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An illustrated chansonnier, highly decorated, and including songs such as: Souvenir de ‘70, Les Femmes soldats, Le Baiser, l’Anglaise, Le Testament du Libre-Penseur, Marche du Bataillon d’Afrique, L’Africaine, Départ pour Madagascar, La Pucelle de Bellville, Les Prisonniers morts pour la liberté.

These notebooks are a fascinating example of a popular method of collecting popular French cabaret songs, all neatly copied up with headings and illustrations (usually suitably suggestive) copied from contemporary song sheets (an example of one of these loose sheets is loosely inserted). We have seen several similar examples, in which the illustrations are apparently traced using carbon paper from printed (or other manuscripts) exemplars. Their context is usually military or naval and they represent a significant form of popular or naive art.

The decorative title, with elaborate borders describes Arbez Carme as ‘employé au Magasin des Vivres de Réserve du 23me Reg[im]ent d’Inf[anter]ie a Bourg, Ain’. Military records record his birth in 1876 in Jura, his occupation as a perruquier (wigmaker) and his recruitment in 1896.

A seventeenth-century manuscript copy of Dubreuil’s La Perspective Pratique necessaire a tous peintres, graveurs, sculpteurs, architectes, orfevres, brodeurs, tapissiers, & autres se servans du dessein... première partie, first published in 1642. Evidently well-used, rebound in the nineteenth-century, and to judge from the binding, still handled and used thereafter, this is a large illustrated fragment consisting of parts 1, 2 and most of 3 (of 7) of the text. The original title-page and front matter, was replaced by a simple manuscript title, probably at the time of rebinding.

La Perspective Pratique, by Jean Dubreuil ‘the Jesuit’ (1602–1670) was popular among artists, architects and designers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was still being used by artists well into the nineteenth century as a practical introduction to perspective drawing. As the original title indicates it was intended for the use of painters, engravers, sculptors, goldsmiths, embroiderers and tapestry workers and had a very wide circulation, reprinted in numerous editions, including several in English. It proceeds from the principles of drawing simple shapes and solids in perspective, to specific objects such as chairs, tables, opening chests and shelving, then to buildings and townscapes. Each set of instructions is accompanied by detailed illustrations, which were widely copied. In the printed editions, these were presented as engraved plates opposite the letterpress text, but in this manuscript they are carefully incorporated into the text for ease of use. It seems to have been a practical handbook, extensively, but carefully handled (but not marked or annotated) over a long period of time.

A interesting and unique copy of this monumental pictorial record of European coins and medals struck in the Napoleonic era, including many commemorative medals of battles and truces. A printed book, with a London imprint, with portions (including title) in manuscript copy, and plates dissected, partly copied in manuscript and re-arranged. It is difficult to interpret the unusual hybrid form here, but it would appear to be a contemporary collector or curator’s production allowing the illustrations to be consulted alongside their descriptions in the text. The plates in the printed edition presented the coins and medals in a different order to the text, with corresponding numbers linking the illustrations, but turning from text to plate may have been a tiresome business. The fact that the titles, preliminary text and indexes are given as manuscript copies is less easy to explain, though at least one of the manuscripts indexes is more comprehensive than that of the printed edition. Many of the illustrations are marked with a small flower shaped inkstamp, perhaps also a collector’s demarcation.

Millin de Grandmaison (1759-1818) had been curator of the Cabinet des médailles et antiques of the former French royal library but died before this survey could be published. The manuscript was passed to the British-born James Millingen, formerly of the French mint, later an antiquary and dealer, who collated it and published it in London in both French and English versions. The imprints are faithfully copied in manuscript in our version, but it is likely a French rather than a British production.

A collection of finely-executed miniatures reproducing in colour sixteenth-century printer’s ornaments and initials: 39 selected initials, three tailpieces, one headpiece and one printer’s device (Giunta, dated on verso 1567). Some are signed, minutely, ‘A. Baudon’ who we have been unable to trace. The artist has copied, in remarkable detail, these metalcut ornaments, reproducing in many cases the speckled backgrounds typical of punched or ‘criblé’ designs.

A series of calligraphic models or exercises of impressive size and quality. The writer, who signs his (or just possibly, her) name, minutely, at the foot of the first leaf, has chosen two edifying texts to transcribe. The first three sheets contain passages (including one on the immorality of duelling) from Varietés serieuses et amusantes of 1765, while the other eight, rather unusually, contain letters from a father to a daughter (Émilie), are extracts from Abbé Gerard’s epistolary novel Le Comte de Valmont, ou les égarements de la raison of 1774. It would be unusual if this denoted a female scribe, but the choice of these extracts is tantalising.

Each leaf is ruled in leadpoint and bears a large calligraphic cartouche, some have an additional penwork initial roundel and most exhibit a variety of scripts of exceptional neatness and regularity.

An unusual and rather beautiful variant of the lithographed prayerbook illuminated by hand, probably given as a wedding gift, with the nuptial mass and prayers at the end. Such books, printed with broad blank margins could be purchased with a range of more-or-less unique embellishments in manuscript by talented anonymous ecclesiastical artists, usually women. This example is unusual for the range of its decorative motifs, including flowers, insects, stained glass windows, a sailing boat, elephants, a frog and peacocks. It combines consciously medieval imagery (notably a lady with a unicorn) with a delightful fin-de-siècle lightness, with elements of japonisme and art nouveau.

The final full page images include a nativity scene with named bells on the opposing page: Jacques, Marie and Magdelain, perhaps a personalisation for its particular owner, again, almost certainly a woman. The lithographed text has no imprint or other marks of publication, but the silk ribbon marker is woven with the name of Bouasse-Lebel, one of the major Catholic devotional publishers of later nineteenth century.

Grimm’s Iron John, the classic tale of male rights-of-passage, is here rendered in calligraphy and a series of fine historiated initials by a young Maria Elizabeth Passini. The style is medievalist, paying homage to the chivalric manuscripts of an earlier age, but is unmistakably of the 1930s. We have been unable to find any other examples of manuscripts by Passini, and it is likely to have been a student project. Her later works were figurative drawing and paintings, often portraits and graphic designs for commercial clients.

Elizabeth Passini was born in Innsbruck in 1911 into a family of notable Austrian painters and emigrated to England in the late 1920s where she studied at the Slade School. She also studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, the Central School and St Martins. She was a member of the Pastel Society, Contemporary Portrait Society and a founder member of the Hampstead Artists Council. She was a key member of the Hampstead art scene and regularly took part in the Open Air Exhibitions in Heath Street there from the late 1940s and, later on, the Royal Free Hospital Exhibitions. She taught at the Camden Arts Centre for many years. She died in 1995. Burgh House & Hampstead Museum holds a number of her works.

A set of blank ornamental borders designed for use by the convent girls of the monastery of the order of the Visitation at Ornans in Eastern France. Probably destined for use as models for notecards and letters, as suggested by the contemporary tracings. A wonderful example of contemporary decorative arts in a convent environment these watercolours are elegantly ornate, incorporating foliage, flowers, vines, swags and birds. The convent at Ornans had been founded in the early seventeenth century and, after the Revolution, refounded as a religious school in 1839 for girls. The Ordre de la Visitation de Sainte-Marie, or ‘Visitandines’ had existed also from the early seventeenth century, founded as an active order for the visitation of the sick.

A complete course teaching stenography, or the art of writing ‘aussi vite que la parole’, finely written with numerous thumbnail drawings. Divided into four parts (introduction, pronunciation, punctuation and an atlas) with an errata, a table of contents and two sheets of stenographic examples or exercises.

In the atlas dedicated to the description of the stenographic signs in 13 charts, the last 13 gather 51 finelyy drawn vignettes giving the figurative equivalent of the stenographic signs and their pronunciation: the links of a chain for an open ‘a’ (as in anneaux), a radiating halo for an ‘o’ (as in oréole), a drunkard for the ‘i’ (ivrogne), a gallows for the ‘p’ (potence), a cat for the ‘ch’ (chat), and so on, including a funnel, lyre, clock, umbrella, falls, arrow and gondola, the morphology of the signs given an ideogrammatic cue as a mnemonic. The whole represents a complete teaching system aimed at the aspiring stenographer,

A calligraphic certificate by Julia Beck, being the copy of a letter of 8 June 1914 sent by a leader of the women’s movement in France, Isabelle Bogelot to Canadian feminist, Lady Aberdeen endorsing the new book by Indiana feminist, May Wright-Sewell, entitled Genesis of the International Council of Women (1914). It was written on behalf of the Conseil National des femmes françaises.

Calligrapher Julia Beck was born in Stockholm in 1853 and moved to Paris in 1883. She became one of the first female artists from her country to make a living through art alone. She is best-known for her landscape paintings in the Impressionist style, which were highly regarded in France and abroad, but she supported herself partly through commercial calligraphy, at which she excelled. She was a committed advocate for women artists.

A Napeoleonic-era manuscript course in classical and modern French history made for a woman or girl, Caroline Hémart. Probably prepared by a tutor, the texts are enthusiastically neo-classical in tone: the opening ‘Élements de chronologie’ serve as a grounding in ancient history (with definitions of terms such as ‘Olympiade’) of Europe and the near East, based on the text of Napoleonic scholar, Luc de Lancival. The manuscript concludes with 27 stanzas of a heroic poem, ‘Ode à Clio’ by M. Le Comte François de Neufchateau (published c. 1807), which is, again, a glorious version of history seen through still-rosy Napoleonic lenses.

An appealing and unsophisticated gardener’s pocket notebook of some 10,000 words, with a first part (to page 21) concerning citrus fruit cultivation and the remaining majority to growing garofolo, or carnation [Dianthus caryophyllus]. Written from an entirely practical point of view this is a veritable grower’s guide, considering details of soil, situation, containers, seasonal care, factors affecting the size of the flowers, overwintering, avoiding ailments and cultivation from seed.

A superb art nouveau decorated manuscript, copied and entirely illuminated by a M. Jullien with geometric designs inspired by Renaissance and Islamic tiles, entirely in keeping with the Orientalist symbolism of the 56 poems by Henri de Régnier (1864-1936), one of the most significant French Symbolist poets. The binding is decorated by Jullien in pyrography in a complementary style

A diminutive palm-sized manuscript book of prayers and hymns for the feast of Saint Aquilinus (19 October), made for the curates the church dedicated to him at Évreux. It consists of offices for vespers, matins, three nocturnes and laudes and includes hymns uniquely dedicated to Aquilinus.

Saint Aquilin was born at Bayeux c. 620 and served in the army of Frankish king Clovis II. He married and had children but vowed to devote the remainder of his life to chastity, God and the service of the poor. He settled with his wife, at Évreux before he was named bishop, whereupon he built a cell by the cathedral and lived there as a hermit. He died circa 695 and the oratory chapel where he was buried was named after him.

According to a note on the initial (paper) flyleaf, this little manuscript was made by one Louis Fromont for his uncle Mathurin Fromont in 1656. The later inscriptions indicate it was bequeathed to unknown successors in Évreux by the curate Le Goulx around 1679. A later ex libris at the foot of the flylead reads ‘Bihet’.

An unusual New Years’ gift from an unnamed compiler ‘for my dearly beloved Isabella Sophia Ochando de la Vanda. January one, 1830’; a manuscript compilation of verse and pious texts by hymnodist Edmeston, Shepherd, Southey (’The Victory’), Millman, Bowring, Burden, Emmerson, and Carlyle’s ‘Hymn before public worship translated from the Arabic’. Most of the texts are in English but a couple, by the Mechitarian cleric Nerses Clajense, are in Spanish and French respectively.

The two fine watercolours show HMS Victory in battle and....

A lively collection of biographies of the unpopular Fermiers généraux – men responsible for collecting indirect taxation in ancien régime France. The Mémoirs pour servir l’histoire du Publicanisme moderne was never published in print but circulated widely in manuscript — its tone is familiar, ironic and sometimes scurrilous in its treatment of the careers of these powerful and wealthy men.

There are more than 100 entries including those for important cultural figures, Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière (one of the prime-movers in the great Lafontaine edition of 1762 called the ‘Fermiers généraux’ edition), Charles Le Normant de Tournehem (guardian of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, future marquise de Pompadour) and the collector Pierre Grimod du Fort. Each entry provides a brief account of the sources of their wealth, of their families and progeny, and of their administrative capabilities (or otherwise). Morality is neverfar from the surface, and there are frequent grumblings of sexual infidelities. The biography for Le Riche de La Poupelinière (the longest in the collection) includes the anecdote of his being surprised in bed with an actress from the Opera, mistress of the Prince de Carignan and of the secret passageway from a neighbouring house through the firelplace, through which his lovers came and went.

The text mostly in a single hand of 1750. Each entry includes spaces left for the arms of the subjected, never completed). A second hand, perhaps not much later, adds notes, some additional biographies and tables. The book apparently existed for some time stitched in the simple wrapper of its first and last leaves before being bound, probably a little later in the century. French libraries contain several manuscript examples of this popular text.

An interesting manuscript prospectus of a large and still-unpublished account of the French revolution. François-Jean Baudouin had been a printer and bookseller to the Assemblée nationale in the revolutionary period, later becoming a journalist and publisher. He evidently wrote a long first hand account of the politics surrounding the Revolution, which remained unpublished. It was apparently in the hands of one Tacheron, a doctor to the XI Légion at the opening of the nineteenth century, who wrote this manuscript prospectus of it, transcribing part of the introduction and giving a detailed précis or analyse of its 16 chapters. He notes that it would run to some eight or ten octavo volumes, probably suggesting he was intending to publish it. In the event it seems never to have been published and since the whereabouts of the manuscript is now unknown, this 43-page summary is witness to a major work of Revolutionary history.

‘François-Jean Baudouin, imprimeur-libraire, né à Paris en 1759, mort en 1838. Elu député suppléant du tiers aux Etats Généraux, il dut à cette circonstance d’être nommé imprimeur de l’Assemblée Nationale, privilège qu'il conserva jusqu’en 1809. Il fut aussi propriétaire du Logographe, journal dont il envoyait tous les jours le premier exemplaire à Louis XVI... Il publia en 1810, un Projet de règlement pour l’imprimerie et la Librairie...’.
Larousse II, 387.

A French country curate’s gardener’s guide. In two parts: the first an alphabetical sequence consisting mainly of observations on the cultivation and conservation of various fruits and vegetables together with instructions for pruning and grafting; the second a calendar of tasks for the months. To this is added an index and various supplementary notes. The plants are what we might expect of a Norman garden artichokes, asparagus, spinach, beetroot, herbs, lettuces (50 varieties) rhubarb, rocket, melons and vines, and there a couple of interesting chapters on different soil types. There are hints on pest control and notices of just a few flowering plants: hortensia (hydrangea), roses and fuchsia.

M. Maurier identifies himself as ‘bachelier en théologie of the village of Gancourt-Saint-Étienne in the Pays de Bray region of Normandy.

A delightful example of Japanese art of flower arrangement, ikebana, in the form of 24 ‘Rikka Zu’ (flower arrangements), with an important provenance. The arrangements combine boughs of trees or bamboo. with flowers including chrysanthemums, lotus, lilies, irises, and cherry blossom. The style is deliberately and strikingly asymmetrical, with stems tightly bundled at the foot in keeping with prevailing decorative aesthetics.

The manuscript is dated, on the first extant image, Kansei 4 (1792) July 7th and there is a further inscription to the verso of one fold, now partly obscured by a paper strip (an old reinforcement) but still legible. It reads: ‘The lord Todo Izumino-kami, when his ambassador’s mission at Kyoto had a celebration in Ryokan’ and ‘Ikeno bo’. Ikenobo was the oldest and most important school of ikebana in Japan, founded at Kyoto in the fifteenth century, while the Todo clan were an ancient Samurai family with origins in the sixteenth century. The manuscript may be considerably older than the inscription of 1792. Its style is closely comparable with a manuscript now at Cambridge, Ikenobō rikka no zu (CUL FJ.978.12) dated to the ‘seventeenth or eighteenth century’ (2223 in Hayashi and Kornicki, Early Japanese books in Cambridge University Library).

The narrative pedigree of a royal librarian: François Damant (c. 1535-1611) and his brother Nicolas (c. 1531-1616). François was Conseiller and Garde joyaux (i.e. keeper of the library) to the Duke of Burgundy, Philip II, King of Spain in the Netherlands and afterwards to his son Phillip III. His name appears in numerous manuscripts and records relating to the library and he was also a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Toison d’or) from 1587. He was son of Pierre Damant (1503-68), also of the Toison d’or and a royal librarian in his time. His brother Nicolas, who shares this pedigree was an official in the Habsburg government of Flanders and became Chancellor of Brabant and served Phillip II as a Councillor of State, Garde des sceaux and Garde joyaux, before (as is narrated in the pedigree) moving to Madrid when the centre of administration of the Austrian Netherlands moved there in 1698. The gruesome story of how and why he was granted two dogs (gros chiens) and a crown as part of his coat of arms is also related here in the context of a royal hunt (chasse du sanglier) in which a boar was killed by the royal dogs in his presence.

The pedigree also records the marriages of both brothers: François to Louyse de Sicleers and Nicolas to Barbara Brant, and each couple having several children. The arms of both wives are included in the pedigree besides those of their husbands, the women’s arms in oval cartouches, the men’s in lozenges. The same distinction is applied to the arms of their various male and female children listed in the pedigree.

The scribe uses a neat French secretarial hand for most of the document, changing to an accomplished italic for describing elements of the blazons, following contemporary practice. The manuscript is foliated in a contemporary hand, presumably by the scribe, in ink at the top right hand corner. A later pencil pagination suggests it was later included (either loose or bound) in a much larger genealogical collection. The paper is watermarked with a hunting horn stringed within a shield (similar to Briquet 7867, dated there to 1586). Lemaire, Bibliothèque royale. Mémorial 1559-1969.