Rare illustrated first edition (1510) of the Statua ordinis cartusiensis, “an exceptional case of a limited printing not available for public sale” (Elie, p. 38), here in an example with its fine woodcuts in excellent contemporary hand-color. These collected statutes and privileges of the Carthusian Order – part of the... More

Rare early edition of this famous work on sculpture, perspective and the aesthetic theory of the plastic arts, of particular importance for the diffusion of perspective theory to the north of Florence according to Kemp, who characterises the work’s technical innovations as “a curious mélange of the Albertian method, using..... More

Rare first edition of this Venetian ‘take’ on the painting of the middle of the Cinquecento, when according to the conventional periodizing view, Venetian painting hovered between High Renaissance and Mannerism: Titian was in the process of altering his style in the direction of emotionalism, the younger generation (Tintoretto, Paris..... More

Rare first edition of Theodor de Bry’s (1528-98) great illustrated work on ‘Florida’, in a copy fit for one of the consummate collectors of 16th-century illustrated books, lavishly bound in red morocco with the gold-tooled arms on the upper and lower covers for the Prince of Essling (1836-1910): its 42..... More

Rare 3-sheet engraved view depicting the ancient Campidoglio in Rome, an understudied and somewhat mysterious piece first published by Antonio Salamanca (1479-1562) in the middle of the 16th-century and thereafter at times included as part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the famed composite atlas of graphic material related to antique... More

Rare first and only edition of this illustrated funeral book recording the ceremonies for Pope Paul V (1550-1621) held in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, with a fine suite of full-page engravings of ephemeral sculpture and architecture, including a series of 16 sculptures of Virtues by the great Gian Lorenzo... More

Rare first edition Olivier de Vrée’s (1596-1652) compendium of seals of the Counts of Flanders, a volume notable both for its antiquarian rigor – the work remains a standard reference on the subject – and for its some 300 copperplate engravings meticulously cataloguing the development of seals from the establishment..... More

Scarce first edition of this 17th-century survey of Italian painting, and a valuable document for developing Baroque gusto by a cultivated amateur. Scannelli follows Mancini's tripartite division of Italian schools Roman, Venetian and Lombard, and in an age in which microcosms were everywhere, he compared the whole of Italian painting... More

Very rare Spanish legal document concerning tithes certified between the Archbishop of Granada, Alonso Bernardo de los Rios y Guzman (served 1677-92), and the Prior of the Carthusian monastery of Granada. While the text offers a fascinating and surprisingly detailed account of this ecclesiastical suit and is especially rich in... More

First edition of this handsomely illustrated perspective textbook. Traité de Perspective, the final work published during the lifetime of the controversial and prolific philosopher Bernard Lamy, is notable for its “interesting discussion of perception, etc.” – Kemp, p. 356. Lamy, whose interest in art stemmed from his work on geometry..... More

An intriguing collection of 8 very rare early English astronomical charts by the London cartographers and instrument makers John Seller (c. 1630-1697) and John Senex (c. 1678-1740), offering the most up-to-date celestial information then available, with several of the charts based on the recent groundbreaking observations of the English astronomers... More

First edition of this polemical work attacking the highly controversial Réflexions critiques sur les différentes écoles de Peinture (1751), by the Marquis d’Argens, the polymath chamberlain of Frederic II, who advised the latter on a number of topics, among them art. He introduced Frederic to a number of French painters..... More

A handsomely bound copy in contemporary gilt calf of the rare first edition of an illustrated treatise on the two famous Marian icons housed at the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso in Milan. The Notizie istoriche intorno alla miracolosa imagine at once stresses the miraculous nature of these... More