Affair, 1820’ in The History of Parliament, online). BM Satires 13808

Very scarce. A set of 12 lively portraits: Africans, Austrians, Hungarians, Illyrians, Italians, Poles, Russians, Scotch, Spaniards, Styrians, Swiss, Turks. Ford, J. Ackermann, p. 226.

First edition, unnumbered copy reserved for the author, and inscribed by him (the edition was of 216 copies). An important cubist collaboration.

Dermée was a Belgian avant garde poet, discovered by the Tristan Tzara and the Dadaists when he moved to Paris in 1910. He knew Apollinaire, Picasso, Jacob and the Dealaunays. Polish-born Marcoussis was exhibited with the Section d’Or and was close to Apollinaire before the Great War. The 1920s witnessed his most intensive period of printmaking. Worldcat finds no copies in the UK or US (though there is a copy in the Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco).