Don't Lose Your Head Over It-

But our Big August Sale has been carried over into September, with savings of 25% to 50% on over 1,100 books and catalogs about art & antiques!

See them all here!

A Magnificent Ceramics Catalog-

“Catalogue of the Glaisher Collection of Pottery & Porcelain in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge”

By Bernard Rackham.

Published in Cambridge, at the University Press, in 1935.

A magnificent catalog of one of the most important collection of early English pottery. James Whitbread Lee Glaisher [1809-1928] was best known in his lifetime as a leading mathematician and astronomer, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a lifelong lecturer and professor there-

“F.R.S., 1875. President of the London Mathematical Society, 1884-6; De Morgan Medal, 1908. President, Royal Astronomical Society, 1886-8 and 1901-3. President of Mathematical Section, 1890. Editor of The Messenger of Mathematics, 1871-1928, and of the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics. Hon. D.Sc. Dublin, 1892, and Victoria, 1902. A great authority on faience and pottery; his collections, considered to be the finest in the world, were bequeathed to the Fitzwilliam Museum” (Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press).

Glaisher began to collect ceramics in middle age, and concentrated on the early English pottery and folk ceramics scorned by others. Although his collection, widely appreciated as one of the most important in Britain, eventually also included English porcelains and some foreign examples, it was his contribution to the understanding and appreciation of English pottery for which he is best remembered.

This set bears the bookplate of William Newsam McClean, with a presentation letter, handwritten and signed by Sydney Cockerell. McClean (1874-1968), a member of the Royal Engineers, donated the cost of building a special room at the Fitzwilliam Museum to house his brother’s collection of ancient Greek coins which had been presented to the Museum. Sydney Cockerell served as the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum from 1908 to 1937. Prior to that he had been William Morris’s private secretary.

A grand catalog of a grand collection, with interesting associations.

Hardcover. 2 volumes. 10.5”x13.5”. Volume 1: xx + 431 pages, plus 36 colored plates. Volume 2: xv pages plus 266 black & white plates. Minor wear, a few scuffs and soil marks on the covers (please see the photos), some wear along the bottom of the covers, but overall clean and nice, with tight bindings.

$1000~

See many more photos here

Well, How About That?

Here's an interesting auction catalog that came in the other day -the title tells you nothing in particular, so I got curious as to whose estate it was, and Googled the date...

“Property from a Private Collection”

New York; Sotheby’s: October 28-29, 1988.

The sale of Sunny and Claus Von Bulow’s estate furnishings. The story was told by the Philadelphia Inquirer noted a few days after the sale-

“There were certainly no bargains for souvenir-hunters at the two-day auction of English furniture, oil paintings, porcelain and silver belonging to Martha "Sunny" and Claus von Bulow. The sale at Sotheby's, which ended Saturday, netted $11,562,980, far more than the expected $6 million to $7.5 million. Saturday's sale of furniture and decorations alone brought $6.7 million - a record for English furniture. The sale featured furnishings from the von Bulows' Newport, R.I., mansion, Clarendon Court, and their spacious apartment at 960 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. The auction had been advertised merely as "Property From a Private Collection," but the catalogue cover featured a drawing of Clarendon Court. Von Bulow, 62, a Danish-born aristocrat, was tried twice for trying to murder his wife by injecting her with insulin. He was acquitted after the second trial in 1985. "Sunny" von Bulow, who fell into a coma in 1980, remains in a vegetative state in a hospital here. Once the word got out, the sale became a celebrity auction comparable to the sale of the Duchess of Windsor's jewels and Andy Warhol's cookie jars. The displays were crowded with sightseers for two days before the sale.”

Hardcover. 8.5”x11”, 509 lots, color and black & white illustrations, dust jacket. Prices realized sheet stapled to first page. Clean and nice.

$50.00

You can buy the catalog here.

Pine Log & Greek Revival-

There are plenty of books about old New England houses and homesteads, here's a scarce book about southern examples which we just catalogued-

“Pine Log and Greek Revival. Houses and People of Three Counties in Georgia and Alabama”

By William H. Davidson.
Published by the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society in 1964.

DISCUSSION: A well-illustrated survey of extant pioneering, antebellum and post-bellum houses in the three-county area around West Point, Georgia- Troup County and Harris County, Georgia and Chambers County, Alabama. This area is included in the Chattahoochee River Valley, an important trading route in the 19th century. An important record of early houses, many of which no longer exist.

DESCRIPTION: Hardcover. 9”x11.5”, 396 pages, black & white illustrations, dust jacket. Folding map. Signed by the author.

CONDITION NOTES: The dust jacket has some minor wear, but otherwise clean and nice, with a tight binding.

Price: $350

FEATURED CATALOG-

"Silver by the Fox Family of Silversmith. A Major Collection & Various Properties"

Gallery/Date: London; Phillips: September 23, 1988.

Discussion: The sale of a unique collection of silver spanning the 19th century, all made by the Fox family of silversmiths, Charles Fox and his family. The private collection was amassed with care over several decades, and some other Fox family silver is added to round out the sale.

Description: Softcover. 7”x9.5”, 68+ pages, 104 lots, color and black & white illustrations.

Condition Notes: Light soil to the covers, contents fine.

$50.00

Drama in a Picture-

We had a copy of Phillip Barraud's 1782 book "A New Book of Single Cyphers, Comprising Six Hundred Invented and Engraved by Ph. D. Barraud" in our catalog a few years ago. We sold the book, but I wanted to share one of the engraved frontispiece plates at the front-



I just love dramatic copper-plate engravings like this.

The Hurricane of (18)'15-

It's hurricane season, and we apparently even have one headed this [New England] way for the weekend. It reminded me of an interesting passage in the 1859 book "Two Hundred Years Ago; or, A Brief History of Cambridgeport and East Cambridge" by Sophia Simpson. The "Great Gale" she describes so vividly was in fact the Hurricane of September 23rd, 1815, which meteorologists today estimate was a category 3 storm. Sophia starts out-

"On the 23rd of September, a violent gale of wind destroyed a large amount of property. At sunrise the clouds seemed to be gathering, and there was every indication of an approaching storm-

We've got a picture of the book here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

An Important Aucton-

This week we've added a spectacular early American art auction catalog to our Ebay store-

"Catalogue of the Art Collection formed by the late Mrs. Mary J. Morgan..."

The catalog published in New York by the American Art Galleries for an auction held from March 3rd to March 15th, 1886. Subscriber’s Edition, limited to 500 numbered copies.

The very scarce Deluxe, illustrated edition of the catalog to one of America’s earliest blockbuster auctions and what was, for a time, the most famous art auction in America. The contents of the collection included modern paintings, Chinese porcelains, jades & crystal objects, “cabinet objects”, Sevres and other European porcelains, Minton porcelains, Webb cameo glass, other fine glass, silver, wood carvings, bronzes, and etchings.

Mary Morgan was the widow of a shipping tycoon, and collected a vast array of paintings and other art in her New York mansion. Upon her death Thomas Kirby of the American Art Association, the forerunner of Parke-Bernet, decided to make the Morgan sale a “can’t-miss” event.

The collection was controversial –Mrs. Morgan had simply walked in and bought her pictures from leading dealers instead of ingratiating herself personally with the artists as was the tradition of the day. Further, Lot 341 was an 8-inch Peachblow vase which Mrs. Morgan had bought from the American Art Association’s own retail galleries for $12,000 a few years previously. A print war broke out between the New York Times, which claimed Mrs. Morgan had paid a zero or two too much for the vase, and that in any case, there was no such thing as “Peachblow”, and Charles Henry Dana and the New York Sun, who stoughtly defended the AAA and the vase.

the Peachblow vase-

During the 3 week exhibition at the galleries prior to the auction 100,000 people viewed the paintings and Oriental art. The sale itself was standing-room only, and when they got to the vase, Baltimore connoisseur William T. Walters won it for $18,000 (which in no way stopped the controversy over its actual worth). The sale finally totaled $1,205,000 –with the exception of the 1882 Hamilton Palace sale in England, this was the highest total for any art collection at auction anywhere in the world.

The catalog itself was a groundbreaking achievement- “[Kirby’s] most striking innovation was the Mary Jane Morgan catalogue, a 305-page quarto volume that so far surpassed any cynosure of art collecting previously published in the United States that it not only launched the business at hand but synthesized Kirby’s whole new concept of the elite auction. Printed on heavy rag paper, with twenty-nine etchings, bound in pristine white boards with rich gold lettering, this weighty tome cost $40,000 to produce. It was a book to rest in splendor on the tables of the proudest salons. There was, of course, an ordinary catalog, without illustrations, for ordinary customers, the deluxe edition being limited to 500 numbered copies. The price was $10, but if mere money could have bought such a book, its propaganda value would have been lost. Except for a few copies sent to other cities, the entire edition was delivered by hand, with the compliments of the American Art Association, to the front doors of the most exclusive mansions in New York”.

For those wanting a more in-depth account, Wesley Towner devotes an entire chapter to Mrs. Morgan, her collection, this auction, the catalog, and the Peachblow vase in his book, “The Elegant Auctioneers”, from which we quoted above.

To see a full description and more pictures, go to our Ebay Store listing.

A Martha's Vineyard Cookbook-

We have a somewhat beat-up but desirable Martha’s Vineyard cookbook of an unusually early date up for auction this week-

"Island Cook Book. A Collection of Approved Recipes Contributed by the Women of Martha’s Vineyard for the Benefit of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital" Printed by Herald Printing Company of Oak Bluffs, in July, 1924.

This cookbook features several hundred recipes contributed by Vineyarders, as well as scores of advertisements by local businesses. In fact, leafing through the ads is almost as interesting as looking at the recipes, and gives one a real sense of life on the island at the time. Included is an ad for a “public Market” run by the Cronig brothers, which was located in Vineyard Haven (as it still is) and Oak Bluffs. If memory serves me right, Cronig’s was started in 1924, so the markets were only five years old at the time!

You can see the auction here. It began down low, and as always, there is no reserve!

All Feasts, All the Time-

We just got in a wonderful new publisher's overstock on the history of feasting-

"Charlemagne’s Tablecloth. A Piquant History of Feasting" by Nichola Fletcher. Published by St. Martin’s Press: 2004.

“Not only Charlemagne himself, but King Midas and Robert Burns also make appearances in this award-winning history. From a humble meal of potatoes provided by an angel and the extravagance of medieval and Renaissance revels, to Mardi Gras and the refinement of the Japanese tea ceremony, Charlemagne's Tablecloth covers an astonishing array of unique feasts.”

Hardcover. 6.5”x9.5”, 256 pages, black & white illustrations, dust jacket. New condition. $12.00.

You can buy a copy in our Ebay store.

Well, I'll Be A Monkey's Uncle-

Here's an interesting little piece of Victorian Architecturalia (no, I'm not sure if that's a word either) -

"The Oxford Museum" By John Ruskin & Henry W. Acland. Published in London by Smith, Elder and Co.: 1859.

An interesting discourse touching on the principles of the Gothic Revival, handwork and the dignity of workmen, and the proper decoration of buildings, as they were related to the architecture of Oxford’s famous Museum of Natural History, popularly known as the Oxford Museum. Championed in the 1850s by Sir Henry Acland, who felt that Oxford was ignoring the natural sciences, the Museum brought all those disciplines, including geology, astronomy, geometry, chemistry, and zoology under one roof. And quite a neo-Gothic roof it was... The building was designed by Deane and Woodward of Dublin, with assistance of one sort or another from Ruskin, who notes here-

“In the competition [for the design] scarce any limitation was imposed, and to style none. Thirty-two designs by anonymous contributors were sent in; the majority of the judges, after a thoroughly English battle, in which some professed advocates of Gothic architecture deprecated the application of Gothic Art to secular purposes, -thereby denying to their own style that malleability which is, perhaps, its highest prerogative, -the design, ‘Nisi Dominus oedificaverit domum,’ was accepted”.

The Museum was the scene of the famous 1860 debate during which Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, asked Thomas Huxley whether he was descended from a monkey on his grandfather’s or grandmother’s side, to which Huxley replied that he had-

"no need to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather, but that he would be ashamed of having for an ancestor a man of restless and versatile interest who distracts the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digression and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."

Hardcover. 4.75”x7.5”, 111 pages plus a 4-page list of other titles by the authors; steel-engraved frontispiece of a pillar with fern carvings; a full-page woodblock plate of decorative tracery; a folding plan of the museum; publisher’s pebbled & embossed cloth with gilt titles; spine slightly faded, minor soil and a little wear, but overall a very nice, fresh copy.

This copy has the handsome engraved bookplate of Herbert John Gladstone [1854-1930] on the front pastedown. Lord Gladstone was the son of Prime Minister William Gladstone, and after lecturing on history at Keble College, Oxford, he embarked on a long political career which culminated in his appointment as Home Secretary under Asquith from whence, after some controversy over domestic policy, he was booted “upstairs” and sent to South Africa as the first Governor-General and High Commissioner of the Union of South Africa.

$350.00

The Things You Find in Books-

This was actually the title of a thread on an email list recently. It is always fun to find something quirky, odd, or interesting tucked into a book. A few months ago I picked up a copy of a very obscure little book of poetry published in 1898 titled"Sandwort" by Anna J. Granniss because it was printed in my hometown of Keene, New Hampshire. As I opened it up, this little card fell out-

Paying by the poem! I thought that was rather clever, and it seems we're basically back to that business model now in the online music industry...

They Call it... Fake!!

We're featuring an interesting item in our Ebay store this week, a catalog that played major part in one of the more fascinating tales of antiquities forgery in the 20th Century-

It had all started in late 1915 when Gisela Richter, renowned expert on Greek and Roman antiquities at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, received a letter from John Marshall, the Museum’s veteran purchasing agent in Italy, describing a newly discovered life-size Etruscan warrior figure in terra-cotta which had been discovered in an Italian field. The “old warrior” (he had a white beard and was emaciated, somewhat like, as one observer commented later, a Giacommetti sculpture) was soon followed by a massive four-foot tall terra cotta warrior’s head, and there was even talk of a greater treasure waiting to be found...

You can read the complete story here.

Luck of the Irish-

A day late for St. Patrick's Day, but here's a little gem of a catalog that keeps the spirit goin' -

Davis, John D. The Genius of Irish Silver. A Texas Private Collection. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: 1991. The catalog of a loan exhibition of 118 pieces of Irish silver from the last decades of the 17th century to 1800. A slim catalog, but beautifully photographed, and uncommon. Softcover. 8.5”x10”, 47 pages, b/w illustrations. Light wear. [31737] $125.00

You can easily order this catalog by clicking here.

The Amber Room-

We have a great new publisher's overstock just in-

"The Amber Room. The Fate of the World’s Greatest Lost Treasure" by Catherine Scott Clark & Adrian Levy. Published by Walker & Company in 2004.

"The team that reported on the horrors of the Burmese jade trade in The Stone of Heaven here investigates what may be the greatest single art theft in modern history: the looting of the Amber Room from St. Petersburg by the Nazis in 1941. The glittering amber panels, enough to cover a palace room, were a gift of Frederick I of Prussia to Peter the Great in 1701. The stolen panels were displayed in Königsberg Castle in 1944, but disappeared after the city fell to the Red Army. Describing the history, theft, and headline-grabbing search for the Amber Room, the authors suggest it may long since have been destroyed."

Hardcover. 6”x9”, 278 pages, black & white illustrations, dust jacket. New. $12.00

Gimme Some Arts & Crafts!

Here's a very fun book we just got a small pile of-

"Historic Arts & Crafts Homes of Great Britain" by Brian D. Coleman, published by Gibbs Smith in 2005.

“Exquisitely photographed and produced, this volume tours ten magnificent British homes designed in the Arts and Crafts tradition. Red House, the only house that William Morris ever built (and that also inspired his design firm), is here, as is Hill House— family home to prominent Glasgow publisher Walter W. Blackie, designed by Scotland's Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Also included are Charleston, home to Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant; Kelmscott Manor, William Morris's idyllic country escape; and Edward Lutyens' eccentric medieval Castle Drogo”.

Hardcover. 10”x10”, 159 pages, color illustrations, dj. New. Published for $39.95. Available for a limited time for $20.00

A Play on History-

Here's a fun play on an historical controversey we just bought a few copies of-

"History Play. The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe" by Rodney Bolt. Published by Bloomsbury in 2004.

I know, I know, there are more books on the Shakespeare-Marlowe thing that you can shake a stick at, but this one is different!

“Without trying to prove it, Rodney Bolt assumes that, rather than dying at twenty-nine in a tavern brawl, Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to Europe, and went on to write the work attributed to Shakespeare. This is the starting point for a mischievous and brilliantly written biography of Marlowe, which turns out to be a life of the Bard as well. Using real historical sources plus a generous dose of speculation, Bolt paints a rich and rollicking picture of Elizabethan life. As we accompany Marlowe into the halls of academia, the society of the popular English players traveling Europe, and the dangerous underworld of Elizabethan espionage, a fascinating and almost plausible life story emerges”.

Hardcover. 6”x9.5”, 388 pages, dust jacket. A new copy. Published for $24.95. We have copies for $10.00 each while they last.

A Nice Book on Inro-

Here's a nice new remainder we recently put into stock-

"The Inro Handbook. Studies of Netsuke, Inro and Lacquer" by Raymond Bushell. Published by Weatherhill in 2002. 3rd prtg.

“Illustrated with 136 color plates, scores of color thumbnails, and hundreds of black and white figures and drawings, this volume describes a superb Japanese art object, the small carved boxes called inro, traditionally suspended from the kimono by silk cords and netsuke buttons to carry personal items. Internationally recognized expert Raymond Bushell documents the history and design of these jewel-like, exquisitely crafted items, along with their netsuke and similar other personal objects like incense boxes, tea caddies, and sake cups”.

Hardcover. 7.5”x10.5”, 263 pages, color and black & white illustrations, dust jacket. New.

Published for $75.00. While they last, we can offer this for $35.00

A New Parian Book-

We've just gotten copies of a newly-published book on Parian, and it's a beauty!

"Parian. Copeland’s Statuary Porcelain" is by Robert Copeland. Hardcover. 8.5”x11”, 352 pages, profusely illustrated in color and b/w, dj. New. $89.50

"Parian – a high-quality, unglazed porcelain – was developed in the early 1840s by Copeland & Garrett, which was the first company to exhibit it in 1845. Its purpose was to provide small sculptures for the public at a time when full size marble statues were gracing the homes of wealthy people. Examples exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition stimulated the demand initiated by the Art Union of London in 1845 and promoted further in the next forty years by other Art Unions.

‘Parian – Copeland’s Statuary Porcelain’ tells this fascinating story in detail. The debate in the columns of the Staffordshire Advertiser as to which firm was the first to introduce Parian is also examined here in detail. The book goes on to describe the manufacturing processes of mold-making and the casting of the figures. Also included is a comprehensive catalogue of Copeland’s productions of statuettes, groups and portrait busts."

What's in a Floor?

We have a beautiful book in our March catalog- H.F. Rodlich's "Praktische Anweisung zur Verfertigung der Venezianischen Estriche" is an 1810 guide to the art of making Venetian crushed-stone floors. It illustrates the tools and the step-by-step processes involved-

Venetian crushed stone floors are a rather difficult subject -very little material about them is available in the literature. Certainly the neo-classic elements are unmistakable, and the influence of recently excavated Roman ruins must have played a part in their popularity in Italy and, as this book illustrates, Germany.

The plates show the stone being prepared and colored, the floor surface being planned, laid-out and prepared, and the stone being applied and smoothed. The workmen are all stylishly dressed for such a dirty job, and appear very happy at their tasks. Young boys help with the work in a number of plates. Obviously a labor and time-intensive task, the laying of a stone floor is chronicled here in hand-colored plates that can only be described as jewel-like.

A scarce book, with only a single OCLC listing. Hardcover. 8.5"x10.5", 28 pages of text plus 24 hand-colored engraved plates on 12 leaves. We have a more extensive description in our March catalog.