AntiquarianAuctions.com Auction #56 Runs Online January 19-26
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Lot 2
Clouet (Jean Baptiste) Carte d'Afrique divisée en ses principaux Etats...
Published: Mondhare & Jean, Paris & Cadiz, 1785
Estimate: $12,000/13,500
Stunningly beautiful wall map, with historiated border, which also shows Cook's voyages. One of the few of these all maps to survive in good condition. A work of art.
L'abbé Jean Baptiste Louis Clouet (1729 - 1790) was a French cartographer and geographer born 1729 in Rennes. He was a member of the Academy of Science in Rouen. His main work was the Géographie Moderne, which first was issued in 1767. This carte de cabinet (a wall map) is one of a set of four continents and the world (five maps in all), all with historiated borders, published in 1785 by Mondhare & Jean in Paris and Cadiz.
This map of Africa is printed on four sheets which are joined and laid on reinforcing linen. This is a beautiful wall map of Africa, with two title cartouches; the principal one in French and another in Spanish. The main cartouche is elaborate and richly embellished with iconography representing various features of Africa, e.g. Africa is personified by a Ceres like female figure wearing an elephant scalp headdress from Roman iconography - and she is holding a cornucopia; pyramids; and a crocodile representing the Nile River.
Lot 3
2 Photograph Albums with 95 original photos from Gambia
Published: London, 1840 - 1843
Estimate: $1,500/2,000
With stunning pictures of Gambia during the colonisation, among the market in Basse, building of police station at Basse, police forces, Fulas, Fatoto, musicians, building of shops in Kudang, Soudan traders, Governors of Gambia (Sir Edward John Cameron and later Sir Cecil Hamilton Armitage, formerly Chief Commissioner of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast), Cape St. Mary, views of streets and markets, villages, ports, landscapes, etc. Extremely rare photos of steamers Artimon, Tendaba, Sandu, Duncannon, Swan, Waterwitch, Combo, Mungo Park, Mansa Kila Ba, Vampire, official governor's and ships Kade, Fuladu, Rip, Maypole, Fuladu, Scout, etc.
The earliest photographs show construction and other scenes in the port of Banjul, now the capital, then still called Bathurst, including a flood in 1918. Several show the building of stores in Kudang in 1917. The latest show visits of Governors to Basse, the major city on the Eastern side of the country, in 1922. Especially interesting are the images of the native inhabitants, including Sudan traders, market scenes, washerwomen, musicians, street life, a "wizard" with worshipers, Fulas. Many travel albums have a few interesting subjects among a lot of fillers, but here almost every image is rich in content. All photographs titled in English.
Lot 7
Tyler (Richard Oviet) The Planets (limited to 25 copies)
Published: Uranian Press, New York, 1958 Estimate: $5,000/7,500
Although this spectacular work should be viewed as a cohesive work of art, with Tyler responsible for the design and execution of every part, it is nonetheless also true that each of the beautiful prints are stand-alone pieces which repay close examination, and re-examination. The subjects clearly presage Tyler's subsequent life as the Rev. Relytor of the Uranian Phalanstery.
Richard Oviet Tyler's work is "included in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, Museum of Modern Art, U.S. Embassies Overseas, New York Public Library, David Rockefeller, and many private collections" (quote from resume published in 1962)
Large 4to. 20 leaves of sekishu paper, printed one side only in colours from woodblocks, by Tyler, each leaf signed, numbered, and titled in pencil by the artist. Unbound as issued within an original cloth portfolio, the cloth hand-printed with images by Tyler, decorative paper endpapers, cloth ties.
Lot 8
Cobb (Irvin S.) Film Script: a 152pp. original holograph manuscript “ ... The Dark Horse or So This is America ..." Published: [Los Angeles?], 1934
Estimate: $5,000/7,500
A 152pp. holograph manuscript , “ ... The Dark Horse or So This is America or Homespun”, being a 1934 early draft of a film script which eventually became a movie titled “Our Leading Citizen” starred Bob Burns, Susan Hayward and Joseph Allen, and was released in August 1939.
The substantial differences between this work and the final movie mean that, in effect, this constitutes an original unpublished work by one of America’s great 20th-century humorists.
“Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (June 23, 1876 - March 11, 1944) was an American author, humorist, and columnist who lived in New York and authored more than 60 books and 300 short stories. Cobb was the second of four children born to Kentucky natives in Paducah, Kentucky. ... Cobb was raised in Paducah, where the events and people of his childhood became the basis for much of his later works. Later in life, he would acquire the nickname of "Duke of Paducah."
Lot 12
[Ramsey (William)] The Gentlemans Companion: or, a character of true nobility, and gentility: in the way of essay. By a Person of Quality. The health benefits of golf, and a warning about marriage: "'tis a Disease not to be Cured, but by Death".
Published: Thomas Sawbridge, London, 1676
Estimate: $2,000/3,000
A fine copy of the rare second edition of a fascinating and entertaining work, here in a high status binding: includes what is probably the first time in print that a Doctor recommends the health benefits of golf, or 'gauff' as it is spelt here. Slightly earlier, the general idea of golf as healthful recreation appears in the Marquis of Argyle's Instructions to a Son (1661, quoted in The Chronicles of Golf, p. 108 ff.).
This second and final edition of Ramesay's work appears to be scarcer than the first and is properly rare. In a section on outdoor exercise, the author writes that "Exercises and Recreations which are used.. [in the outdoors], that may benefit a Gentleman, and most healthy, are Pilmall, [and] Gauff, these by striking the Ball exercise the whole Man, together with the walk, and may be used moderately without any excess or violence" (p.136). On the other hand, Ramesay did not approve of soccer ('foot-ball'), lumping it with 'hurling' and 'wrastling': all of which he describes as 'rude pastimes better becoming the Vulgar, and Labouring Man'. He relents slightly and allows that watching rather than taking part is acceptable.
The work, first published in 1672, is remarkably wide-ranging and includes an apparently heart-felt section on the importance of thinking long and hard before marrying (" 'tis a Disease not to be Cured, but by Death"): Ramesay, who was married to a 'termagent' according to the Rev. James Grainger, apparently expanded on this theme in his Conjugam Conjurgium or, some serious considerations on marriage (published in 1673, Macclesfield copy sold for 2400 GBP).
Lot 231
Morris (William) Kelmscott Press, A Note By William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press, Together With A Short Description Of The Press By S.C. Cockerell, & An Annotated List Of The Books Printed Thereat
Published: The Kelmscott Press, London, 1898
Estimate: $1,200/1,300
This is the last book printed at the Kelmscott Press. One of 525 copies. 8vo. Original linen-backed boards, lettered in black on the upper cover. pp. [iv] + 70 + [1] Frontispiece designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and engraved on wood by William Morris, woodcut borders to frontispiece and first page of text, 4 large woodcut initials (designed for the Froissart, but never used), text printed in black and red in the Golden type, with 5 pages in the Troy and Chaucer Type.
A very good copy. The linen spine has a couple of small
areas of early mild fraying. There is slight bumping of
two corners with minimal wear at the corners. There is a small leather ex-libris (of a prominent South African) at the top inner side of the front pastedown with some offsetting from this to a few adjacent blank pages. Otherwise the book is internally clean and unmarked and without foxing.
Lot 311
Beckett (Samuel) Waiting for Godot
Published: Faber & Faber, London, 1956
Estimate: $650/850
The first UK Edition of the Nobel prize winner's highspot and arguably the definitive play of the Twentieth Century. In the original yellow cloth with red lettering on the spine. The boards are fine and unmarked. There is a neat ownership name at the top of the front free endpaper and very light offsetting to both free endpapers, otherwise this is a fine crisp unmarked and unfoxed copy in a very good plus price-clipped dustwrapper which has some light rubbing and edge wear with a 1-2mm. sliver of loss at the top of the spine. Publisher's note tipped in as required.
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Next auction: Auction #57: 2 - 9 March 2017
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