A. Asher & Co. B.V. — Libri

[Album containing photographs of Australia, Egypt and France].[ca. 1895]. Oblong folio (28 x 39 cm). With 58 printed photographs (ca. 21 x 25.5 to 13.5 x 20 cm). Mounted on both sides of the leaves in the album. Contemporary black morocco, gold-tooling to boards and spine and gilt on all edges.

[PHOTOGRAPHY - AUSTRALIA, EGYPT & FRANCE]. · 1886

€5,000.00 ($5,510.91 | £4,171.33 | ¥880,021)

[60] pp.The album contains 15 silver albumen photographs of Melbourne, taken mainly from the series C. Rudd's new views of Melbourne (1886-1887) by Charles Rudd (1849-1901). They show Collins Street, Melbourne town hall, the public library, Parliament House, the Court of Law, ...

Legenda sanctorum al[ia]s Lombardica historia. [= Legenda aurea sanctorum].[Colophon:] Basel, Nikolaus Kessler, 25 June 1486 Small (Chancery) folio (28.5 x 22 cm). With Kessler’s 1485 woodcut armorial device below the colophon (double shield hanging from a branch, the dexter shield with 3 kettle hooks and the sinister shield with a K and cross). Blind-tooled tanned sheepskin (ca. 1870/1900), with a hollow back, sewn on 4 recessed cords but with 5 false bands on the spine, gold-tooled black morocco spine-label in the 2nd compartment and “BASEL 1486” in gold at the foot.

VORAGINE, Jacobus de. · 1846

€11,000.00 ($12,124.00 | £9,176.93 | ¥1,936,046)

[255] ll.The third Basel edition, in the original Latin, of the Legenda aurea or Golden legend, a collection of saints’ lives (hagiographies), arranged according to their feast days, with explanations of the church festivals that include the stories of their lives and deaths. ...

Reportatorium Biblie aureum [= Biblia aurea].[Augsburg], [printing office of the Abbey of Saints Ulrich and Afra], [in the period 1473 to early 1475]. Chancery (Foolscap) folio (28 x 22 cm). With the title in a note following the prologue, at the foot of the first page (and abbreviated at the end of the book), a 2-page alphabetical table of contents and the main text comprising 139 entries.Burgundy goatskin morocco (ca. 1890?). With the armorial bookplate of Robert Proctor.

[BINDO GUERRI of Siena] with a prologue by Antonius de RAMPIGOLLIS. · 1423

€16,500.00 ($18,186.00 | £13,765.39 | ¥2,904,070)

[231], [1 blank] pp.First edition, in the original Latin, of the Biblia aurea (Golden Bible), long attributed to Antonius de Rampigollis (ca. 1360-ca. 1423?), a well-known Augustinian monk from Genoa, who in fact wrote the present one-page prologue for a different but related ...

Postilla super Epistolas et Evangelia.[Cologne, Ulrich Zell, 1483/87]. Small folio. Printed in 2 columns, each with 49 lines to the page. Set in a late example of a hybrid form type, with lombardic initials in red gouache. Rubricated on c4v-d2r. Mid- or late-18th-century gold-tooled French(?) red goatskin morocco, the spine with a dark green gold-tooled morocco label in the 2nd of 6 compartments, gold fillets on the board edges, gold-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges, French marbled endpapers. With the first page (the only preliminary page) in facsimile, but further complete.

[HEROLT, Johannes], edited by Guillermus PARISIENSIS. · 1472

€13,500.00 ($14,879.46 | £11,262.59 | ¥2,376,057)

[130] ll.A compilation containing excerpts from the Epistles and the Gospels, in Latin, each followed by a commentary (homily), serving as a helpful guide for teachers and priests, the latter often using it as a foundation for their sermons. It arranges the excerpts as reading...

Preceptorium divine legis [preceded by] Prologus in expositionem decalogi [= Praeceptorium divinae legis, sive expositio decalogi]. [Colophon:] Ulm, Johann Zainer the elder, [1478/79]. Chancery (Foolscap) folio. Set in a rotunda gothic type, the preliminaries in two columns, with spaces for manuscript paragraph marks and initials, filled in in red ink, the initials Lombardic, one with interior decoration. Contemporary richly blind-tooled calf over square-edged wooden boards (from an Augsburg bindery active 1473-1494: Eindbanddatenbank workshop w002141). Further with a brass catchplate on the front board and a brass anchor plate on the back board.

NIDER, Johannes. · 1473

€35,000.00 ($38,576.37 | £29,199.31 | ¥6,160,148)

[246] ll.One of the earliest editions (the first Ulm edition, printed by Ulm’s first printer Johann Zainer, who set up in 1473) of an important and highly esteemed exegetical text on the Ten Commandments, a classic treatise on ethics, with chapters on sorcery, necromancy, witc...

Rationale divinorum officiorum.Strasbourg, [Johann Prüss], 1486. Chancery folio (32.5 x 22 cm). Printed in 2 columns, with 48 lines to the column. Set in 2 sizes of rotunda gothic types, Prüss types 2 (180G) and 3 (90G), with spaces left (some with and some without printed guide letters) for manuscript initials (1 8-line, 2 7-line, 4 6-line, 3 5-line and numerous 3- and 4-line). From the beginning to h3r these spaced have been filled in with manuscript lombardic initials in red and the text has been rubricated (the first fifth of the book). Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over wooden (beechwood?) boards by an Augsburg bindery (Eindbanddatenbank workshop w002998, active ca. 1488-1497).

DURAND, Guillaume (Guillelmus DURANDUS or DURANTI). · 1459

€13,500.00 ($14,879.46 | £11,262.59 | ¥2,376,057)

[3], 272 ll.Written around 1280, the Rationale divinorum officiorum is considered one of the principal sources for the western church liturgy. It focuses on the allegorical interpretation of the liturgy based on Amalario's work, and Duanti is recognized as an excellent compile...

Sermones per adventu[m] domini cu[m] multis aliis inclusis. sermocionanti per utiles. famosissimi predicatoris Maiistri Ruberti de Licio Italici ordinis minoru[m]. [= Sermones de adventu, Sermo de S. Joseph, Sermo de Beatitudine, Sermones de divina caritate, Sermones de immortalitate animae].Including: BOLLANI, Dominico (Dominicus BOLLANUS). De co[n]ceptione gloriosissime Virginis Marie [= De conceptione Beatae Virginis Mariae]. [Strasbourg, Martin Schott, 1484]. Small (Chancery) folio mostly in 8s (28.5 x 20.5 cm). Printed in 2 columns, set in 2 sizes of rotunda gothic type that Schott used for the first time in the present publication. With spaces left (without guide letters) for perhaps a hundred 3-line and dozens of larger manuscript initials, not filled in in the present copy. Near contemporary (ca. 1500?), richly blind-tooled pigskin over square-edge boards (Eindbanddatenbank workshop w002296, active in Bavaria ca. 1473(?)-1502). With the remains of one strap-fastening (brass anchor-plate, remnants of the alum-tawed leather strap, but catchplate and clasp lost), blue-green edges. Vellum manuscript waste used for reinforcement, showing bits of Isaias 5:8-26 from a Vulgate Bible in a large textura hand.

CARACCIOLO, Roberto. · 1425

€7,000.00 ($7,715.27 | £5,839.86 | ¥1,232,030)

[100], [17], [1 blank] ll.The last of six incunable editions, all in the original Latin, of a collection of about 70 sermons by the celebrated Italian Franciscan bishop and preacher, Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce (ca 1425-1495), published together with Dominico Bollani’s treatis...

Speculum beate Marie virginis: compilatum ab humili fratre Bonauentura.Augsburg, Anton Sorg, 1476. Folio (26.5 x 21.2 cm). Set in a Gothic letter in 40 lines to the page, printed in 1 column. Rubricated throughout. With a large Maiblumen woodcut-initial and 16 smaller initials (of which 11 hand-coloured in red). Modern vellum, with a manuscript title on the spine.

BONAVENTURA (pseudo) [= Conradus de SAXONIA]. · 1475

€17,500.00 ($19,288.18 | £14,599.65 | ¥3,080,074)

[48] ll.First edition of this Speculum beate Marie virginis, an early work from the presses of Augsburg printer Anton Sorg (active 1475-1493). The beautiful Sorgs type (type 103) used here was taken over from the Augsburg monastery printers St. Ulrich and Afra and used until 1...

Speculu[m] artis bene morie[n]di [= Ars moriendi].[Cologne, Heinrich Quentell, ca. 1493/97]. Small (Chancery) 4to (20.5 x 14.5 cm). With a large woodcut on the title page. Set in a single column, with 36 lines to the page, in a rotunda gothic type, with a larger textura gothic for the first line of the title. With spaces left for manuscript initials with manuscript guide letters in black ink. Most pages with a few words underscored in black ink. Recent marbled paper over boards by the Geneva bookbinder Jean-Luc Honegger (signed with his “honegger” stamp in blue ink at the foot of the back paste-down), the marbled paper in an antique spot pattern, black morocco spine label with the title in gold roman capitals, reading up the spine.

[INCUNABLE - COLOGNE EDITION OF THE ARS MORIENDI]. · 1493

€8,500.00 ($9,368.55 | £7,091.26 | ¥1,496,036)

[31], [1 blank] pp.Quentell’s second quarto edition of the well-known manual on the art of dying, in the original Latin, matching his ca. 1493 quarto edition almost line for line and using the same woodcut, quite different from any used with this text before that date. Quentel...

Monody on Major Andrè. To which are added letters addressed to her by Major Andrè in the year 1769.Lichfield, Printed and sold by J. Jackson for the author [etc.], 1781. 4to. Half red morocco, marbled paper sides, gold-tooling on spine.

SEWARD, Anna. · 1742

€2,950.00 ($3,251.44 | £2,461.08 | ¥519,212)

IV, 47, [1] pp.First edition of the elegy on British army major in America, John André, by the English Romantic poet and women of letters Anna Seward (1742-1809). She was often called the Swan of Lichfield. In the present poem, she celebrates the courage, mental resilience and...

Aegidius Albertinus speculum religiosorum & exercitium virtuosorum oder: Der geistliche Spiegel ...Munich, Adam Berg, 1601. 8vo. Title in red and black. Contemporary vellum over wooden board

GUEVARA, Antonio de. (Aegidius Albertinus, translator). · 1480

€2,500.00 ($2,755.46 | £2,085.66 | ¥440,011)

[12], "414" (= 829), [9] pp.Early German translation of copy of the Oratorio de religiosos y Exercicio de virtuosos by Antonio de Guevara (c. 1480-1545); one of the few religious treatises written by the popular Spanish writer. The treatise consists of a series of short exhort...

One hundred and twenty copper-plates of English moths and butterflies, representing their changes into the caterpillar, chrysalis, and fly-states, and the plants, flowers, and fruits, whereon they feed. Coloured with great exactness from the subjects themselves. With a natural history of the moths and butterflies, describing the method of managing, preserving, and feeding them.London, R. N. Rose (printed by G. Verrall, Worthing), 1824. 4to. With 120 engraved plates (mainly 27.5 x 22.5 cm) hand-coloured for the author. Mid-19th-century half gold-tooled dark green morocco.

WILKES, Benjamin. · 1749

€12,500.00 ($13,777.28 | £10,428.32 | ¥2,200,053)

VIII, [22], 63, [5] pp.Third edition of a ground-breaking entomological colour-plate book, with 120 engraved and beautifully hand-coloured illustration plates showing not only the moths and butterflies, but also the plants that host them, first published and sold by the author...

The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed. Translated from the original Arabic with explanatory notes, taken from the most approved commentators to which is preffixed a preliminary discourse. A new edition.Bath, Printed by S. Hazard for J. Johnson, Vernor and Hood, Ogilvy and Speare, J. Sewell, H. Gardner and C. and G. Kearsley, 1795. 2 vols. 8vo. Engraved fold-out map of Arabia, 3 genealogical tables of which two folding, 1 plate illustrating the Temple of Mecca, all taken from the first editon of 1735. Old calf.

[QURAN - ENGLISH]. SALE, George (translator). · 1698

€3,500.00 ($3,857.64 | £2,919.93 | ¥616,015)

Fourth edition of the First translation of the Koran into English.a landmark not only in efforts to bring an accurate version of the Quran to the English-speaking world, but also in Western Quranic studies in general. Holt notes his "enlightened and objective attitude" in shar...

Miscellaneous pieces relating to the Chinese.London, printed for R. and J. Dodsley, 1762. 2 volumes. Small 8vo. With an engraved frontispiece with Chinese characters in volume 1 and a quote from Confucius in Chinese characters and a Latin transliteration and translation serving as a vignette on both title pages. Contemporary sprinkled calf.

PERCY, Thomas (editor). · 1729

€3,750.00 ($4,133.18 | £3,128.50 | ¥660,016)

[1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [15], [1 blank], [2], 232; [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], 248 pp.First edition of a collection of essays, a tragedy and other works compiled by Thomas Percy (1729-1811). The first volume includes the first appearance of Percy's Dissertation on ...

[Cover title:] Aegypten 1891.[Egypt, Zangaki brothers, 1891]. Oblong album (31.5 x 41 cm). With 34 large albumen prints mounted on heavy cardstock leaves. Most of the photographs are numbered and captioned in French in the negative and signed 'Zangaki'. The last one is signed Sebah & Joallier. The Zangaki prints measure 22.5 x 28.5 cm; the Sebah & Joallier one is 20.5 x 26.5 cm. Original gold-stamped bubble-grained maroon cloth over boards.

[PHOTOGRAPHY - EGYPT]. ZANGAKI BROTHERS. · 2006

€3,500.00 ($3,857.64 | £2,919.93 | ¥616,015)

[36] ll.A large German album with 34 albumen prints of Egypt. The Greek brothers G. and C. Zangaki were photographers who worked in Egypt in the second half of the 19th century. Due to increased tourism to this region after the opening of the Suez Canal, there was a large dema...

Nederlandsche Kleederdragten, naar de natuur getekend. Costumes des Pays-Bas dessinés d'après nature.Amsterdam, Frans Buffa en zonen, 1857. With:(2) BING, Valentijn & Jan BRAET VON UEBERFELDT. Nederlandsche zeden en gebruiken. Naar de natuur getekend. Moeurs et usages de la Hollande dessinés d'après nature.[Amsterdam, Frans Buffa en zonen, 1859].2 works in 1 volume. Large folio (ca. 57 x 41 cm). Ad 1 with 56 large lithographed plates showing Dutch costumes, printed in colour. Ad 2 with 18 lithographed Dutch folkloristic and costume plates, printed in colour and finished by hand. Contemporary three quarter buckram with the title and the name of the author lettered in gold on the front board and on the spine.

BING, Valentijn & Jan BRAET VON UEBERFELDT.

€6,500.00 ($7,164.18 | £5,422.73 | ¥1,144,027)

[15] ll. and 56 lithographed plates; [6] ll. and 18 lithographed plates.Very good copies of these two famous series of two famous Dutch costume books, seldomly found bound together.The first representing the most extensive costume book of the Netherlands, including detailed vi...

Recherches sur les prerogatives des dames chez les Gaulaois, sur les cours d'amour.Paris, chez Nyon I'ainé, Libraire, 1787. 12mo. With a woodcut vignette on the title page, and a woodcut headpiece. 19th-century gold-tooled dark blue morocco.

ROLLAND D'ERCEVILLE, Barthélemy-Gabriel. · 1806

€1,250.00 ($1,377.73 | £1,042.83 | ¥220,005)

[4], xii, 212, [1], [1 blank] pp.First edition of a remarkable work on the social and legal status of women in Europe from the Roman period through the 18th century. The work discusses the education of women, their influence on government, science and the arts, and how they we...

[A blank half-sheet of paper of the size called "Elephant"].[France?, used in the Netherlands?], [ca. 1650]. Elephant folio leaf (35 x 52 cm). With a large (87 x 162 mm) elephant watermark.

[WATERMARK - ELEPHANT]. · 1649

€475.00 ($523.54 | £396.28 | ¥83,602)

A blank half-sheet of one of the largest sizes of paper used in the seventeenth-century, a size called “Elephant” in English and “Olifant” (which means elephant) in Dutch and one of the earliest examples of the use of the elephant watermark to indicate this size. The whole unt...

Palestine under the Moslems. A description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Translated from the work of the mediaeval Arab geographers.Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1975. Illustrations, maps, plans (some fold-out) throughout. Original cloth binding.

LE STRANGE, Guy. · 1500

€650.00 ($716.42 | £542.27 | ¥114,403)

XXII, [2], 604 pp.Reprint edition of Guy le Strange’s influential work. Palestine under the Moslems presents a geographical description of Syria and Palestine, its climate, people and their culture. Le Strange presents the characteristics of the area and its places. He devotes...

Syria. April 1943.With:(2) NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION. Palestine and Transjordan. December 1943.(3) NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION. Western Arabia and the Red Sea. June 1943.Stationery Office, University Press Oxford, 1943-1946. 3 volumes. Many plates, tables and photographs. Each volume including separate fold-out maps, one in colour. Contemporary green cloth with the title in gold on the front boards and the spines.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION. · 1915

€1,750.00 ($1,928.82 | £1,459.97 | ¥308,007)

[2], XVI, 485, [1]; [2], XV, [1], 621, [1]; [2], XIX, [1], 659, [1] pp.Three British military manuals on Western Arabia, Syria, Palestine and today’s Jordan, their people, culture, history and peculiarities. In 1915, the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty established...