dance

Folio (290 × 230 mm), pp. [4] (one bifolium). Browned, some marginal creasing.

[with:] Supplément au Manifeste technique de la littérature futuriste. [Milan: A. Talveggia for Direction du Mouvement futuriste, 1912]. Browned, some marginal creasing, fore-edge quite chipped.

First editions in French (simultaneous with the Italian issues) of Marinetti’s Futurist manifestos for literature: ‘Sitting on the gas tank of an aeroplane, my stomach warmed by the pilot’s head, I sensed the ridiculous inanity of the old syntax inherited from Homer. A pressing need to liberate words, to drag them out of their prison in the Latin period!’

[MARINETTI, F. T.] Le Music-Hall. Manifeste futuriste publié par le “Daily-Mail,” 21 Novembre 1913. [Milan: A. Talveggia for Direction du Mouvement futuriste, 1913].

Folio (290 × 230 mm), pp. [4] (one bifolium). Browned, some creasing, chipping and short tears at margins, but generally sound.

First edition of Marinetti’s manifesto on the music hall. Though dated 29 September 1913, publication postdated the abridged version published in English in the Daily Mail on November 21, 1913, where it was attributed to ‘the only intelligible Futurist’). Issued simultaneously in Italian in this pamphlet form. It lays out the Futurists’ enthusiasm for Music Hall as an anti-academic art form, not bound by tradition, with its speed and mechanical novelty, its use of cinematography to create effects unheard of in the theatre, and its genuine collaboration with the audience, among many other perceived advantages over conventional theatre. It ends with a typically Futurist typographical performance incorporating adverts for Manoli cigarettes. Marinetti had been lecturing in London in 1913 and his various pronouncements were eagerly covered by the press. It was not until the eve of war in 1914 that he put his manifesto into practice, giving presentations at London’s largest music hall, the Coliseum — events which were greeted with a degree of bemusement by a distracted British public.

--- La Danse futuriste. Danse de l’Aviateur - Danse du Shrapnell - Danse de la Mitrailleuse. [Milan: A. Tareggia for Direction du Mouvement futuriste, 1917].

Folio (290 × 230 mm), pp. [4] (one bifolium). Browned, some creasing, chipping and short tears at margins, but generally sound.

First edition in French (and probably the first separate edition) the Italian text having previously appeared in the journal Italia futurista of 8 July 1917. Marinetti’s manifesto for dance applies the Futurist programme prioritising action, violence and speed to contemporary dance. He considers the innovations brought to European dance by Argentine tango (’spasme furieux’) and other South American forms, he is equivocal about the langorous style of Isadora Duncan but more enthusiastic about Loïe Fuller, before coming to the point: ‘La danse futuriste sera: Inharmonieuse - Disgracieuse - Asymétrique - Dynamique - Motlibriste’. He then gives detailed accounts of three such dances: Danse de l’Aviateur - Danse du Shrapnell - Danse de la Mitrailleuse. Carteret 418.

A rare perspective peepshow depicting a boar hunt in a forest, with horses and dogs. Engelbrecht (1684-1756) produced many different designs of these sets in three sizes, of which ours is an example of the smallest (and rarest). They were designed to be viewed when slotted successively into a perspective viewing box but can equally be appreciated when standing in simple slots or stands. One of the parts is marked ‘N. 87’ in the plate. In this example the prints have been mounted in the early nineteenth-century. cf. Ralph Hyde, Paper Peepshows (2015), pp. 14–15 and David Robinson, ‘Augsburg Peepshows’, Print Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 188–191.�

A rare perspective peepshow depicting a stag hunt in a forest, with horses and dogs. Among the hunters is one with a rifle, and two with horns. Engelbrecht (1684-1756) produced many different designs of these sets in three sizes, of which ours is an example of the smallest (and rarest). They were designed to be viewed when slotted successively into a perspective viewing box but can equally be appreciated when standing in simple slots or stands. One of the parts is marked ‘N. 87’ in the plate. In this example the prints have been mounted in the early nineteenth-century. cf, Ralph Hyde, Paper Peepshows (2015), pp. 14–15 and David Robinson, ‘Augsburg Peepshows’, Print Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 188–191.�