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First edition: a survey of the city in 1860 (its buildings and infrastructure, ),with long sections on the Asile impérial de Vincennes, founded in 1855 for convalescent workers, the Maison Eugène-Napoléon, a school for poor girls set up in 1858, and the history of Paris’s theatres after Napoleon limited the number of theatres in the city to twelve, then eight.
Vicaire V, 1021.

The holy grail — the crucified Christ standing within a chalice, his wound from the soldier’s spear bleeding freely into it, his arms supported by angels. A host of kneeling figures with candles, one swinging a censer kneel on either side. The lower panel depicts the Last Supper (complete with a small dog) with the text: ‘Sia laudato il santissimo sacramento’ (’Let the most holy sacrament be praised’). Early Christian tradition held that Christ’s blood was collected by Mary Magdalen at the time of the crucifixion in a vessel, though in images like this the symbolism is developed to depict blood flowing directly into the chalice in which Christ stands, emphasising the traditional connection between this vessel and the cup used at the Last Supper, and expressing the essence of transubstantiation at the Eucharist.
The image may be comprised of two woodblocks, though the borders are continuous around the whole print. Though probably dating from the seventeenth century, the block was clearly old when this impression was made, it shows some degradation, cracking and several circular wormholes. The area around Christ’s face is notably rubbed and soiled, possibly from kissing or touching as a mark of pious veneration.

This is one of the most prized works by this important member of the Belgian avant-garde (1879-1957), published while he was a refugee in London during the Great War. A large paper copy, probably one of the few copies noted by Taillert as left unbound, the pages remaining considerably larger than in the copies bound in boards and wrappers.
Tijtgat, apprenticed in his father’s lithographic studio, had long been an expert printmaker, but was without a press in London and developed his immediately recognisable style by printing from both woodcuts and linocuts using simply a handroller (his woodcut colophon here shows him at work, pulling a print on a table top). The prints of Le Petit Chaperon rouge, painstakingly produced under difficult circumstances, exemplify invention born of necessity, aptly combined with the apparent naivety of Tijtgat’s art and his artistic interest in the pleasures and fears of childhood. The publisher, Cyril Beaumont’s support for this refugee artist was part of the wider British patronage of exile artists among the tens of thousands of Belgians who fled to Britain between 1914 and 1918, who made a significant impact on British modernism. Besides Le Petit Chaperon rouge, Beaumont published the illustrated poetry collection New Paths with contributions by Tijtgat (1918) as well as the artist’s Carrousels et baraques in 1919. After the war Tijtgat remained for some time in London, before returning to Belgium in the twenties. He is rightly considered an important member of the the ‘Brabant Fauvists’, which had included Tijtgat’s great friend and collaborator, Rik Wouters, who died in 1916 following his internment by the Germans.
The limitation states this is one of 50 copies only: number 23 of 40 copies on papier antique (after 10 copies on chine, signed). This is Tijtgat’s definitive edition (after the very few copies of a large paper trial edition of 1917 and before the Brussels reprint of 1921). The present copy was formerly in the collection of Tijtgat’s bibliographer, Pascal Taillaert. Pascal Taillaert, Edgard Tytgat (1999), 38 (noting variations between copies and unbound copies, as well as the 10 additional copies on chine, not listed in the limitation, made for the Ministère des Sciences et des Arts de Belgique). Ridley, Beaumont 10.

Caroline Naudet (1775-1839), one of the very few female caricaturists of her era, she was the daughter of the caricaturist Thomas-Charles Naudet. She is known as the artist of some 25 separate satirical prints c. 1817-1823. The plate depicts an older well-dressed lady sitting for an urbane looking artist. The caption reads:
‘Une dame de qualite faisant faire son portrait s'efforcait de se retrecir la bouche l'artiste s'en appercut et lui dit pour peu que madame le veuille je n'en ferait pas du tout’ (A lady of quality having her portrait done was trying to narrow her mouth. The artist noticed this and said to her, if Madam would like it, I won’t paint it at all). Benezit III, 347.

First edition, an excellent copy, of one of the earliest of Humphreys’ well known medieval revivalist publications, entirely printed in colour in imitation of illuminated manuscripts. Parables of our Lord was issued both in this elaborate stamped black calf binding and a heavier papier mâché binding. The latter often broke the gutta percha binding of the book, leaving the pages loose. In this calf copy all pages are secure.

The colophon reads: ‘In designing the ornaments to the sacred parables contained in this volume, the illuminator has sought to render them in each instance appropriate. The work of illumination was commenced on the first day of May the year of Our Lord MDCCCXLV and terminated on the tenth day of Febry. MDCCCXLVI. HNH.’ McLean, Victorian Publishers’ Book-bindings in Paper p. 13, 51; McLean, Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing (2nd ed.) p. 99-103 and 210.

A superb version, with original illustrations, of the parable of the Return of the Prodigal Son, from the Gospel of St Luke. Number 6 of just 25 copies, each with 16 original signed gouaches by Berque, this being copy number VI.

Jean Berque (Reims, 1896 – Paris, 1954), painter and illustrator, was son of a Champagne wine producer. A student of the Nabis, Félix Vallotton, Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, he was one of the first members of the Union Rémoise des Arts Décoratifs and created the Stations of the Cross for the Saint-Nicaise church in Reims. Renowned for his nudes, he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne from 1924 to 1928 and at the Salon des Tuileries between 1927 and 1934. He is best known as a book illustrator and collaborated with François-Louis Schmied (whose inspiration is clear in this work), Philippe Gonin and the Gonin brothers, from Lausanne. He illustrated works by André Gide, Pierre Louys, Colette, Montherlant, André Maurois, Paul Claudel, Anna de Noailles and Paul-Jean Toulet, as well as The Song of Songs.

A superb rendition of the temptations familiar to bibliophiles. A collector, seated on the library steps of a well-stocked Parisian book shop is assailed on all sides by monsters and mythical birds and animals offering books in irresistible bindings. This is a characteristic biblio-fantasy by Robida, best known for his futuristic graphic science fictions, such as Le Vingtième Siècle (1883), La Guerre au vingtième siècle (1887) and Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique (1890)

Dorbon-Ainé, founded by Louis Dorbon in 1900 was a major Parisian bookshop and publisher, trading in the early twentieth century from the prominent Left Bank location at 53 quai des Grands Augustins. As booksellers, Dorbon specialised in esoteric and occult literature but also published the works of authors such as Xavier Marcel Boulestin, Maurice Des Ombiaux, Claude Farrère, Camille Saint-Saëns, and René Boylesve as well as Jules Lemaître, Claude Debussy, Francis de Miomandre, and the comtesse de Noailles.

An attractive card showing a fashionable young lady browsing a portfolio of lithographs and advertising ‘Lithographie, Autographie, Taille-Douce’. The Rançon firm sold all manner of lithographic supplies, advertising them in the brochure Fabrique spéciale de produits pour la lithographie, autographie, taille-douce (1894) as well as teaching lithography.

A very finely painted devotional miniature with emblems of the Passion and Ressurection: a broken tree (with fire), a flaming heart, discard crowns, rosaries and a cross. In the background are leafy tress and a convent. In the sky is a glowing rebus and a tiny gold butterfly. The text below reads ‘Vuide [sic for ‘vide’] de tout hormis dieu fait son bonheur en ce bas lieu’, the second part of the phrase being rewritten over an erasure. The text, though not identical recalls that of Pascal’s Passion (’Oubli du monde et de tout, hormis Dieu’) — the text recalling his vision of 1654 found sewn into the lining of his coat found on his death.

First edition of a sophisticated manual for young artists, several times reprinted and translated, with first edition very scarce. The largest number of Bouvier’s sequential lessons consider the grinding and mixing of oil colours, with very detailed instructions for proportions of ingredients. The large lithograph plates are equally detailed, showing grinding tools and methods, the ideal colour box, easels, brushes and a well organised palette. Pierre-Louis Bouvier (1765–1836) was one of the most gifted miniaturists of his era. ‘Pierre Louis Bouvier studied under Fabre in Geneva and Vestier in Paris. He established himself in Geneva as a miniaturist, inventing a colour-grinding machine and publishing a Young Artists' and Amateur Painters' Handbook, which became a classic and was translated into German and English. In 1828, Bouvier took over from Reverdin as director of the Geneva École de Figure, a post he held until his death. His best-known works are his portraits of Empress Josephine (private collection), Mme de Staël, Lalime the Engraver, his Self-portrait and his portrait of The Artist's Children (Geneva) and the portrait of John Rocca (Geneva)’ (Benezit).

An early seventeenth-century heraldic pedigree of the Offley family of Madeley (Staffordshire) with the arms of their prominent dynasty of London guildsmen, which include Henry Offley (d. 1613) who had married Mary, the daughter of Sir John White Lord Mayor of London; and Thomas Offley (1501-1582), a successful wool and cloth merchant — Lord Mayor of London in 1556. Also in the lineage is Stephen Jenyns (1453-1523) another important London Lord Mayor with Wolverhampton origins whose arms are accompanied by an elaborate cartouche noting his mayoralty. An early docket on the verso (legible with ultra-violet light) reads: ‘The Pedigree of Stephen Jenings’.

The youngest member of the Offley family shown is John (b. 1586). He was educated at Middle Temple and married in 1605. He was knighted in April 1615, served as sheriff of Staffordshire in 1616-17 and was a magistrate for the county by 1621. 1625-6 he was MP for Stafford. Another contemporary version of the pedigree is described in the Staffordshire Visitation of 1614:

‘Quarterly — 1. Argent, on a cross fleurettée azure a lion passant-guardant or [OFFLEY]; 2. Azure, a chevron between two eagles displayed in chief and a lion passant in base or [NECHELLS]; 3. Argent, a chevron gules between three plummets sable [JENNINGS]; 4. Azure, a tiger passant or [LANE]. CREST— A demi-lion rampant-guardant or, holding an olive branch vert, fructed gold’ (’Heraldic Visitations of Staffordshire in 1614 and 1663-64’, in History of Staffordshire, 1884).

First edition. A striking early Lydis production. Each plate is accompanied by an exotic love lyric by Schwabach (publisher, author and patron of Expressionism) ‘Die verliebten Billete des Prinzen Salamu’. The 18 plates reproduce Lydis’ orientalist miniatures in collotype and lithograph with gold and silver. The Müller firm had been established at Potsdam 1919 by Irmgard Kiepenheuer and Hans Müller. Kiepenhauer was an important figure in the artistic world of Weimar Berlin, hosting a cultural salon in Potsdam and being in personal contact with the most important contemporary artists — including many from the Bauhaus in Weimar. The firm issued several influential portfolios showcasing artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Pechstein, Christian Rohlfs, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. One of 1100 copies (of which 100 were signed).

First edition. A descriptive catalogue of the lifetime collection of James Dearden (1931-2021) devoted to John Ruskin. Containing a near-comprehensive set of all important early editions of Ruskin’s works, manuscripts, letters, photographs, ephemera, Ruskiniana and a reference collection (345 item). With introductory essays by Stuart Eagles (’Ruskin Today’) and Stephen Wildman (a biographical appreciation of James Dearden). Catalogue text by Justin Croft and Jonathan Stone.

Conventional politics is rarely expressed in De Bournazel’s work, which tends to explore more universal experience. But occasionally it emerges, if only by allusion. Created in a particularly turbulent year in French culture and politics Assemblée générale bears a couple of teasing red and blue brush strokes on the cover label. Inside, however, the Assemblée générale envisaged by the artist feels like an interior politics rather than any played out in the machinery of the French state — densely populated, variegated and unsettling.

‘Nightfalls’ — a tumbling exploration of the nocturnal adventures of the mind and of the porous boundary between the real and imaginary worlds.

The French expression, Entre chien et loup refers to the twilight hours when it is hard to tell the difference between dog and wolf, but it also expresses the liminal spaces between the familiar and the unknown, or the tame and the wild. It denotes also the uncertain emotional territory between hope and fear, expressed playfully by Diane de Bournazel in the labyrinthine paths drawn across the pages of this unique artist’s book. As always with De Bournazel, words are scarce and ‘Là’ ’Tu sais’, ‘Je m’interroge’ and ‘encore’ provide the extent of the text here.

A correspondence course for amateur binders in 1960s France, aimed, according to the inserted advert at the retired, at professionals in search of a diverting hobby, office workers, young mothers and adolescents. The 21 parts of cours ‘A’ give detailed instructions in casing, and bindings of several types: bradel, cloth, half sheep (’basane’) and half cloth, with instructions for paper cleaning. Apparently a second ‘Cours B’ offered instruction in gilding.

A rare publisher’s advert for a short-lived satirical almanac devoted to the comic lowlife of the Parisian Latin Quarter, with its famously hedonistic students and lorettes (courtesans or sex workers). The lorette emerged both in reality and in the popular imagination during the July Monarchy (1830-48), named after the Right Bank church of Notre Dame de Lorette where they were thought to reside and the almanac promises a range of playful gender inverting fun based on the ‘Vésuviennes’ (popular heroines of the 1848 revolution who donned uniform and took to the barricades) including the confessions of a Vésuvienne and their ‘Charte-Constitution’.
During the February Revolution of 1848, French women briefly hoped for political rights and an improvement in their social situation. Such hopes were short-lived and popular reaction was expressed in satires like this. The complex image of the Vésuvienne woman warrior, both pleasantly seductive and scandalously rebellious. She appeared in all the major newspapers, while real women in the streets claimed this title by parading under a Vesuvian banner. Their morality was often called into question and it is no surprise to see lorettes and Vésuviennes share a billing here. In Belhomme’s lithograph, three lorettes step out of basket (one thumbing her nose); a reflection of a popular contemporary song ‘Le Panier aux lorettes’.

The Arundel Society’s superb colour printed version of Hans Memling’s Jan Floreins Triptych, copied by Christian Schultz.
The Society was founded in 1849 at a meeting in the house of the painter Charles Eastlake, who became the first Director of The National Gallery, and was named after the Earl of Arundel, collector and patron - a man whom Horace Walpole described as the ‘father of Vertue in England’. The Society saw the progress of art in England as being dependent on popular taste. It was established with the aim to promote a greater knowledge of art through the publication of literary works and high quality reproductions of Italian fresco cycles, classical art and a handful of Northern European masterpieces. John Ruskin was an early member. Many modern British artists who did not travel, including the Pre-Raphaelites, and many collectors and an entire art-hungry class were only familiar with the Old Masters in colour through Arundel Society prints. The Society was discontinued in 1897, when it was overwhelmed by the use of photography.
The prints did not rely on photography and were not made directly from the original paintings. Instead from 1852 skilled copyists were sent out across Europe (by Henry Layard of the Society) to make smaller, very accurate water- and body-colour copies directly from the originals, probably using Windsor and Newton ‘Moist Colours’ in zinc tubes, which had been available from 1846. Each colour used was given its own lithographic stone, and up to 20 stones were drawn upon by hand and printed from to build a composite colour image. Standardising the colours throughout the complex process produced rather saturated but faithful copies, entirely by hand, before colour photography. Perhaps the greatest copyist, Christian Schultz, was also a lithographer.
Memling painted this triptych in 1479 for brother Jan Floreins of the Oud Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges, where it remains as part of the collection of the Memlingmuseum. He probably depicted himself to the left of the central panel, where he kneels behind a wall, holding an open book. The two panels on the verso of the wings, which are visible when closed, depict John the Baptist and Saint Veronica. The patron’s initials ‘IK’ are visible in the margins and these two panels include a trompe l’oeil lock which visually ‘fastens’ as the triptych is closed - reproduced faithfully in the Arundel copy. The Society made facsimiles of only two Flemish artists: Van Eyck (The Ghent Altarpiece) and Memling (The Lubeck altarpiece and the present Jan Floreins triptych). W. Noel Johnson, A Handbook (Catalogue raisonné) to the Collection of Chromo-lithographs from Copies of important Works of Ancient Masters, published by the Arundel Society: with historical and special artistic Record and Notes (1907) 182-6.

Sole edition of the small catalogue issued to accompany Monnier’s needlework exhibition at the Galerie Druet at 20, rue Royale, ‘Du lundi 5 mai au vendredi 30 mai 1924’. Copy number 13 of 15 on Japon (before 25 on Hollande and 100 on ordinary paper, total edition 140 copies).

It lists just 14 pieces (1918-1923) including some of her most celebrated pieces including a set of four tarot images, l’Abeille and Palme (illustrating Valéry) and Féerie, after Léon-Paul Fargue. Valéry wrote in his preface: ‘Mais considérez ces panneaux merveilleusement colorés. Leur éclat les apparente aux plus merveilleuses productions de la vie, aux élytres, aux plumes d’oiseau, aux coquillages, aux pétales. Nulle peinture ne peut atteindre à ces forces ni à ces délicatesses que les brins de soie savamment associés font paraître’.

Marie Monnier was the wife of the artist Paul-Émile Bécat and sister of bookseller-publisher Adrienne Monnier (Sylvia Beach’s partner). Marie exhibited both in her sister’s bookshop and at the Galerie Druet. She also created a large embroidery inspired by Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and painted one of the famous signboards for Shakespeare and Company (now at Princeton). Worldcat lists US copies at Harvard and Princeton (three copies in the Sylvia Beach collection).