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First edition, one of 250 copies (of a total edition of 280). Thomas Willement was one of the pioneers of the nineteenth-century gothic revival. He worked alongside his better-known contemporary Pugin on several projects, but never very happily: Pugin later (unfairly) accused Willement of being only interested in money. Willement is perhaps best known for his stained glass in the medieval style (St George’s Chapel, Windsor, Hampton Court, Barbados cathedral). Davington priory (acquired by him in 1845) was an exercise in the complete medieval revival of a much altered priory house and church, involving polychromatic painted decoration, stained glass, and designs for encaustic tiles, together with purchases of furniture and fittings. Much of the work described in the Historical Sketch remains intact. 250 copies of this descriptive publication were printed on ‘foolscap quarto’ paper, with a further 30 copies on tinted ‘crown quarto’.

First edition thus, subscriber’s copy, number 77 of 210 copies, complete with a suite of cancelled plates in monochrome. With its title a nod to Le Maistre’s famous confinement narrative, Voyage autour de ma chambre (1794, Uzanne’s Voyage autour de sa chambre is ‘Une ancienne chanson d’amour voltige dans la solitude; dans ce nid charmant où l’on était si bien à deux, il ne reste que des rêves de volupté indécise et la sarabande enlaçante, mystérieuse et sinistre des souvenirs, ces revenants de l’âme qu'on évoque, qu’on chasse et qu’on appelle encore’.
A delicious bibliophilic production and one of Octave Uzanne’s rarest books: the limitation noting: ‘Après tirage les cuivres ont été lacérés.’ The additional suite consists of the cancelled plates, in which central portions left blank for the overprinting of the text from other plates have been filled in with etched croquis, often humorous, of: fashionable women, a devil, a bat, a rat and so on. The two sets of original wrappers are preserved, one with the design by Henry Thiriet. Uzanne’s productions are the zenith of a certain strand of 1890s Parisian bibliophilia: with precision and exactitude of the latest printing techniques harnessed to produce a series of works of rare beauty. Caruchet’s illuminated borders are perfect examples of art nouveau’s decadent themes, though lightened throughout with delicate and elegant botanical forms.
Uzannes’s text had first appeared in his Calendrier de Vénus (1880, pp. 127-150). Not in Carteret. Uzanne is extensively discussed in Silverman’s excellent The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880-1914 (Studies in Book and Print Culture, 2013).

One of 70 copies on papier vergé, with the author’s initials (total edition 76). An enlarged edition of Asselineau’s biographical account of France’s most celebrated cabinet maker, pioneer of the distinctive inlaid marquetry technique which carries his name. The book first appeared in 1854 (13 pages) and was reissued in 1855 (16 pages), with important biographical documents added to this 1872 edition (44 pages).

First edition of this graphic companion to the life of the great French corsair captain Du Guay-Trouin, and specifically to the Memoires (Amsterdam, 1740), for the use of young mariners who are urged to examine and draw copies of the detailed engravings. The work includes a précis of his exploits (the text also engraved) a glossary of marine terms.

Besides the two maps, the engraving is the work of the remarkable Ozanne family: Nicolas (or Nicolas-Marie) and his sister, Jeanne Françoise, whose names appear as artist and engraver respectively at the foot of the title plate. Hailing from Brest, the young Nicolas (1728-1811) had begun a career as a naval artist when his father died, leaving him responsible for three siblings (a brother and two sisters) all of whom he enlisted as contributors to his business. He rose to some prominence and was named as a royal ‘dessinateur de la marine’ in 1757, still assisted by his siblings. His sister, Jeanne François (1735-95) seems to have been the most active of these, and she is named as engraver in several other collections and single plates besides this one, usually marine prints.

Duguay-Trouin is remembered as one of the greatest French naval commanders. In 1704-1705 he commanded the ship Jason and captured the British ships of the line HMS Elizabeth and HMS Coventry; then on 21 October 1707, together with Claude de Forbin, he achieved his greatest victory against a British squadron, in the Battle at the Lizard (part of the War of the Spanish Succession); in 1709 he captured the British ship of the line HMS Bristol, while the triumph of his career came on 21 September 1711, in an 11-day battle, where he captured Rio de Janeiro, then believed impregnable. The two double-page maps (both signed ‘Drouet’) depict his battles around the French and British Coasts and his capture of Rio. Une famille d’artistes brestois au XVIIIe siècle: les Ozanne, Charles Auffret (Rennes, 1891). Borba de Moraes, p. 273; Bosch 244; Polak 7235; Rodrigues 908; not in Sabin.

A wonderful satire on contemporary women’s fashion. The 1820s had seen considerable change in women’s fashions, with neoclassical straight lines and sparse adornments giving way to a more exhuberant and romantic style with more emphasis on curvaceous shapes, cheekily satirised here with wine glass and fruit.�
An inverted wine-glass (claret shape), partly fluted, represents a woman; the bowl is a bell-shaped petticoat, the stem a pinched waist and bodice; the wide base forms the brim of her plateau-hat on which stands a cork with a metal rim and upstanding ring to form the narrow jam-pot crown. On the base (or brim) are bunches of grapes from which hang trails of vine leaves. Tied symmetrically to the stem are two pears, representing inflated sleeves, the stalks serving for wrists and hands. Below the design: ‘Turn a tumbler up side down / The foot for a hat and a cork for the crown /Some grapes for trimming, will give an air / And as for Sleeves have ready a pear /When join'd to gather tis sure to tell /A picture true, of a modern belle’.

The 'P. P.' of the signature reads: ‘what have we got here by Jove what we are all fond of a Lass & à Glass my service to you Gents tis but a frail fair after all’. BM Satires 15611.

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

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.

An atmospheric series of watercoloured prints of the German-controlled Dutch-Belgian border in 1915 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. Some of the images show the high-voltage electric fence erected by the Germans in 1915 to put an end to clandestine cross-border traffic between Holland and Belgium. On Belgian territory, the fence ran from the German border, from just behind Vaals (Limbourg) all the way to the Belgian coast. The Elektrische Grenzabsperrungszaun claimed many lives though smugglers soon 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.

One of a set of three Gillray prints of medical conditions that were also astute studies in facial expression.

The printer, Hannah Humphrey, is an interesting figure. Known as ‘Mrs Humphrey’ although she was unmarried, she was sister of printer William Humphrey from whose address in St Martin's Lane she published her first prints. She became the leading publisher of expensive satirical prints, especially by Gillray who worked for her exclusively from 1791, and who lived in her house for the last twenty years of his life. ‘The two lived together in circumstances of domestic intimacy for many years, but so discreetly that the prurient gossips of the next generation could find little to say against them. When Gillray made his will in 1807 he left all his possessions 'to my dearest friend Hannah Humphrey' (Oxford DNB). BM Satires 10304.

In 1827 Harriet Mellon, widow of the banker Thomas Coutts married William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans. The daughter of a family of travelling players, Harriet had become an actress at an early age and was spotted by Coutts while performing in London. As a young woman she was widely celebrated for her beauty, and was painted by George Romney and Sir Thomas Lawrence. She became wealthy (as a senior partner of Coutts bank) and was 23 years older than Beauclerk on their marriage, providing ample scope for unkind commentary and ammunition for the satirists. Nicknamed ‘The Jolly Duchess’ Harriett enjoyed her wealth, was a great collector and generous patron. She wrote to her friend Sir Walter Scott:

‘What a strange eventful life has mine been, from a poor little player child, with just food and clothes to cover me, dependent on a very precarious profession, without talent or a friend in the world – first the wife of the best, the most perfect being that ever breathed …and now the wife of a Duke! You must write my life… my true history written by the author of Waverley’. (Scott’s Journal, 30 June 1827).

After her death, she left an allowance to the Duke but her fortune passed to step-grandaughter Angela Burdett-Coutts, whose philanthropic association with Dickens is well known. BM Satires 15461. 

First edition with the Pottier illustrations, number 2 of 15 copies only with the woodcuts on chine, numbered and initialled by the artist.

Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.�

First edition with Jeanniot’s illustrations, number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of original woodcuts on chine.

Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.�

First edition, number 2 of 15 copies with the original wood engravings on chine. Hermann-Paul, with his sparse and economical style, was one of the most successful and effective of the French wood engravers of the twenties. He was already very well established by the time of the Great War, and turned to working on wood by necessity as metal for print making became scarce.

Fayard’s enterprise was one of democratisation — aiming to bring high-quality illustration, examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving, to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the woodblocks, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite specially printed on fine paper from the original blocks.

First edition with the Baudier wood engravings, number 2 of 15 special copies with the suite of original woodcuts on chine. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.�

First edition of these three novellas, number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of original woodcuts, initialled by Dollian.

Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First illustrated edition of this urbane novel of the Parisian life of a boulevardier (it first appeared in 1918).Number 2 of 15 copies only with the woodcuts on chine, numbered. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition number 2 of 15 copies only with the woodcuts on chine, numbered and signed by the artist.

Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.�

First edition with the illustrations by Vigoureux. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 20 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with the illustrations by Berthe Marx. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 29 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.

First edition with the Roubille illustrations. Number 2 of 15 copies with the suite of all 29 wood engravings on chine, all initially by the artist. Fayard’s Livres de demain brought examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the prints, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite of the original woodcuts specially printed on fine paper.