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

Very rare first edition of a set of engravings by the Antwerp printmaker Jean-Baptiste Barbé (1578-1649) after the designs of Theodoor van Loon (c.1581-1649), a Flemish painter noted as an early stylistic follower of Caravaggio (1571-1610). The work presents bust-length portraits of the Holy Family, the Four Evangelists, and the..... 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

Elaborate manuscript notebook by a mid-seventeenth-century priest from Milan containing his own aphorisms, observations and quotations modeled after contemporary calligraphy manuals with unusually elaborate and well-executed figurative borders drawn in his hand, and interspersed with anguished outbursts on love’s torment in a later hand. Chiassi’s drawings, modelled from Antonio Tempesta’s..... More

Very rare first edition of the Royal Academician Grégoire Huret’s (1606-70) two-part treatise on the art of geometric perspective, illustrated with two engraved frontispieces and eight folding engravings designed and executed by the author himself. Part 1 is concerned with practical matters (la perspective pratique) and comprises 182 numbered sections..... 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

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

Only edition of this unusual volume surveying the wooded holdings of the Count of Eu, in Upper Normandy, a work comprised entirely of 40 fine, single-sided engravings, including a pictorial title page, 13 calligraphic plates of text, charts and tables, 5 botanical and industrial images, and 21 handsome, precise maps..... More

An attractive early 19th-century manuscript of anatomical drawings of the human (male) body, many with muscles keyed and labeled in a minute German script. The notebook is attributed by a German pencil annotation inside its upper cover to the Austrian painter Adam Brenner (1800-1891), who studied principally with Leopold Kupelwieser..... More

Rare first edition of this study which attempts to identify and distinguish various Roman temples to the two-faced god, by the archaeologist and painter Piale (1753-1835). Relying largely on literary sources (Martial, Ovid, Macrobius and Procopius), the work is of interest for both the state of archaeology at the beginning..... More