A stunning, original-color example of "one of the most decorative and popular of all the early maps of Africa" (Norwich), notable for its decorative and artistic merit as well as its relative geographic accuracy. The shape of the continent is almost perfect, and the coastal cities and rivers are named..... More
Only edition of the first map of China engraved and printed in England. With its illustrations of a Chinese man and a Chinese woman dressed in their traditional Chinese garb, it must have been a remarkable sight for an English audience highly unlikely to have set eyes on an in-the-flesh..... More
Rare first edition of the first publication on optics (perspectiva), and a crucial text that was studied by Leonardo da Vinci. Johannes de Peckham’s (England c. 1230-1292) Perspectiva communis is illustrated with 77 woodcut diagrams depicting the human eye, the nature of vision, and the eye’s role in the representation..... More
One of the masterworks of early modern map engraving and among the earliest focused depictions of the West Indies within the context of the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, the Yucatan, Panama, and the northern coast of South America. A principal aim of the map is to show the discoveries of..... More
Fine example of this cornerstone map of Florida and the Southeast, with a bold impression and good margins. According to Baxter, this is “the most remarkable and important map, which has been preserved from sixteenth century maps, of that part of the East Coast which lies between Cape Hatteras and..... More
A fine example of one of the first regional maps of a part of what is now the United States. The “extremely rare” third state (Burden), with “Chesepiooc” now with the re-engraved “C.” Not only was this the first map to emerge directly from England’s first attempt to colonize North..... More
![Panorama do Para em Doze Vistas / Desenhadas Por J.L. Righini / C. Wiegandt]. Joseph Leon RIGHINI](/pictures/thumb/6019.jpg?v=1604760944)
A very rare set of early lithographs, depicting the northern Brazilian city of Belém and the region of Pará after Joseph Léon Righini (c.1820-1884). A native of Turin, Giuseppe (or Joseph) Léon Righini (c.1820-1884) came to Brazil about 1856 as a set designer for the theatrical company of businessman José..... More
Extraordinary, very rare portfolio of 58 fine, original photographs of dredges taken by the noted Dutch photographer Johannes Henk Tollens (1864-1936) during the first years of the 20th century. Apparently produced to commemorate the merger which formed the A. Bos & J. P. Heijblom dredging company of Dordrecht, Holland, the..... More
A brilliant example in rich original hand color of the rare (and only) English language edition of the earliest printed, folio-size western map specifically of China and “the first to show the Great Wall” (Nebenzahl). “This map remained the standard type for the interior of China for over sixty years"..... More
An exquisitely engraved rarity, the earliest printed chart of the Northeast that was published in the first sea atlas produced by an Englishman (though published in Florence), the Arcano del Mare (Secrets of the Sea). One of the jewels of early cartography, the atlas’s elegant Florentine engraving formed a link..... More
First German language edition (also the first to be translated from the original Italian of 1611) of one of the earliest printed western works solely devoted to the Philippines by the Jesuit Gregorio Lopez, active in the Philippines from his arrival in May of 1601 until his death (in Manila)..... More
Very rare, with one recorded copy (in Bordeaux), of a detailed and lively account of this French expedition against Jamaica during the Nine Years War, comprising a string of brutal attacks over the summer of 1694 led by Jean-Baptiste Du Casse. Appointed Governor of Saint-Domingue in 1691, Du Casse had..... More
First edition of one of the great intellectual debates of the 16th century, the Elder Scaliger’s wide-ranging critique of Cardano’s de Subtilitate. The work provides a capital example of the amorphous and disputatious nature of Renaissance intellectual life just before the scientific revolution would constrict knowledge to the preserve of..... More
Rare first French edition (first Latin 1618) of this pocket summary of the Lullian art for lawyers, by the Italian born Aristotelian and legal theorist Giulio Pace. Hillgarth groups Pace’s introduction with that of another jurist, Pierre Grégoire, as being exceptional among 17th century interpreters of Lull: both avoid digressions..... More
[Bound with:] AULUS GELLIUS. Noctes Atticae. (Cologne), Eucharius Cervicornus [colophon: for Gottfried Hittorp], 1526. (12) ff., 202 pp., (13) ff. Same woodcut title page as the work above. Elaborate woodcut border on p. 1 incorporates figures of Agrippina and M. Agrippa, with the printer’s device at the foot. Woodcut head-..... More
A group of five booklets, illustrated by Vladimir Lebedev (1891-1967), which were written by Samuil Marshak (1887-1964). Marshak, one of the most (if not the most) famous Soviet children’s writers, and the artist Vladimir Lebedev ran the Children’s Department of the Russian State Publishing House from its inception in 1924..... More
A history of Moor Park, a Palladian house surrounded by a large park in Hertfordshire, England. The estate’s gardens were made famous in the seventeenth century by Sir William Temple, who described them in his Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, one of the key early modern texts on gardening. He..... More
Rare first edition. This booklet without words and only with illustrations resembling Paleolithic cave paintings has been called by scholars “the chef-d’oeuvre of a master” and “the testimony of his [Lebedev’s] artistic maturity” [Fomin, “Novaia estetika detskoi knigi,” p. 12]. The second edition appeared more than forty years later and was accompanied by an art historical commentary that..... More
Scarce first edition of the complete suite of 8 maps illustrating Ziegler’s highly influential attempt at a scientific mapping of the Holy Land, representing the first atlas devoted to that region (Nebenzahl, p. 10). The work also contains (map 8) the first map of Scandinavia not to be entirely derived..... More
Extremely rare survival of late Baroque Italian ecclesiastical culture: a mass for the dead bound in a striking funeral binding, with “Death Before a Tomb” on both front and back covers. While individual editions of the missal texts for 18th c. requiem masses (Missae in agenda defunctorum) are uncommon, surviving..... More
A very large-margined example of the first edition of the first printed atlas of Crete (Il Regno of Candia), for many centuries Venice’s stronghold in the eastern Mediterranean and the last significant overseas possession of its once great maritime empire. Complete with 61 engraved maps and plans of the island..... More
An attractive, contemporary hand-colored, very rare (this edition not in the Library of Congress) separately issued US Civil War map focusing on the area of Virginia and Maryland where the earliest battles were fought between the Union and Confederate armies and among the earliest broadside maps to specifically treat the..... More
An unusual, large-scale, 18th-century map providing a striking visual record of a remarkable number of important exploratory voyages of both the Pacific and the Arctic undertaken between the 16th and 18th centuries. Published at the dawn of the great age of transoceanic exploration, Sayer & Bennett’s 6-sheet Chart is an..... More
A fine, separately published, French engraving of Webber's iconic scene of the tragic death of Captain James Cook in Hawaii. The edition was dedicated to Louis-Antoine Bougainville, the French explorer and circumnavigator, who is herein identified as a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. The official account of Cook's..... More
Rare, large-format, separately issued etching on three-sheets by Giuseppe Vasi (1710-82) depicting the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome as seen from the Quattro Fontane. The work is one of four large vedute etchings – two published in 1765 and two in 1771 – incorporating the four patriarchal basilicas..... More