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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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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,

First edition of this very rare collection devoted to the street life of Paris, as observed by an imagined flâneur, some thirty years before Baudelaire defined the characteristics of the archetypal literary and aesthetic wanderer. The plates depict various familiar and unfamiliar aspects of Paris life — the title plate depicts the widow Lagarde, a dog and cat groomer, while other plates show browsers at a book stall in the Rue de Grès, walkers in the Luxembourg gardens, female basket carriers at la Halle, various vendors and hawker and fashionable women in the Boulevard de l’Opera. Complete sets are exceptionally rare (the British Museum catalogue lists only four of the series, for example).

Forest was a prolific caricaturist, working alongside both Grandville and Daumier for satirical journals such as La Silhouette and La Caricature. WorldCat lists only the Morgan copy (Michael Sadleir; from the library of Gordon N. Ray). Inventaire du fonds français après 1800, v. VIII, p. 101

First edition. An extensive survey of the Welsh musical tradition by a celebrated Welsh harpist and antiquary in London. ‘Edward Jones moved to London in 1774 or early 1775, under the patronage of the London Welsh circle. The harp was very fashionable in London at the time, and Jones quickly established himself in some of the most eminent circles as a popular performer and teacher of the instrument’ (ODNB). He became harpist to the prince of Wales (later George IV). Musical and poetical Relicks, a rather costly production with an extensive subscriber’s list, contains a major essay on bardic poetry with texts and songs in both Welsh and English. An engraved plate shows the principal instruments of Welsh music, including the harp and lyre, while the second part of the book mainly comprises engraved music for some 60 Welsh tunes, some Jones’s variations, all on two staves and thus suitable also the keyboard.

‘Jones’s most important work was in the preservation of traditional Welsh music. He collected and published over 200 traditional melodies, many of which he transcribed from having heard them sung and played at home in north Wales. His concern for the protection of Welsh cultural life is also evident in his strong belief in the eisteddfod as a safeguard of Welsh cultural traditions and the purity of the Welsh language. He invariably attended eisteddfodau on his regular summer visits to Wales, often acting as an adjudicator; and on several occasions he provided and presented prizes for competitions such as singing with the harp and the best collection of penillion’.

This copy is from the library of the Dukes of Portland, containing the bookplate of William Arthur, sixth duke of Portland (1857-1943), but with an earlier gilt supralibros denoting the presence of the book in the Portland collection at an earlier date. It is quite likely to have formed part of the celebrated subterranean library collections at Welbeck Abbey of the eccentric John Bentinck fifth duke of Portland. BUCEM, p. 559; RISM J 607.

Bernard Hoepffner (1946-2017) was a noted French translator of ‘difficult’ works in English, a major part of he European literary landscape, who counted works by Joyce, Orwell, Twain, Melville, Amis, Philip Sidney, Seamus Heaney among his many acclaimed translations. Polymathic and largely self-taught as a translator, he had trained as an architect. It was presumably during this training that he created this unique and unpublished collection of abstract designs in indian in and watercolour. Each of the 20 designs bears a title: naissance, espoir déçu, reflets d’une pensée, être agressif, être passif, un desolé, perspective, rêve, rather like a set of enigmatic tarot cards for reflection and meditation. He dedicates it ‘à Dazet, vers Jean, pour Abis’. By way of a preface he simply types ‘Pas de préface’, and as a postface he writes: ‘il ne faut pas confondre Minotaure avec Minautaure’ and gives a date of 29 April 1965’.

Hoepffner spent many years in Britain, first moving there as a young man. He worked variously a furniture restorer and smallholder, before finding his vocation as a translator. He served a president of ATLAS (Association
for the Promotion of Literary Translation) and died tragically at the age of 71, swept from rocks by the sea near his home in Pembrokeshire in 2017.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with a scrolling arabesque device to the upper portion and her name in full below, with the strokes of every letter terminating in a cross.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with a vulture and a cobra, reminiscent of several of her miniature paintings in the orientalist style from the same period.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with a three-barred cross resembling the Maronite cross and the artist’s initials in an omega shaped cartouche at the foot. She gives her full name on a scroll at the foot. We have hitherto found no record of Mariette Lydis’ bookplate, nor indeed of books belonging to her, either with or without bookplates.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with an intertwining vine and two female deer, and the artist’s name on a scroll. We have hitherto found no record of Mariette Lydis’ bookplate, nor indeed of books belonging to her, either with or without bookplates.

First edition of Mariette Lydis’s first book, number 70 of 100 copies on thick handmade paper and bound in bright yellow ‘duvetine’ cloth (the limitation notice mentions copies are either in ‘duvetine’ or in Chinese silk), complete with rare original box. Though described on the title as Chinese stories by Balàzs illustrated by Lydis, in fact the illustrations came first, with the 16 fables added in response — so the book is in effect a series of pictures ‘illustrated’ with text. Its genesis lay with Lydis (then Marietta Pachoffer-Karñy) and her friend, the Viennese progressive educationalist Eugenie Schwarzwald, who approached the Hungarian emigré poet and aesthetician Balàzs (who had composed the libretto for Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle in 1911) to write a text so that a book could be published. In order to have it ready for Christmas he had to write the sixteen tales in just three weeks, producing a series of strange and sometimes chilling tales true to the striking orientalism of the images. It was a great success — Thomas Mann extolled it as ‘a beautiful book’ in a press review, while a modern critic writes: ‘Not surprisingly [Balàzs] stuck to his favorite theme — human alienation... In these fables, Balàzs suggested that men could only unite with women in the utopian world of dreams and longing’. (Congdon, Exiles and Social Thought: Hungarian Intellectuals in Germany, 2014, p. 104). Der Mantel der Träume has more recently been published in English as The Cloak of Dreams (Princeton, 2010).

The sixteen illustrations and fables are: Der Mantel der Träume; Li-Tai-Pe und der Dieb; Die Sonnenschirme; Der ungeschickte Gott; Die Opiumraucher; Der Floh; Das Alte Kind; Die Gottesräuber; Li-Tai-Pe und der Frühling; Die Ahnen; Der Mondfisch; Die Freunde; Die Rache des Kastanienbaumes; Tränenblick; Das Lehmkind and Der Sieger. The 20 illustrations are from watercolour miniatures and reproduce dates (Lugano 1921-2) and the artist’s initials ‘M.P.K’ [for Marietta Pachoffer-Karñy, from her first marriage in 1910 to Austrian businessman Julius Koloman Pachoffer-Karñy, who died April 1922].

First edition, tirage de tête, one of 20 copies on japon with two suites (followed by 50 on hollande and 150 on arches, total edition 220 copies). Mariette Lydis supplied a portrait lithograph for this stylish alphabetic collection of texts and illustrations devoted to 26 imaginary women. She illustrates ‘Therèse’, a pale, alienated young woman, to illustrate a short text by Francis de Miomandre lamenting the quotidian life of a northern housewife confined to domesticity despite dreams of a more passionate existence. The other texts include contributions from Henri de Regnier, Giraudoux, la Comtesse de Noailles, Colette, Mac Orlan and Mauriac, and the illustrations include lithographs by Dunoyer de Segonzac, Dufy, Marie Laurencin, Lydis, Daragnès, and Laborde. This is copy 131 of 150 on Arches (after 20 on Japon and 50 on Hollande).

The striking and accomplished binding bears the stamp of Louise Pinard, daughter and successor of the Parisian binder Lucien Durvand (1852-1924). After his death in 1924 his daughter Louise continued to produce bindings until 1934, possibly the date of her own death.

First edition with the Lydis illustrations. One of a total edition of 131 copies, this one of the 115 on papier de Rives). The illustrations, many in the style of illuminated miniatures or icons are transformed through brilliant pochoir colouring executed in the workshop of master colourist Jean Saude, reproducing the artist’s signature on each.
These verse litanies, after the traditional catholic Marian litany, are entirely the creation of Armand Godoy and were first published (unillustrated) in 1930. Symbolist poet Godoy was born in Havana in 1880 and spent the first part of his life in Cuba and Peru, working in banking and the tobacco trade, before emigrating to France in 1919 with the express intention of becoming a poet ‘dans la langue de Baudelaire’. Much influenced by the Parnassians and the symbolists he was also a major collector of books, manuscripts and prints, amassing an unrivalled collection of Baudelaireiana. Among his numerous small-scale published works in French is his translation of Poe’s Raven — Le Corbeau d’Edgar Poe (Émile-Paul frères, 1929, with a frontispiece by Lydis).

First editions of both text and plates, this copy with the artist’s signature and additional pencil extracts from the text added in pencil to the lower margins of each plate.

Govone printed 353 copies of his large-format Baudelaire in 1928, together with just 125 copies of an accompanying suite of etched plates by Lydis. This left over 200 copies of the text un-illustrated, many of which were unsold by 1935, when Lydis prepared a new suite of plates for them - the present 33 hand-coloured plates. The text volume was reissued in new wrappers and paired with the new plates. This copy of the text is number 173 of the 290 copies on hollande, and the 33 plates are all signed in pencil.

The reissue of the 1928 text with the 1935 plates has been a frequent cause of bibliographic confusion, with the highly distinctive plates often catalogued as dating from 1928. They do not, and are entirely different from Lydis’ earlier suite.