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Afia Rezk, a Syrian textile artist now living and working in Paris, creates large scale textile installations using traditional weaving techniques. Here she has combined woven textile with monotypes printed from textiles to create a haunting artist’s book meditating on her own personal narratives woven into text/ile. Afia Rezk was born in 1980. She arrived in France with her family in May 2018. From childhood, influenced by Syrian crafts, she has used organic elements, living materials in constant mutation under the effect of oxidation, reduction and biodegradation. Her plastic research combines painting, collage, print, ceramics, weaving and installation. She studied Arabic literature at Damascus University before turning to the visual arts; she worked extensively in Syria before fleeing the war, leading workshops in both art and theatre as interactive practices to help families in emergency situations, as well as children and female victims of war. She has exhibited in Syria, Lebanon, France, Sweden, Swi and Germany and is a member the Agency of Artists in Exile in France.

‘In the garden of our house in southern Syria, the olive trees were imbued with love and blessings. This small patch of land was the site of my daily rituals. Every morning, after my walk, I eagerly returned to slip behind the house into the shade of the olive trees. I would take off my shoes before entering, as if I were stepping into a sacred place. Under the trees, I breathed in serenity, as if the earth itself pulsed to my own rhythms. Often, my mother would join me with her maté, and together we would share precious moments and stories etched in my heart and memory.
Last July, approximately 36 villages were burned in my native region of Suwayda by armed groups affiliated with what is known as the ‘interim government’. Most of these houses had land planted with olive trees.
Burning an olive tree is like burning a memory, rituals, seasons, stories, and roots.
This work is an attempt to keep alive the trace of what remains. Les murmures de l’olivier’.

The largest and most elaborate of Diane de Bournazel’s recent books, Rondes de nuit explores the possibilities and mysteries of the night, both from the human perspective of sleep, rest and dreaming, as well as the unseen life of the natural world in darkness and the infinite expanses of the night sky. At the centre of every page is a circular void, corresponding with depictions of the full moon at either end of the book, which can be seen in every opening. Each circular hole is illuminated to form a rebus or mandala, sometimes reminiscent of the visionary medieval manuscripts of the contemplative mystic, Hildegard of Bingen (notably Scivias and Liber divinorum operum). Elsewhere, figures float in space (one can be rocked back-and-forth as a moveable part) or participate in an eternal dance of life (and death). Lest we should see this as an evocation of the books of a distant past, a tiny floating space station against the night sky reminds of the artist’s contemporaneity.

The title, Contre jours, is enigmatic, firstly suggesting ‘backlighting’ (a literal translation of contre jour) in optical terms but also, more playfully, a sense of days against days, or of other oppositions such as dark and light. This particular book teems with human life, perhaps more than any other recent De Bournazel creation — from the figures and faces crowding the margins, sometimes only half seen, the silhouettes of figures against the sun, to the masses of tiny figures in squares and rectangles and crowded into miniature tower blocks. The cover bears an inlaid miniature, with two faces or masks drawn on the reverse of a convex glass disc.

First and only edition of this elegant little volume, a collection of witty verses and songs dedicated by the obviously cultivated members of the Normandy Société du Havre to their wives and daughters, sometimes on the occasion of a marriage or some other event. The sole copy located is in the Le Havre municipal library.

First edition. This is a complete manual for drawing and colouring topographical maps, accompanied by nine plates illustrating the principles of a unified system of symbols and for delineating, hatching, shading and colouring geographical features on a map. The text additionally provides practical instructions for tracing, copying, enlarging and reducing existing maps, with the the help of three large folding tables: one listing the tints and colours used for different features, one for abbreviations and their typography, and another listing the necessary artist’s materials (advertising their sale with the firm of Giroux in the rue Saint-Honoré).

François-Charles-Michel Marie (b. 1788) also published logarithmic tables, a manual for texts on maps and an ingenious geometrical treatise (Géométrie stéréographique, ou Reliefs des polyèdres) with popup models of three-dimensional forms.

First edition. Copies of Louis XVI’s will were widely circulated in facsimile at the time of the Restoration of the monarchy after the fall of Napoleon. They were first printed as official copies engraved from the original manuscripts, circulated to members of the houses of representatives and issued for sale, as here in their officially sanctioned version engraved directly by Piquet from tracings of the original manuscript. The final page of the four-page facsimile of Louis’ will bears the imprint: ‘Calqué par Pierre Picquet sur l’original écrit de la main du Roi’. Picquet is described as ‘graveur d’écritures’ in the imprint, a speciality for which he appears to enjoyed royal patronage. His finely-engraved copies were widely pirated by enterprising engravers and booksellers and sold to the public in Paris in various other forms. Besides his facsimiles, Picquet engraved several writing manuals.

Louis XVI’s last will and testament, written on December 25, 1792, in the Temple prison, is a deeply personal, religious document in which the deposed king proclaimed his innocence, forgave his enemies, and entrusted his family to God. He reaffirmed his Catholic faith, urged his son not to seek revenge for his death, and expressed hope for the unity of France. It is accompanied here by a letterpress account of the king’s last days, together with the circumstances of his and Marie-Antoinette’s will. There are also engraved copies of both their signatures, together with those of their children Élisabeth Marie and Louis (both also executed).

First edition in French of Il letterato buon cittadino discorso filosofico e politico (Rome, 1776) by the Italian noble traveller and philosophe. According to Barbier it was published in an edition of 100 copies, a limitation reflected in the thick paper used for its printing. It includes Gonzaga’s Réflexions sur la poesie, ecrites in François and Essay analytique sur les découvertes capitales de l’esprit humain, addressed to the Royal Society in London in 1777. The prince evidently was well received in both French and English circles as he travelled in Europe. While Gonzaga was in London he inscribed a copy of the present edition to the young William Beckford (see Book Collector, 55, p. 574) and dined with Samuel Johnson and Hester Thrale. Johnson commented wryly that Thrale ‘has added to her conquests the Prince of Castiglione’ (letter to Henry Thrale, 9 April, 1777). Barbier II, 855.

Among the most influential of all writing manuals, and still used today for the teaching and learning of English round hand and other scripts. Twenty-five penmen contributed ornate and imaginative writing specimens for Bickham to engrave, including best masters of the day: E. Austin, John Bland, William and Gabriel Brooks, Zachary Chambers, Joseph Champion, Willington Clark, Richard Morris and Samuel Vaux. The texts they produced included advice and verses on fine writing, on the virtues of education and application, trade, business and the use of written instruments of commerce, the latter giving examples of bills, letters of credit and promissory notes. These were all engraved by George Bickham with the assistance of his son (George the younger) and John Bickham (another son or perhaps a brother). George the Elder was considered one of the finest English engravers of the age, having been apprenticed to a writing master and becoming expert in the reproduction of script in print. ‘Joseph Champion claimed Bickham surpassed his master by being the first to cut through wax on copper without tracing the design first, thus transmitting the master’s original more faithfully’ (Kim Sloan, ODNB). His work in The Universal Penman is notable not just for its elegant fluidity but for its witty use of illustrative vignette headpieces and other ornaments, sometimes adapting scenes from Watteau and other artists. Three plates contain excellent examples of trompe l’oeil, appearing to show cards laid onto the page, when in reality they are skilfully engraved parts of original design.

This is the fourth edition, printed from the plates of the preceding editions, which bore Bickham’s imprint (the first two issued in fifty-two parts between 1733 and 1741). Overton’s name is given on the frontispiece and the imprints of both title-pages. The original numbering of parts is retained, each containing four plates, but a continuous pagination supplied. Copies of all early editions are scarce in such good condition as this, frequently being subject to loss or damage through repeated use and removal of plates. Percy Muir, ‘The Bickhams and their Universal Penman’, The Library, 4th ser., v. 25, Dec. 1944.

Zurich-born artist, watercolourist and art publisher Rudolf Dikenmann shaped the image of Switzerland for travellers and collectors with his highly finished aquatint views, printed in tints of black and blue and painstakingly coloured and finished by hand, sometimes resembling enamel painting. ‘The Zurich art publishing company of Rudolf Dikenmann (1793-1884) and his son Johann Rudolf Dikenmann (1832-1888) shaped the image of Switzerland... simply because of the sheer volume of the views produced in the Dikenmann studio. The ‘engravings’ were produced from sketched originals, using the aquatint technique. They came on to the market in their thousands: in petit or folio format, as vignettes on notepaper, as a simple black print or as a two-tone print in blue/black. Some of the high-quality typographic prints were coloured by hand by Dikenmann’s daughters Anna and Louise, and by his younger brother Johannes. Rudolf Dikenmann, who had worked for Peter Birmann in Basel after completing his apprenticeship with Orell Füssli & Co. in Zurich’ (Felix Graf, ‘The Image of Switzerland in the time of Gottfried Keller’, Swiss National Museum blog).

These four views, collected by a contemporary English traveller, are after designs by Heinrich Siegfried and comprise: Hôtel Baur au Lac de Zurich; Luzerne prise du Schweizerhof; Les Glaciers de Grindelwald and Lugano prise du pied du Mont Salvador.

Velcurio’s popular textbook of Aristotelian physics, printed at Lyon by Louis Cloquemin and Étienne Michel, here with an early English binding and provenance.

Johannes Velcurio or Johannes Bernhardi of Feldkirch (1490-1534) was professor of rhetoric and physics at the university of Wittenberg, where he was a humanist colleague of Melanchthon. This posthumously published Commentarium on Aristotle’s physics first appeared in Tubingen in 1542 and ran to at least twenty five editions before 1595, including those from in Basel, Erfurt, Cologne, Tübingen, Strasbourg, Wittenberg, Lyon, and London. The fourth book is devoted to Aristotle’s De anima. In England, as elsewhere it was used as a university textbook and appears, for example, among the small textbooks purchased by students at Cambridge (see P. Gaskell, Books bought by Whitgift’s Pupils in the 1570s, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 7, 3 (1979), pp. 284-293). It is unclear who the ‘John Freeman’ who inscribed the title-page in Greek at an early date was, but several John Freemans appear in the Cambridge University registers in the last years of the sixteenth century.

The binding bears identical blindstamped centrepiece tools to a contemporary London binding illustrated by David Pearson in English Bookbinding Styles 1450-1800 as Fig 3.35 (BL 1492.f.43, Selneccer, Evangeliorum et epistolarum dominicalium, Frankfurt, 1575) with similar spine bands and blind-ruled borders. At the front and rear are two endleaves (each) using waste apparently from an unidentified edition of Justinian’s Institutes, each with further early notes (mainly pen tests).

First edition, much extending and improving Smart’s earlier work of 1707, Tables of simple Interest and Discount. Dedicated to the governor or the Bank of England, William Thompson, his deputy, Humphrey Morice and the bank’s directors, they proved to be among the most used tables of interest of the eighteenth century. There were two further printings in 1747 and 1780. Included are tables of simple and compound interest, discount as well as tables to calculate the value of annuities on lives and numerous worked examples of their use. It concludes with a survey of the history of British currency and coinage, which includes consideration of unlawful usury and coin clipping, as well as other legal considerations. In the 1707 Tables of simple Interest and Discount Smart described himself as of ‘the Town Clerk’s office, London’, whereas by 1726 he could describe himself as ‘of Guildhall, Gent.’ Other sources show he was Clerk to H. M. Commissioners of Lieutenancy for the City of London, 1714-1739, and Deputy Town Clerk until his death in 1742. Of Tables of Interest, Discount, Annuities, McCulloch wrote in his 1871 Dictionary of Commerce: ‘They are carried to 8 decimal places, and enjoy the highest character, both here and on the Continent, for accuracy and completeness. The original work is now become very scarce.’ The work also holds a significant place in the history of actuarial science, since he noted in his discussion of annuities the need for accurate tables of mortality and the systematic recording of ages of death by parish clerks (p. 113), a recommendation that was soon adopted for bills of mortality, at least in London.

The owner of this copy, Thomas Best (1753-1815), was part of the wealthy Best brewing family of Kent, was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and became an officer in the West Kent militia. Goldsmiths’ 6485; Kress 3666.

By an otherwise unidentified female artist, this is a rare large-format album of lithographs of the famous catholic Bavarian passion play at Oberammergau. The artist’s name is given only as initials ‘M. C. S. D’ on the plates and wrapper, but this copy bears a contemporary manuscript addition to the initials, which thus reads ‘M. C. S. Dawkins done by Herself’. It is additionally inscribed ‘with love’ to Major M. G. Best.

Performed decennially since 1634, the Oberammergau plays told the story of Christ’s passion, with a large cast drawn from local villages forming immense tableaux vivants with spoken biblical texts in the vernacular. In the nineteenth century it became a major attraction for well-to-do Grand Tourists and drew significant numbers of English visitors (so much so that the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook established an Oberammergau office in 1880). The passion play was widely reported in contemporary English-language journals, adding to its attraction among English visitors (mainly protestant) who were curious about this ancient catholic theatrical tradition. We have been unable to discover anything substantial about the artist, but its fair to assume she made the journey to Oberammergau herself. WorldCat lists the V&A copy only in the UK. In the US there are copies at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake (IL) and WRHS (OH).

First edition of this souvenir account of a balloon ascent and parachute descent made by the pioneering French aeronaut, Élisa Garnerin, in Italy. An early pioneer of parachuting, Élisa had already made numerous drops in Paris and further afield in France, her performances often attracting enormous crowds. More than any other contemporary woman, it might be said without undue irony that her career was one of ups and downs — her celebrity as a balloonist and parachutist met with considerable opposition from the police, who found the crowds she drew to be troublesome, and her business probity was frequently questioned by her associates.

The illustrations in this pamphlet include a version of her circular portrait by Bouchardy made in Paris using the physionotrace apparatus invented by Gille-Louis Chrétien designed to copy physical features and simultaneously reduce them to an engraved plate. The folding plate shows Élisa borne aloft in an elegant gondola beneath her balloon, and then the gondola released from the balloon for her parachute descent.

First edition of the first technical manual on etching, by one the greatest engravers of his era, which remained the fundamental source for artists and printers well into the nineteenth century. En Français dans le Texte calls Bosse ‘Remarquable technicien, il sut garder à l eau-forte sa légèreté tout en lui donnant la rigueur du burin’. Several chapters here are devoted to preparation of the plates and the varnishes, others cover the actual techniques of engraving and etching, and the final section is devoted to the construction of the press and its operation. The illustrations are frequently reproduced in histories of engraving and print. Bigmore, Bibliography of Printing 72; Cicognara 251, En Français dans le Texte 92.

A rare and outlandish canard depicting a winged harpie, with the caption ‘Ce monstre afreux son corps est de la force d’un taureau / d’un an il a vingt deux pieds de longueur’.

This is a version of several contemporary ‘Peruvian monster’ prints issued as satirical allusions to Marie Antoinette, who was widely accused of accused of rapaciously squandering the royal treasury. They were inspired by a pamphlet of 1784 titled Description historique d’un monstre symbolique pris vivant sur les bords du lac Fagua près de Santa Fé par les soins de Francisco Xaveiro de Meunrios, comte de Barcelone — the pseudonym Francisco Xaveiro de Meunrios probably referring to Louis Stanislas Xavier, Count of Provence, Louis XVI’s brother. Harpie prints then appeared in considerable number (the Bibliothèque nationale holds at least thirteen, most printed in Paris, a number of which are dated to 1784) and were popular in both Paris and other French cities. Not found in WorldCat or among the similar prints in the BnF.

An attractive and elaborate example of German devotional Klosterarbeit, typical of enclosed communities, usually (but not always) convents of nuns. The decorative border here is an exuberant baroque combination of flowers, leaves and stems enclosing the parchment painting, within a border of gold cut-paper stars on a feathery cut blue paper. Dating these pieces is not easy, since traditional styles were both conservative and enduring. The support here is laid paper with a partially visible watermark with monogram (SME or SVE?)which we have so far been unable to identify (the applied silk work partially obscuring it). A small manuscript note on an old paper reinforcement at the back bears script in what appears to be an eighteenth-century hand.

Saint Paul appears with his customary attributes of a sword, recalling his martyrdom (he was beheaded in Rome in AD 67) and book, representing his letters in the New Testament.

A collection of billets de mariage — small letterpress printed announcement cards sent out to friends and neighbours, as was customary in this period. Where a place is specified most here come from Mechelen/Malines, Antwerp or Brussels and some bear early annotation in what appears to be the same hand, adding dates and ages, suggesting they were collected at the time.

Ten have printed or manuscript dates, the others are typographically similar and probably date from the same period. The billets could be issued in the name of the parents, or by both the bride or groom. In one case, there is an example of a billet printed in 1807 for each of the latter: ‘Mlle. Marie-Anne-Thêrèse Scheppers a l’honneur d’annoncer son mariage avec Mr. Louis-Jean Merghelynck, Lieutenant de la Gendarmerie Impériale’, with its counterpart: ‘Mr Louis-Jean Merghelynck, Lieutenant de la Gendarmerie Impériale, a l’honneur d’annoncer son mariage avec Mademoiselle Marie-Anne-Thérèse Scheppers’ (the two cards with variant borders).

The earliest dated card reads: ‘Madame la douairière De Petit née Du Jardin, a l’honneur d’annoncer le mariage de sa fille cadette avec Monsieur de Torri, capitaine au corps-franc d’Odonell, au service de S. M. Impériale & Royale &c. &c. De l’imprimerie de P.J. Hanicq, à Malines, 1794 [the date of 17 February added in contemporary manuscript]’.

Another reveals an unexpected and intriguing conjugal story: ‘Monsieur Adolphe d’Aoust a l’honneur de faire pars de son mariage avec Madame de Trazegnie, ci-devant Chanoinesse de Mons’. Genealogical records confirm that monsieur d’Aoust (who was also a Marquis) did indeed marry the former canonness of Mons, Marie Josèphe Robertine Hyacinthe Albertine de Trazegnies, in May 1813.

First edition, in an exceptionally accomplished binding. This is an account of a summer visit by students at the pre-eminent Paris school of book arts to Lille, Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. The entire production (text, type-founding, typography, illustration, mise en page, printing, engraving, photogravure and binding) is by students named on the colophon. The named binders presumably place the book in wrappers, but the additional elegant contemporary gilt tooled binding is unsigned, though likely also an advanced student production. Among the contributors to the text is one ‘Lanoë’ who must be the noted binder Charles Lanoë who was one of the first doreurs (finishers) to study at the École Estienne. He went on to create many fine bindings in the early decades of the twentieth century,

A Caen-printed bibliothèque bleue edition of a title popular in the genre, with other editions from Paris, Tours and Lyons. The woodcut portrait was evidently old when the edition was printed, the impression showing a scatter of wormholes affecting La Belle Hélaine’s face, hair and shoulders. The text has it origins in a Middle French chanson de geste of the fourteenth century. cf. Hélot, La Bibliothèque bleue en Normandie (1928), 114 noting the degradation of the woodcut over its several issues, and this one specifically where: ‘la pauvre belle devient effrayante, avec un véritable trou à la place de l’oeil gauche’.

A tiny and ephemeral catechism dialogue for the youngest of children, L’Enfant sage a trois ans was a popular title among printers of chapbooks in the bibliothèque bleu genre and is known in several imprints from different towns (notably Troyes). The text, framed as a dialogue between the pagan Emperor Hadrian and a Christian child, it emerged in the later middle ages and appeared in print from the earliest times. Hélot, La Bibliothèque bleue en Normandie (1928) 76; Suchier, L’Enfant Sage... die erhaltenen Versionen (Dresden 1910), p. 227.