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A well-presented Victorian monogram album containing over 1600 cut monograms. Many here are private monograms and include a large number of women’s christian names, while there are pages devoted to regiments, naval ships, clubs, associations and Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The presentation is typical, but especially neat and varied, with the cut monograms arranged on decorative pen and watercolour grounds. These are often geometric (circles and other interlocking figures are frequent) but include a gothic window, patriotic flags, mossy borders, anchors and a heraldic garter. Monogram collecting was hugely popular in the mid-nineteenth century and collections like this usually included genuine examples cut from stationery, together with others specially produced by stationery companies capitalising on the fashion. These latter monograms, evidently sold in sets can be quite elaborate, often featuring gold inks and sometimes with amusing and whimsical subjects.

A substantial library catalogue from Arthurstone House, Meigle, Perthshire, listing over 2500 titles with their respective press and shelf locations. The books cover a wide variety of subjects (science, literature, art, classics, travel, topography and agriculture) and date from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century (with the largest concentration in the later eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries). This is a typical country house collection in a library probably formed in the later eighteenth century and reorganised after 1869, when this handsome catalogue was evidently produced. The earliest book we have noticed is a 1550 edition of Macchiavelli, while among the latest works is Darwin’s Naturalist’s Voyage of 1845. Other authors and works include Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lyell, Shakespeare, Swift, Descartes and Ossian and there are copies of Cook’ second and third voyages, nine works on chess and eighteen on America, several pages of entries for ‘Scotland’, together with a quantity of pamphlets, many on military subjects.

Arthurstone (Perthshire, close to both Perth and Dundee) dates from around 1789 but was remodelled and extended by the industrialist and philanthorpist Peter Carmichael who added a library and a billiard room when he purchased the house in 1869. The library apparently featured oak panelling, along with intricately carved busts of literary figures ncluding Robert Burns, Wordsworth and Shakespeare.

A very good lady’s album and commonplace book in which 34 pages bear illustrations, mostly watercolours and a large proportion full- or half-page of flowers, birds, butterflies, shells, a feather, and two excellent trompe l’oeils with writing materials and playing cards. A witty frontispiece depicts a beggar woman with a sack labelled ‘The Smallest Piece will be acceptable’ and is captioned ‘A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles (Winter’s Tale)’ while a pencil portrait (of the compiler?) is of another beggar girl holding a sign ‘Scraps thankfully received’. The texts include: ‘What is Life?’, ‘A Ship sinking in a Storm’ (Byron), ‘A Mother’s Grief’, ‘Lines on the death of his Eldest Son by the late Right Honorable George Canning’, ‘The Moss Rose, from the German’, ‘The Blush’, ‘To an early Primrose’ (Henry Kirk White), ‘Woman’ and ‘On a Lady sleeping’.

One of Diane de Bournazel’s magical optical ‘peepshows’ with a window opening onto a mysterious three-dimensional scene within. It features some of the distinctive features of the artist’s much-admired artist’s books, but makes use of the peepshow form to bring added depth and perspective to her enchanted world. The paper peepshow was popularised by publishers such as Martin Engelbrecht in Munich from the middle of the eighteenth century, evidently inspired by baroque stage sets, but reached the peak of their elaboration in the Victorian era. They were either sold as toys or souvenirs or, in expanded form, were popular fairground attractions. Each of Diane de Bournazel’s peepshows is a unique creation.

A superb collection which includes 24 large watercolours of fashionable interiors in houses and hotels in Pisa, Lucca, Nice, Tours, Lyon (and one in Saint Petersburg). Richly coloured and detailed these are wonderful visual accounts of contemporary European taste in interior design. Ceiling and wall mouldings, chimney pieces and window frames are rendered in painstaking detail, as are a wide range of furnishings and fabrics, together with domestic articles such as clocks, mirrors, musical instruments, albums, books, prints and pictures. Fabrics, carpets and wall hangings are especially carefully treated, with details of patterns and textures faithfully recorded. The number of books and albums adorning shelves and tabletops is notable, giving an impression of a leisured and cultivated milieu.
The images are generously proportioned, usually more than 20 cms high and between 25 and 30 cms wide (some are larger). All are probably by the same hand, unsigned, leaving us to search for clues among the captions to the identity of the artist. One refers to the house of ‘My Grandfather Sir Coote’ while two of the pencil drawings are recognisable as the Coote family seat at Ballyfin, Leinster, Ireland. One watercolour refers to ‘ma chambre’ suggesting the watercolours are personal records of a series of visits and stays in popular winter and summer holiday spots, some with prominent hosts. Some images have the captions in pencil on their backs, in a very shaky hand, which have evidently been transcribed when the pictures were pasted into this album, perhaps c. 1860.
Some of the interiors are unpopulated (and have an eerie quality) while others have well-dressed figures sitting and standing, conversing, reading or drawing. Several faces recur, notably a mustachioed man with longish hair, who might possibly be the artist or a relative. The Anglo-Irish Coote family owned Ballyfin, which became one of the finest mansions in Ireland, from the early nineteenth century and the 9th Baronet, Sir Charles Coote (d. 1864, likely to be the grandfather mentioned in the caption) was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford and was frequently on the continent. He had five sons and two daughters, and presumably many grandchildren — one of whom may have been the artist here. It is possible that the additional pencil drawings (1, 28 and 29) are in different hands.

1. Pencil caricature ‘The honorable général William Rerelinson’ [sic], signed ‘Vte. R. de Querelly’. (360 × 240 mm), edges creased and slightly frayed.
2. Portrait of a young girl, untitled (295 × 215 mm).
3. Interior, untitled, but a variant of the following view (126 × 160 mm).
4. Caza Leoli - à Pise (126 × 160 mm), closed tear (56 mm) no loss, slightly creased.
5. Salon au quai du Midi [?Nice] (238 × 180 mm), slight loss at upper corners.
6. Un salon d’Hôtel - 1842. à Tours (230 × 220 mm).
7. Eté 1842 Maison Viallon (La Mulatière, Lyon) (235 × 280 mm).
8. Salon de la Maison Gilly à la Croix de Marbre (Nice) Hiver 1842 et 1843 - Eté 1846 (246 × 342 mm).
9. Pise - Palais Leoli - Salon. Hiver 1843 et 1844 (235 × 298 mm).
10. Eté 1844. Bagni di Lucca (225 × 318 mm).
11. Eté 1845. Viareggio (230 × 280 mm).
12. Salon. Chez le Prince Méncherski (238 × 310 mm).
13. Maison Marchet (204 × 274 mm).
14. [Another version of the above, untitled] (216 × 275 mm).
15. [Untitled interior with woman reading by a fireside] (250 × 362 mm).
16. Maison de Roubion (215 × 250 mm).
17. Maison Gilly (246 × 340 mm).
18. [Untitled interior, a gentleman seated, in a dressing gown, verso caption ‘ma chambre’] (124 × 146 mm).
19. Hiver 1844 - 1845 - 1846 à Pise (234 × 314 mm).
20. Maison Gilly (Adrien) à Nice - Croix de Marbre - Eté 1846 (227 × 295 mm).
21. [Untitled, an opulent interior] (188 × 262 mm).
22. Maison Ambroise Tiranty - Nice (Hiver 1846-1847) (246 × 300 mm).
23. Viareggio (228 × 284 mm).
24. Petersbourg - Caserne des Chevaliers Gardes (250 × 349 mm), 2 short tears to right border, no loss.
25. Chambre de mon Gd Père Sir Coote à Nice (288 × 224 mm).
26. Maison Maselet [or Maschet] (170 × 245 mm).
27. Photograph, view of Nice (216 × 275 mm).
28. Pencil drawing [Ballyfin House, Leinster, Ireland] (270 × 375 mm).
29. Pencil drawing [Ballyfin House, Leinster, Ireland] (180 × 276 mm).

Slavery in France was abolished during the Revolution, but was reintroduced by Napoleon in 1804 and not finally abolished until 1838. In April 1826 Charles X had signed a treaty formally recognising the independence of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and it seems likely that these notes were written for a speech given shortly after that date. Barante notes that some viewed the treaty as an act of submission, but he states that the king and the negotiators who signed the treaty had ‘une horreur sincère pour cet infame trafic’ and that the loss of the colony was no threat to France. In the light of the treaty, Barante believes that this was a favourable moment to advance the cause of abolition. Towards the end he refers to the famous saying of Robespierre: ‘Périssent les colonies plutôt qu’un principe’ (though he simply writes ‘périsse les colonies...’ here) but he goes on ‘ces paroles sont atroces — le premier de tous les principes est l’horreur du crime... Cependant ce principe auquel on faisait des sacrifices humains était un principe et de cruauté’. For Barante therefore the fight against the injustice and cruelty of the slave trade is of the highest importance, and these eight pages clearly reveal his humanity and support for the cause of abolition.
Prosper de Barante (1782-1866), a prominent liberal voice in nineteenth-century France was variously a diplomat, politician, statesman, historian and writer. From 1807-9 he was a ‘sous préfet’ in the department of Ardèche, and from 1813-15 prefect of Loire-Inférieure at Nantes. He made several diplomatic visits to Spain and Poland and was a close friend of liberal thinker Benjamin Constant. He was also a member of the Coppet group in the circle of Madame de Staël.

It deals with the various attempts to frame legislation on human rights from the English Bill of Rights of 1688, the Rights of Man in the American Revolution, the French Revolution, to his own time. He examines each and discusses the difficulties of framing a Declaration of the Rights of Man. This manuscript was evidently the basis of his essay ‘Déclarations des droits de l’homme et du citoyen’ published in Études littéraires et historiques (1858).

Prosper de Barante (1782-1866) a prominent liberal voice in nineteenth-century France was variously a diplomat, politician, statesman, historian and writer. From 1807-9 he was a ‘sous préfet’ in the department of Ardèche, and from 1813-15 prefect of Loire-Inférieure at Nantes. He made several diplomatic visits to Spain and Poland and was a close friend of liberal thinker Benjamin Constant. He was also a member of the Coppet group in the circle of Madame de Staël.

A record of dinners given and attended by a prominent British diplomat and his wife in Berlin and Vienna in the years of the French Revolutionary Wars. Completed on an almost daily basis, the ‘Dinner Book’ lists the names of all the attendees, including many of the key figures in Prussian and Austrian diplomacy, as well as representatives of Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the United States. Emigré French nobles also completed many of the tables. The dinners range from state balls and dinners to ‘great’ and ‘little’ suppers given by Eden himself. In Berlin, the Edens were frequent guests at the court of Prussian King Frederick William II and his Queen, while at Vienna the Prince of Stahremberg was a frequent host. British dining companions included Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Henry Spencer, Sir Robert Cotton and Lord Dalkeith. French guests included the emigré duc de Richelieu, Louis de la Trémouille, Armand de Polignac and on 11 November 1797 in Vienna Eden notes: ‘Dinner was given to the Duke d’Enghien, who stayed here 3 days on his way to Russia...’ As a member of the House of Bourbon Enghien commanded a corps of emigrés established by the Prince de Condé and he was later executed by Napoleon for collaboration with the British. Also among Eden’s acquaintances in Vienna was American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who was in Vienna in the autumn of 1796 as American Minister Plenipotentary to France. He is noted in Eden’s book as ‘Mr Morris — American’ and dined with him at least six times.
The dinners form the diplomatic and social background to the negotiations concerning the balance of power in Europe during the French Revolutionary Wars — on 4 May 1795, for example, Eden had signed a treaty with Austrian chancellor, guaranteeing a loan of £4,600,000 to Austria for fielding 170,000 troops in Germany against France.
Educated at Eton and Christchurch, Oxford, Eden was appointed ‘envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at the court of Berlin. He was nominated a knight of the Bath on 16 December 1791 and, at the special request of George III, was publicly invested with the insignia of the order by the king of Prussia on 1 January 1792. In February he very readily proceeded to Vienna as ambassador to the emperor of Austria for a year, and on 12 November 1794 he was sworn in a privy councillor, and, after reluctantly agreeing to be dispatched to Madrid as ambassador-extraordinary, he was reappointed envoy-extraordinary to Vienna to negotiate the war loan to the emperor. He remained in the Austrian capital for five years’ (Oxford DNB).

A rather extraordinary faithful manuscript copy of Bowen’s set of seven strange satirical tales originally published in the Pall Mall Magazine, December 1913-June 1914, complete with copies of the original illustrations by Bowen’s sister Phyllis Vere Campbell. The identity of the very accomplished copyist is provided only by the monogram on the title-page ‘FMSB’.

A regimental account book of one Thomas Olney of Northamptionshire serving with the 1st Batallion Rifle Brigade (soldier 1718) successively at Corfu and the Cape of Good Hope and lastly garrisoned at Walmer (Kent). Issued to all serving soldiers, the officia account book records enlistment, next of kin (in this case a mother), distinguishing features, kit issue and payments, which are written into printed columns prefaced by rules and regulations for engagement and conduct. Enlisted for a bounty of £3 17 shilling and sixpence Olney (of the village of Weedon) was issued with a knapsack, towels, shirts, stockings, a holdall, cutlery, shaving kit, a forage cap and strap, webbing, a shell jacket and a clothes brush. After service abroad he seems to have been furloughed in 1851, and the last record here is from Walmer in 1852.

Though fairly lightly completed the book evidently travelled everywhere with its owner, folded into a canvas roll case, the lower parchment cover sometime removed by him. An evocative item.

A wonderful collection of contemporary fashion designs for the year 1867-8. The title-page, (marked ‘5ème volume) is an emblem of the ever-changing nature of fashion ― two richly-dressed women stand between marker posts for the years 1867 and 1868, one in deep winter attire with bonnet, scarf, cape and muff, the other in the light spring garments of the following year. Between them an elegant dandy stands with a velocipede (suggesting modernity, movement and rapidity) and above is a cartouche enclosing a naked woman below the legend: ‘Comment l’habiller-t-on?’ (‘how will they dress?’). The final leaf is similarly emblematic, with a splendidly-attired young woman in green stepping from 1868 to 1869 over a running stream.
Anonymous and evidently once part of a sequence, these brilliant watercolours depict Parisian fashions at their most colourful and sumptuous. Those showing off fabrics with new chemical or aniline dyes of green, mauve and blue are often heightened with gum arabic, adding a lustrous sheen, evocative of rich and heavy silks then much in vogue. Skirts are full and often multi-layered, with arrangements for lifting the outermost layer for walking. Special attention is paid to the backs of these outfits, with a good number seen from the side or behind, showing the elaborate ruffles and bows (which would develop into fully-blown bustles in the following decade). There are stripes, plaids, pleats, ruffles, embroidery, lace and beadwork. Hairstyles are also carefully depicted, with long and thick tresses in a variety of braids and tresses, as well as luxuriantly loose styles.
The anonymous artist was a highly accomplished fashion artist, brilliantly equipped to render details and textures of fabrics, dress and deportment, of the type employed by designers and couturiers to show off to prospective customers their latest creations. This is a remarkable record of a golden age of Parisian dressmaking at the height of nineteenth-century haute couture when designers such as Charles Worth were claiming the city as the focus of the fashionable world.

A contemporary or early manuscript copy of ‘The Votes and other Proceeedings of the honourable House of Commons’ recording the dramatic political background to the Glorious Revolution and with a complete copy of the Declaration of Rights (commonly called the ‘Bill of Rights’) and the more comprehensive ‘Heads of Grievances’ from which it was distilled. With Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights is one of the landmarks in the development of constitutional law of England (and by extension, America) setting out basic civil rights which would shape the structure of government into our own era. It set firm limits on the powers of the crown while confirming the place of parliament in legislation and the right to free speech within it. It also guaranteed the right to bear arms, but limiting it to Protestants in defence against the perceived Catholic tyranny of the deposed James II. The Bill of Rights directly reflected the philosophy of John Locke and stands as one of the landmark documents in the development of civil liberties in the United Kingdom and a model for later, more general, statements of rights including the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is included here, with much other parliamentary business, in a yearly manuscript volume of ‘The Votes of the House of Commons’. A distinct class of the record, the ‘Votes’ were kept by a clerk of the House and recorded business transacted on each day’s sittings, including the bills read, orders and resolutions passed, divisions, licences, and the like. Copies of the Clerk’s originals could be made for members of parliament and there was a limited circulation of the texts in folio volumes such as this, but they were not published in print until much later. Frankle, Robert J. ‘The Formulation of the Declaration of Rights’. The Historical Journal, vol. 17, no. 2, 1974, pp. 265–279. cf. D. Menhennet, The Journal of the House of Commons: A Bibliographical and Historical Guide, 1971; M.F. Bond, Guide to the Records of Parliament (1971).

A good and typical illustrated commonplace album with transcribed verses, drawings and watercolours. The selections are very much representative of the contemporary fashion among women for such manuscript collections, with poems by Byron, Goldsmith and others, verses of friendship, loss and leave-taking, nature poems, riddles and aphorisms. A nicely self-aware inclusion here is Benjamin Franklin’s humorous ‘Paper a Poem’ relating paper types (gilt paper, copy paper, brown paper, foolscap, touch paper, waste paper and so on) to human analogues. The relatively few poems by women include Ann Radcliffe’s ‘To the Nightingale’ and ‘To Anne’ (unattributed here but by Mary Anne Browne, 1812-1845, entitled by her ‘Written in an Album’). Most of the contents have been entered within a few years of 1828 followed by a scatter of much later entries of the 1870s and 80s towards the end.

The best account of the album genre in the history of reading and writing we have come across is by the late William St Clair in The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004, pp. 224-9) in a passage which could aptly serve as a description of Ann Jordan’s album.

Manuscript and watercolour maquettes for an apparently unpublished game, including a portion of a folding game mat (on linen), a sheet of counters (uncut, on parchment), numerous drawings and sketches as trials for the game positions (on paper and tracing paper, some coloured) and several sheets of manuscript instructions in French and Spanish. The game seems to have been a type of lotto, with parchment counters (corresponding to game positions) which were to be placed in a spherical wooden ‘bank’ for shuffling, before being drawn by the players.
The game’s origin in a French household at Saint Sébastien is indicated by the use of numerous scraps of waste paper from the French Consul’s office there ― perhaps it was made by a member of his own family or staff. The sketches are highly accomplished and carefully rendered, often with several preliminary sketches before reduction in gouache to the size of the parchment game counters.

Alphabet (upper and lower case), several decorative lines and two verses: ‘Is there ambition in my heart / search gracious God and see...’ [Isaac Watts] and ‘Teach me to live / that I may dread/ the grave as little / as my bed // Teach me to die ‘ that so I may / with joy behold /the judgement day’ [Thomas Ken, and later sued by Thomas Hardy in Jude the Obscure]. Needlework samplers remain one of the most widespread manifestations of the teaching and learning of basic literacy among girls and young women and, as here, reflect a strongly moralistic background.

An extensive military manuscript, unpublished in print, consisting of order issues by the Savoyard minister of war, comte Bogin in 1752-3, setting out detailed procedures for ordering, drilling and manoeuvring in the infantry regiments of the armies of the King of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel III. Presumably a contemporary copy of orders sent out to the regiments themselves, each part ends with the dated subscription (in copy) of Bogin at Turin. The manuscript is highly detailed, with 43 chapters across the two parts, covering rifle exercise (including bayonets), flag bearing, drilling, marching, battle formations and the conduct of firing in battle. The mid-eighteenth century Savoyard/Sardinian armies counted over 30 infantry regiments among their forces.

The island of Sardinia had been ceded in 1720 by the Habsburg and Bourbon claimants of the Spanish throne to the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II. The Savoyards united it with their historical possessions on the Italian mainland, while the monarchs of the House of Savoy ruled from their mainland capital of Turin, but styled themselves primarily with the royal title of Sardinia, ‘rois de Sardaigne’, as superior to their original lesser dignity as Dukes of Savoy.

A satire on contemporary student life, addressing the traditional pursuits of the young denizens of the rue Saint Jacques — drinking, smoking, gaming, dancing and womanizing.

This is one of the many such little Physiologies illustrative of ‘the craze that swept Paris in the early 1840s for a series of small illustrated volumes marketed under the general title of physiologies [looking back, perhaps, to Brillat-Savarin’s bestselling Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du marriage (1830)]. Some 120 different physiologies were issued by various Parisian publishers between 1840 and 1842 (ranging alphabetically from the Physiologie de l’amant to the Physiologie du voyageur), and it is estimated that approximately half a million copies of these pocket-sized books were printed during the same two-year span’ (Sieburth, p. 163).

Designed for mass consumption, these satirical guides to particular social types were based on ‘the witty interaction of image and text, drawing and caption, seeing and reading … Byproducts of the recent technological advances in printing and paper manufacturing which had made illustrated books more commercially feasible and analogous to the various dioramas and panoramas which enjoyed a considerable popularity during the period, these illustrated anthologies of urban sites and mores catered to the public’s desire to see its social space as a stage or gallery whose intelligibility was guaranteed both by its visibility as image and its legibility as text …

‘Quickly produced and marketed, consumed and discarded, … the physiologies (like the sensational tabloids or canards hawked on Paris streetcorners of the period) are early instances of the cheap, throwaway “instant book” whose appeal lies in its very topicality and ephemerality’ (op. cit., pp. 165–7). Richard Sieburth, ‘Same difference: the French Physiologies, 1840–1842’, Notebooks in Cultural Analysis (Duke UP, 1984), pp. 163–200.

Lettice Hallett (1787–1859) was the eldest daughter of the Radical reformer William Hallett of Denford Park, near Kintbury, in Berkshire. She married solicitor Nash Crosier Hilliard (1789–1844), of Grey’s Inn, in 1819. The three-page section of writing here, dated 20 November 1825, records ‘A list of the several person of the respective Families of Nash Crosier Hilliard and of Lettice Elizabeth Hilliard living at this Period’: Hilliards, Halletts, Nelsons, and Fowles. The first section, for which the book has been turned on its side, in oblong format, contains poetry: a 24-line poem ‘On Science’ (‘E’er yet the Morn of Science rose on Earth …’) by ‘W. D.’; ‘Lines found deeply engraved on the Bark of a large Tree in the Neighbourhood of Mentz [i.e. Mainz] in Germany’; ‘Music’ by William Strode (1598–1645; ‘When whispering strains do softly steal …’); ‘To a Friend in Distress’ (‘Shrink not to meet with adverse fate or part, / When black the scene, then bravely arm your heart …’); ‘The Morning before the Ball’, ‘The Morning after the Ball’, and extracts from ‘The Traveller’ and ‘The Deserted Village’ by Goldsmith.

The other end of the book (for which the book has been flipped over to write) is taken up by a history of England, seemingly paraphrased, and expanded, by Lettice from Trusler’s Compendium of Useful Knowledge (1784 and later editions), from the Ancient Britons up to William the Conqueror and his sons.

A series of witty and finely executed erotic miniatures, presumably a Paris souvenir made with an anglophone audience in mind, most likely the American servicemen in Paris after 1945.

A pocket treatise on the art of war, probably compiled in the aftermath of the Seven Years War. This anonymous manuscript comprises six chapters: [1] Maximes générales; [2] Des Camps de Rassemblement; [3]. La Guerre de Campagne, comprend l’objet, le plan général, le plan particulier, la conduite, re résultat et la fin des operations; [4] Campagnes de deffensive; [5] Campagnes d’hiver; [6] des Capitulations. Written from the point of view of a prospective military commander or general, it introduces the principles and objectives of campaign warfare of the sort that dominated European history in the eighteenth century. It makes occasional references to historical persons (Turenne and the Duc de Broglie) as well as to more recent events, such as the winter campaigns of 1757-9).

Provenance: Early ownership inscription: Antonio Lopez; Marquis d'Astorga, sale 1870 (described as from the library of the Dukes of Sessa); Bookplate of Ricardo Heredia, comte de Benahavis, sold as lot 551, Paul, Huard & Guillemin, Drouot (Paris), May, 1891.