Autographs, Documents & Manuscripts / Manuscripts & Documents

CLEMENTS, Joseph and J. GOLDING. (title-page:) Heraldry.
[England (Kent?), ca. 1775-1795]. Large 4to (ca. 27 x 21 cm). Manuscript in English on paper, mostly containing coats of arms with captions and a hand-written index. Completely written in brown ink in a neat 18th-century hand. With a hand-drawn and contemporary hand-coloured title-page, 108 contemporary hand-coloured smaller coats of arms showing motives on the crest and 1050 contemporary hand-coloured larger coats of arms of English noble families. Contemporary sheepskin, blind-tooled boards and spine, marbled endpapers. [2], 183 ll. Full description

CUNHA BROCHADO, José da. Memorias particulares, ou anecdotes dal'orte de França apontadas por Joze da Cunha Brochádo, notempo em que foi Enviado quela mesma Córte.
[Madrid, ca. 1725]. Folio. Contemporary gold-tooled marbled calf, with the title lettered in gold on the spine, marbled endpapers, red edges with brown speckles. [1], [1 blank], 396, [4 blank] pp. Full description

[DAMASCUS – VENETIAN TAXES]. [Promissory note for Venetian customs taxes on goods from Damascus].
Venice, 22 Feb. / 5 March 1488. Italian notarial document on vellum (44.5 x 16 cm; text block ca. 27 x 14 cm). Written in two fine cursive hands. Full description

DAMIRI, Muhammad ibn Musa al-. Kitab Hayat al-Hayawan [= Book of the life of animals].
Meknes, Morocco, 1267 AH [= 1851 CE]. 4to (19 x 23 cm). Arabic manuscript on paper, brown maghribi script in two hands with important words and phrases in red and blue. With an illuminated head-piece at the start of the text in red, blue, green, and gold. Contemporary gold-tooled red leather with a fore-edge flap. 62 ll. Full description

[DEFOURNY, Pierre Josephus?]. Korte schets van het voor gevallene gedurende het bombardement van het citadel van Antwerpen.
Saint Omer, 24 April 1833. 4to (19.5 x 16.5 cm). Manuscript in Dutch, written in ink on laid paper with no watermark. 10 pp. Full description

DEJEAN, Jean-François-Aimé. Plan de la ville de l'Ecluse et de l'attaque de cette place par les Français.
[Netherlands, ca. 1800]. Manuscript fortification plan (54 x 49.5 cm) in ink on paper, with watercolour in green and red. With large panel at lower right with keys to important locations and the locations of the troops during the attack and title in large panel at the head. Scale ca. 1:9500. Signed "Vu Dejean". Full description

DICKEN, Charles Shortt and DICKEN FAMILY. [Album containing illustrations and photographs of Australia and India]. [Illustrated title-page:] Contributions thankfully received.
Australia [and England and India?], 1870s. Oblong album (ca. 23 x 30 cm). With 36 albumen prints, including 14 photographs of Australia. These include houses, churches, buildings in Springsure, Queensland around 1870, photos of Charles with his horse, a wonderful picture of an "Alligator killed in the Mackay River" and "bottle trees near Taroon", 5 photographs of India: Bengal Camp Delhi, multiple group photos in Darjeeling, a group photo in front of the government house in Calcutta, and the crew of the H.M.S. Narcissus, 17 photographs of Gibraltar, America, Switserland, art pieces and the Dicken family. Further with 24 watercolour paintings of flowers, landscapes and people, including two of the Taj Mahal, and 17 coloured pencil and ink drawings of people. The drawings and paintings are almost all signed S. P. D. or F. E. D., who were likely members of the Dicken family. Most photographs and art pieces are captioned in pencil or brown ink, several leaves are decorated with additional drawings or dried plants. Contemporary maroon cloth, embroidered with yellow flowers. Comes in a custom-made black-cloth clamshell box (internally covered in burgundy cloth), with a black morocco title-label on the spine, lettered in gold, and a folding liner of the same burgundy cloth. [50] ll. Full description

[DUTCH EAST INDIES - VOC]. [Collection of 17 sets of manuscript documents and 1 printed memorandum on various subjects relating to the VOC].
Ca. 1653-1833. Mostly in folio (ca. 33 x 21 mm). Kept in a modern red portfolio with black cloth ties. Ca. 120 ll. Full description

DYLIUS, Joannes (compiler). Dagwyzer der geschiedenissen ... Benevens de geboorte, en sterfdagen, van hooge, en laage stands persoonen ...
[Amsterdam, (frontispiece:) 1778]. Narrow 8vo (16.5 x 9.5 cm). Manuscript in brown ink on laid paper, written in Dutch in a neat and clear but minute Latin hand, forming a calendar of historical events from 17 CE to 28 November 1777, with a grey ink and ink-wash allegorical frontispiece title, dated 1778 but signed by the artist "A:C. 1777.", and a title page in 8 styles of plain and decorated Latin and gothic lettering. Contemporary richly gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, the spine with a green morocco label, gold-tooled turn-ins and board edges. Bound by the so-called "Rocaille-and-flower bindery" (Storm van Leeuwen). [8 blank], [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [187], [9 blank] pp. including frontispiece. Full description

EGE, Otto F (compiler & author of the annotations). [Drop-title:] Fifteen original oriental manuscript leaves of six centuries. [Binding title:] Fifteen original oriental manuscripts.
[Cleveland, Ohio?], [Cleveland Institute of Art or Western Reserve University?], [ca. 1952]. 15 manuscript leaves (in one case a fragment of a scroll) of various formats and sizes, some glazed (see the detailed list of contents for specific dimensions), 7 written on straight-forward laid paper (European and non-European), 6 more problematic (probably all non-European), 1 on straight-forward wove paper (no. 14, supposedly made in Russia) and one on vellum (no. 7), most rubricated and/or decorated in various colours, some decorated or highlighted in gold. Each manuscript leaf is mounted (hinged on one edge to allow access to both sides of the leaf) in a passe-partout (46.5 x 33 cm) and each has a letterpress slip (10 x 18 cm) with explanatory text tipped onto the foot of the passe-partout. The publication has no title-page but includes a letterpress folio leaf that serves as a table of contents and has the drop-title given above (the present copy contains two copies of that contents leaf). The display typeface used in the letterpress leaves (and on the portfolio) is the 1938 Libra by the Dutch designer Sjoerd de Roos, inspired by uncial manuscripts. Publishers original portfolio (48.5 x 34 x 4.5 cm) covered with black cloth with on-lays in black and red on the front and the authors name in white and title in red on the spine, with three pairs of black ties (one on the inside) and a label on the inside of the right black flap giving information about the limited edition: "Edition limited to forty numbered sets of which this is No 33". [1] leaf (plus a duplicate) plus 15 original manuscript leaves mounted in white passe-partouts. Full description