Unrecorded suite of 13 large lithograph caricatures – preserved here in their original printed wrappers – which lampoon the 1859 parliamentary elections for the constituencies of the Borough of Derby and South Derbyshire. The local nature and no doubt quite limited print run of ephemeral political cartoons of this sort..... More

First edition of the renowned English engraver John Sturt’s (1658-1730) tour-de-force interpretation of Fra Andrea Pozzo’s (1642-1709) influential classic on architecture and perspective, including 106 remarkable full-page engravings and 103 extraordinary engraved initials (used in 210 positions) of mythological and architectural subjects. The present copy is preserved in the binding..... More

The very rare first edition of this extraordinary 17th-century pocket-sized star atlas designed for the use of students making nighttime observations in the field. Published during a time of remarkable astronomical discoveries after the invention and revolutionary use of the telescope by Galileo and his contemporaries, this handy guide became..... More

Very rare first edition of the Jesuit scientist Ignace-Gaston Pardies’ (1636-73) beautifully engraved folio celestial atlas, here in a deluxe copy with its 6 double-page charts in fine contemporary hand-color and its some 1500 stars, nebulae and comets individually illuminated in gold. Examples of the atlas typically consist of only..... More

Rare 1602 Frankfurt edition (following only the 1601 Paris edition) of this early illustrated treatise on ideal urban planning written while the Wars of Religion still raged in France. Illustrated with 28 fine engravings, the Architectura et perspectiva des fortifications & artifices represents an imaginative synthesis of fortification, religious and..... More

Rare first and only edition of this 1749 prospectus advertising the production of 2 large globes to be constructed according to the most up-to-date mathematical, geographical and astronomical information. These terrestrial and celestial globes, each measuring 3 feet in diameter, were designed by the newly founded Societé Cosmographique (Cosmographische Gesellschaft)..... More

Very rare first and only edition of this satirical broadside commemorating the (imaginary) funeral procession held at the ‘death’ of the Jesuit Order following its suppression by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. The large etching – a work of considerable iconographical and technical sophistication – borrows its pictorial format from..... More

Engraving of the coconut plant from Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s Phytanthoza Iconographia, “the first botanical book to use color printed mezzotint successfully” (Hunt). Johann Wilhelm Weinmann (1683-1741) was a German botanist and apothecary in Regensburg, and his monumental series represents the most innovative achievement in botanical illustration of its time. “The mezzotint process used..... More

Rare satirical broadside featuring a large, finely executed engraving by the renowned Dutch printmaker Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708), a very unusual example of a political cartoon in which an engraved copperplate was later ‘recycled’ to fit a geopolitical situation for which it was not originally intended. De Hooghe’s Paye qui..... More

Very rare, separately published 17th-century etching depicting one of the most iconic – and certainly one of the most misogynistic – scenes relating to the querelle des femmes (or “the woman question”) in Early Modern France. This extraordinarily bizarre print depicts the shop of the fictional blacksmith Lustucru, who ran..... More

Rare early 19th-century French popular broadside, here in fine contemporary hand-color, depicting the legendary Juif-Errant, or ‘Wandering Jew,’ the mythical immortal man said to have been present at the Crucifixion who was cursed thereafter to walk the earth ceaselessly until the Second Coming. The broadside has at its center a...... More

This rare handbook by the renowned sculptor-goldsmith-theorist Juan de Arfe y Villafañe (1535-1600) – not to be confused with the author’s similar title of 1572 – presents the most influential information on the assaying of silver, gold, gemstones and a variety of other commodities published on the Iberian peninsula during..... More

First edition (12mo) of Rousseau’s classic treatise on education, illustrated with 5 full-page engravings. Émile provides Rousseau’s most widely read statement on the essential goodness of human nature, tracing the natural development of a child brought up in the country in accordance with nature and free from the corrupting influence..... More