art & architecture

An original woodblock for printing a rather naive devotional print of the type issued by the provincial presses of northern France. The lower portion contains the Crucifixion scene, with the Virgin and John the Evangelist (and serpent coiled at the foot of the cross). The borders have portraits, mainly in profile of saints and Catholic church fathers Andrew, Thomas, James, ‘Oesine’ (perhaps Saint Ouen, pointing to Rouen as an origin for the print), Matthias, Phillip, Barnabus, Peter, Paul, James son Zebedee [the Great], Bartholomew and Matthew. Above is a panel depicting Christ in Majesty with the Eye of Heaven (captioned ‘Dieu entend tout’) and the Ear of Heaven (Dieu enten[d] tout) and a cherub holding a placard lettered ‘Pencée [sic], Paroles, Actions’. Most of the block is extensively hatched the lines forming the rays of the sun, billowing clouds and a dark sky. Woodcut remained the dominant medium for such popular prints well into the nineteenth century before the widespread adoption of lithography after about 1825.

A tiny but irresistible devotional papercut, with a bouquet including a daffodil, tulip and rose, an image of the infant Christ (holding cross and nails) and with a text in French: ‘This little bouquet would be poor indeed if Jesus were not at its centre.’ A variation on the traditional French canivet, this type of diminutive papercut was probably destined for tucking into a prayerbook.

An exercise or model book for dentelle au crochet (crocheted lace) including numerous decorative borders, various roundels and a number of tubular designs for use as cuffs or sleeves. The patterns imitate those of cushion lace, but were created with coarser threads and with a crochet hook rather than bobbins. The patterns and execution are impressive, even if crocheted lace was considered less refined than ‘true’ lace. This album, with very few clues to its maker or provenance and on paper of the coarsest grade, appears as a rather remarkable survival of the craft in its most vernacular setting.

A dramatic lifetime portrait of Charles Simeon, figurehead of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England, preaching on 1 Corinthians 10:15, ‘I speak as to wise men; judge ye [what I say]’. Simeon had written extensive homiletical commentaries on 1 and 2 Corinthians as part of his massive 21-volume work, Horae Homileticae. He was born in 1759 in Reading and was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. Shortly after he was ordained deacon in 1782, he was assigned as the perpetual curate to the Church of the Holy Trinity in Cambridge. He remained the pastor of this parish for 54 years until his death at age 77 in 1836. Initially controversial, with many at the university opposing his evangelical style and convictions, he became one of the most celebrated preachers of his age, and his influence stretched far beyond Cambridge. He was among the founders of the Church Missionary Society in 1797 and actively supported the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, the Colonial and Continental Church Society, and the Church Mission to the Jews. His sermons and weekly discussion groups were eagerly attended, so that he was often obliged to charge admission, as witnessed by the two manuscript admission tickets pasted to the back of the original frame of this watercolour.

A ladder-shaped folding toy — a 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 is 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 also 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

An attractive and representative taufbrief or baptismal certificate traditionally given by godparents to a child at baptism, This example is for one Johanne Christiane Henriette Wahrbinder, baptised in 1828. The folding exterior has four evangelists, each both seated and standing, together with a larger baptismal scene showing mother, father and child at the font with a priest an (in this case) a godmother. Other examples by this printer have variations (presumably according to the intended recipient). The interior bears a variant of a traditional baptismal prayer beginning:
‘Du bist, mein Pathchen, nun geweiht,
Dich künftig Christ zu nennen...’
With eight folds making the sheet into a small square package, taufbrief were sometime given with coins or religious objects enclosed, sealed in with wax. This example has no trace of wax sealing.

The three dressed painting comprise:
‘S. APPOLONIA’ [sic]. [Saint Appolonia] show with palm and pincers. Third-century Christian virgin and deaconess martyred in Alexandria around 249 AD during an anti-Christian uprising. According to St. Dionysius of Alexandria, her teeth were violently broken, and she was threatened with burning unless she renounced Christ. Instead, she leapt into the flames, choosing death over apostasy. Venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic traditions, she is patron saint of dentists and those with toothache, and is depicted with pincers holding a tooth.
‘S. CAECILLA’. [Saint Cecilia] shown with her harp. Cecilia of Rome was a Christian virgin martyr, d. 230 AD, and is patron saint of music and musicians.
‘S. CORNELIA’. Shown holding a cross. St. Cornelia was an early Christian martyr who was executed in North Africa during the persecutions of Christians.
Each is an accomplished though highly stylised image with the central figure mainly applied in painted collage, their robes made up from tiny fabric scraps, often of high quality with gold and silver threads. In each case the figure is set in a background comprising architectual features. The first two include varieties of enclosed gardens with fountains, while all three include large vases of flowers and the image of the holy spirit descending as a dove from the clouds above.

Five drawings from the early stages of the Second World War, presumably for commercial publication in France, of which four are on the theme of the song ‘We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’ by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy, written whilst he was a Captain in the British Expeditionary Force during the early stages of the Second World War. The defensive Siegfried Line was constructed by Germany in the 1930s, opposite the French Maginot Line but was widely ridiculed by the Allies in the opening year of the war who threatened to treat the defence as no more than a clothes line. The popular sentiment expressed in the song is extended in these French cartoon drawings in which the Amercian, British Union Jack and French Tricolor are pegged out on the line. One of the sketches shows a young soldier in uniform hugged by his wife and children in a typical enlistment scene.

Apparently otherwise unrecorded, a souvenir print of the first parachute descent in England, made by the French aeronaut André-Jacques Garnerin, jumping from a hydrogen balloon. The ascent and descent attracted huge crowds, and was recorded in numerous contemporary prints, some satirical, some informational.
Garnerin had already gained global fame for executing the world’s first successful parachute descent in Paris in 1797. During the Peace of Amiens in 1802, he traveled to London with his wife, Jeanne-Geneviève (herself a pioneering female parachutist), to tour his aerial exhibitions. His first jump was over London, as recorded here, followed by others, including one at Sydney Gardens in Bath, an event probably witnessed by Jane Austen, then living at number 4 Sydney Place.
The full caption reads: ‘The Balloon & Parachute with which Monsr. Garnerin ascended from St, Georges Parade on Sept. 21st 1802. He descended by the latter in safety near St. Pancras Middx. The first experiment of this kind ever performed in England’.

Second (expanded) edition (first 1815) of this charming juvenile title: an imitation of The Butterfly's Ball in which an array of personified garden and wild plants gather in celebration. The attractive plates were formerly sometimes attributed to William Blake, and while one can see why, there is probably no connection (Bentley, Blake Collection, Sale Catalogues, 196). The preface indicates that the section of botanical explanations (quite copious) has been revised and enlarged for this second edition.

Four exceptional knife-cut parchment devotional images with exquisite borders incorporating birds, butterflies, insects, snails, flowers and cherubs. They are by a known (though still anonymous) master Antwerp parchment cutter whose work is represented in only a handful of surviving examples. Magnification reveals the extraordinary cutting skills of this artist, which is far more sophisticated than the more familiar cutting by most makers of so-called ‘canivets’. Here the parchment is cut and modelled with almost sculptural techniques to provide bevelled edges to each cut, giving the parchment image almost the characteristics of an ivory cutting or an engraved plaque.
The scholar of paper and parchment cutting, Jan Peter Verhave, identifies these previously unrecorded examples as the work of an Antwerp master responsible for a virtuoso cutting of 1728 in honour the marriage of the mayor-president of Amsterdam, Jan Six II, to Anna Elisabeth van den Bempden and a handful of pieces depicting scenes from the life of Christ (Verhave, ‘Trouw en devotie’ in Knip-Pers, Nederlandse Vereniging voor Papierknipkunst, August, 2022). The work of this cutter has something in common with the recognised master of baroque paper cutting working in the same era, Frederik Hendrik van Voorst (1660-1736).
Nativitas Dommini; Le Scapulaire de la Vierge; Erecto Crucis; [The Circumcision, with painted miniature].
Nativitas Dommini (195 × 158 mm), incorporating the meeting of Mary and her niece Elisabeth
Le Scapulaire de la Vierge (200 × 150 mm) The virgin presents the protective scapular: the visible sign of devotion to the Virgin Mary, symbolizing the desire to live under her protection and to follow her example of humility, obedience, and service to God. The scapular was first granted in 1251 to the British Carmelite monk St. Simon Stock. The female saint is probably St. Theresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun (+ 1582).
Erectio Crucis (188 × 155 mm) after a print by Jacques Callot (1624/5), with corner medallions of the four evangelists.
[The Circumcision] (92 × 65 mm, with central medallion painting 34 × 25 mm).

An attractive group of mostly floral watercolours by two Kentish women or girls of the Best family of Boxley, near Maidstone, Kent. The floral arrangements include roses, poppy, anemone, love-in-the-mist, convolvulus and sweet-pea.

First edition of Lydis’s astrological dream dictionary, complete with the moveable volvelle horoscope and striking plates printed in colours and gold. Among the numerous dream motifs Lydis illustrates: the whore, the angel, flight, locusts, insects (she actually depicts a spider), sea creatures, suicide and the devil.
A fragile book, this is among the early works by Austrian born Lydis (1887-1970) who settled in Paris in 1926. She became known for her daring prints celebrating same-sex and bisexual love (notably her 1926 portfolio, Lesbiennes) and she later illustrated numerous deluxe editions of Boccaccio, Louÿs, Baudelaire, Mirbeau and Valéry. Lydis had no formal artistic training (or at least her education is obscure) but her work was no doubt inspired by the freedom of twentieth-century Paris. She escaped the Nazis during the occupation, living briefly with her partner Erica Marx in England, before the couple emigrated to Buenos Aires. Correa, Mariette Lydis, 4.4 (with an estimated edition of 150 copies).

A spectacular facsimile edition of one of the most celebrated books of hours of the fifteenth century, the illumination by Jean Bourdichon reproduced in superb chromolithography by Léon Curmer. This copy additionally contains twelve sumptuous illuminated calendar borders as copied in gouache, watercolour and gold by Curmer’s anonymous copyist, identifiable through his signatures in this copy as the master facsimilist, Christian Schultz (1817-1883). His twelve superb illuminations show the occupations of the twelve months, including winter fireside dining, pruning, a garden, reaping, harvesting, threshing, grape treading, ploughing and sowing, feeding hogs and killing swine.
This was one of Curmer’s most ambitious publications, requiring painstaking copying from the original manuscript kept in the French Bibliothèque nationale. His methods are not well understood, but each leaf was first copied in gouache by skilled facsimilists who were almost never credited in the final publication. This copy, with the twelve calendar miniatures in gouache allows us to identify Christian Schultz as at least one (if not the only) copyist for this project, with several bearing his minute signature, not included in the final corresponding chromolithograph. He is perhaps better known for his subsequent work for the British Arundel Society, copying Flemish masterpieces such as the Ghent Altarpiece for their important and popular facsimiles. He had been born in Kassel in 1817, was trained in Germany as a draughtsman and studied lithography in Munich (Ledger, A Study of the Arundel Society 1848-1897, Oxford DPhil, 1978) In his work for the Arundel Society he made his copies by painting over photographic images of the work, and it is interesting to speculate how he created the Anne of Brittany facsimiles. Certainly, the whole book had been photographed (and reproduced in the text volume) but his finished miniatures are on fine but not transparent paper, and show no sign of preliminary markings. It would be a worthwhile project in the developing study of nineteenth-century manuscript facsimiles to compare digitised samples with both the monochrome photographs and original gouache miniatures in this copy.
Illustration attributed to Jean Poyet until 1868 when newly discovered documents proved it the work of Jean Bourdichon. Cf. Bourdichon, J. Les Heures d'Anne de Bretagne. Paris, 1946

Presumed first or sole edition of this bilingual English-Japanese picture book showing the costumes of men and women of the various ranks of orders of Japanese society. It includes aristocratic and military subjects, as well as servants, scholars, labourers and craftspeople. The English preface states ‘These books are not only designed to please children, but to show the manners and customs of the ancient and modern people of Nippon. The fine illustrations afford an important aid in this respect. It is through the eye that understanding itself is most quickly reached’.
It was printed by the Poole Women’s College in Osaka. Arthur William Poole, after whom the Osaka Women’s School was renamed in 1890, was the first Anglican Bishop of Japan. The school had been founded as the Church Missionary Society school and its head teacher from 1890 to 1928 was the Durham-born missionary educator, Katherine Tristram, one of the early female graduates of the University of London. When she was appointed ‘there were at the school two other British women apart from Tristram, as well as eight Japanese teachers, including four women, and there were forty-nine pupils, of whom twenty-three were Christians’ (Oxford DNB).

A splendid bibliophilic caricature. ‘The bouquiniste in pleasure’ shows a crouching bookseller, his sleeves made of reused book-covers, offering a variety of books to a voracious bibliophile, whose pockets are already stuffed with treasures. The print is signed simply ‘XX’ but is attributed to Auger by the Bibliographie de France of 1817. Adrien-Victor Auger (1787-1854) had been a student of David, he exhibited at the Salons of 1810, 1824 and 1834 and satirised fashionable Paris society through his lively engraved and lithographed prints.

Despite his former military success in service in the American and French Revolutionary wars Custine was found guilty of treason by a majority vote of the Revolutionary Tribunal on 27 August, and guillotined the following day. ‘Custine (an ex-noble) was guillotined on 28 Aug. (in spite of his previous victories), accused of having treacherously caused the fall of Frankfort, Condé, Valenciennes, and Mayence. According to the English newspapers, he “kissed the crucifix, embraced his confessor... and at last was brought to the guillotine by force”’ (BM Satires).
‘Custine stands on the scaffold beside the guillotine (left). Four ragged ruffians are about to bind him to the plank on which he is to lie; one says, “By Gar so we will serve all de Generals who do not conquer de whole World, and give them de Libertè [sic]”. Custine says, “Pardon me Heaven for having been leagued with such a set of Blood hounds”. A stout soldier pushes a weeping priest, who says “Let us Pray”, down the steps (right) which lead up to the scaffold, saying, “Go to de diable & Your Prayers both”. Below (right) stand republican soldiers with fixed bayonets much caricatured. On the extreme left a man kneels at the guillotine holding his hat in place of the usual basket; he says, “Begar I will have a Drink of de blood.” BM Satires, 8340; De Vinck 6176; Krumbhaar 785.

‘Down, down, to Hell & say A Female Arm has made one bold Attempt to free her Country’ reads the speech emerging from Charlotte Corday’s mouth as she holds a bloodied dagger, just withdrawn from the body of Marat, who has fallen to the ground. The subtitle reads: ‘Who [Corday], while he [Marat] was villifying some of the more moderate men in the Convention and asserting that they should lose their heads stabed [sic] him saying, Villain thy death shall precede theirs.’ Charlotte Corday was condemned to the guillotine for the murder of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat. Aged just 25 at her death, she was later nicknamed l’ange de l’assassinat (the Angel of Assassination) for her actions and was posthumously revered by Royalists for her stand against the injustices of the era of the Terror.
News of Marat’s assassination (on 13 July), without details, reached London on 22 July making this the earliest dated British print to depict her. Several later prints, including another by Gillray, depicted her trial and execution. BM Satires 8336; De Vinck 5298; Krumbhaar 1077.

First fully illustrated edition of the most popular German fairy tale books of the nineteenth century. This edition follows the first edition of the previous year which was illustrated with just a wood engraved frontispiece. Deutsches Märchenbuch contains eighty-eight tales, plus Bechstein’s introduction and an allegory, Des Märechens Geburt (The Birth of the Fairy Tale) in which two bored children are brought a gift in the form of an egg (the fairy tale) by a bird called Fantasy. The allegory was dropped in most of the many later editions. Many of the tales are derived from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen, though Bechstein’s collection came to far exceed theirs in popularity.
Several of the steel engraved plates are signed ‘Schurig fec.’ (perhaps Karl Wilhelm Schurig?) and ‘G. Alboth sc.’, others are signed ‘Brennäuser fecit.’ (i.e. Andreas Wolfgang Brennhäuser). They are delightful miniatures in high romantic style with decorative captions and ornaments with gothic details. They depict: Des kleinen Hirten Glückstraum (The little Shepherd’s Dream of Happiness); Das tapfere Schneiderlein (The brave little Tailor); Hensel und Grethel (Hansel and Gretel); Staar und Badewän[n]elein (The Starling and the little Bathtub); Hans im Glücke (Hans in Luck); Tischlein deck dich, Essel streck Dich, Knüppel aus dem Sack (he Wishing-Table, The Golden-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack); Schneeweisschen (Snow White); Dornen-Röschen (Sleeping Beauty); Aschenbrödel (Cinderella) and Helene. From the edition of 1853 (the twelfth) the current illustrations were replaced by those by Ludwig Richter.

Mandiargues eroto-surrealist poem ‘Dalila Exaltée’ paired with Bona’s extraordinary etched plate, in the first volume of this important series whose aim was to create a dialogue between contemporary poetry and modern printmaking.
Published under the direction of Odette Lazar-Vernet, the Paroles Peintes series was dedicated to the presentation of otherwise unpublished poetry and original etchings by an international roster of modernist artists. It ran to five volumes between 1962 and 1975. This is the first volume and presents the work of Bona and André Pieyre de Mandiargues alongside the work of Chagall, Ernst and Braque, among others.
This copy is number 193 copies of 200 copies (there were also 58 hors commerce copies). The texts are 14 poems by Aragon, Arp, Albert-Birot, Follain, Guillevic, Joyeux, Laude, Lescure, Liberati, Mandiargues, Paulhan, De Solier, Tapié and Tardieu paired with 14 plates by Chagall, Magnelli, Zadkine, Gilioli, Ubac, Bissière, Jacobsen, Fiorini, Ernst, Braque, Dufour, Lepatre and Vieillard.
Bona de Mandiargues, or simply ‘Bona’ (1926-2000) remains one of the most intriguing women of the French Surrealist movement. Best known for her fabric collages (she cut up her husband’s clothes and called them ragarts) she also illustrated a number of books, including several with etched plates issued in limited editions. A frank memoir of Bona’s childhood in an Italian villa, Vivre en Herbe (Gallimard, 2001), recalls the early inspiration of her flamboyant artist uncle, Filippo de Pisis, but also episodes of disturbing abuse and the terrors of the Second World War. In Paris in the 1940s she met the poet Pierre de Mandiargues (she married him, twice) and was drawn into the circle of André Breton. Taking inspiration from journeys to Mexico, the world of the Surrealists and her own ‘inner eye’, she pursued a singular artistic vision. She notably took the motif of the snail as an emblem (admiring its wholeness, its hermaphroditism and its self-sufficiency). Though her work was exhibited regularly, her first institutional retrospective was held at the Nivola Museum in Sardinia (2022).