Europe / France

[BOTTLE IN BOOK FORM]. Esprit de Francklin ... Le B[on].homme Richard.
Chalonnes sur Loire, Fremy frères, Bottrel et Cie., [ca. 1830]. Blown glass bottle made in the form of a book (15 x 10 x 3 cm plus 1.5 cm neck and lip). The "spine" is covered with gold-tooled red morocco, with 7 horizontal rolls dividing it into 5 fields plus a smaller 6th at the foot, the title and the French form of Franklin's pen-name in fields 3 and 4 and a decoration in fields 1, 3 and 5, the "boards" covered with paper, each with an lithographed rectangular decorative border enclosing an oval laurel wreath around an oval paper overlay with a lithographed view, that on the front board showing Benjamin Franklin and that on the back board showing a man in the distillery, each with accompanying texts above and below the wreath. The paper sides (but not their overlays) have a slight reddish cast. Full description

BOUGAINVILLE, Hyacinthe-Yves-Philippe Potentien, Baron de. [Autograph letter, signed, to Baroness Hyde de Neuville (Anne Marguerite Henriette de Marigny Hyde de Neuville)].
[Brest?, ca. 1820/22]. Folded leaf (20.6 x 16.5 cm). In French. 2 1/2 pp. text. 2 1/2 pp. text. Full description

BOUGARD, René and John Thomas SERRES. The little sea torch: or, true guide for coasting pilots.
London, J. Debrett for the "author" [Serres], G. & W. Nicol, et al. [printed by T. Rickaby], 1801. Large folio (47 x 30 cm). With 20 numbered aquatint plates containing 137 coastal profiles, and 12 partly numbered engraved plates containing 24 maps of port cities, harbours, islands and the Strait of Gibraltar. All coastal profiles and maps beautifully and subtly coloured by a contemporary hand. Contemporary boards. VI, 144, [5] pp. Full description

BOUTEILLE, Hippolyte and M. de LABATIE. Ornithologie du Dauphiné ou description des oiseaux observés dans les départements de l'Isère, de la Drome, des Hautes-Alpes et les contrées voisines.
Grenoble, for the author and "les principaux libraires de la ville", by F. Allier, 1843[-1844]. 2 volumes. 8vo. With 72 lithographed plates by C. Pégeron after Victor Desirée Cassien, and a large folding table. Contemporary half sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. 416; 358, [2 blank] pp. Full description

BOUTEROUE D'AUBIGNY, Claude. Recherches curieuses des monoyes de France depuis le commencement de la monarchie.
Paris, Edme Martin, 1666. Large folio (42 x 27.5 cm). With title-page with engraved allegorical illustration by N. Bonnart (including a minting press), and numerous engravings in text incl. 7 full-page (on pp. 336, 342, 349, 354, 359, 364 and 370). Contemporary mottled calf (ca. 1693), richly gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges; and each board with the (later) gold-tooled British Royal arms in the form used in Scotland 1801-1816, encircled by the inscription, "The Society of Writers to the Signet" (that is the Signet Library in Edinburgh; stamp 3, ca. 1815). [16], 398, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

BOYMANS, Johannes Andreas. Le garde d'honneur, ou episode du règne de Napoléon Buonaparte.
Bruxelles, Weissenbruch, 1822. 8vo. With 2 large folding maps after designs by G.F. Baron de Derfelden de Hinderstein, partly coloured by hand, a white on black phantasmagoric folding lithographed plate, and 4 folding lithographed views by Kierdorff after E. van Boeckhoven. Later gold-and blind tooled half green calf, with the author and title lettered in gold on the spine, green decorative paper sides, green decorative paper end papers. XXXIV, 69, XLI, XVIII, [2], [1 blank] pp. Full description

BRETEZ, Louis. Plan de Paris commencé l'année 1734. Dessiné et gravé, sous les ordres de Messire Michel Etienne Turgot, Marquis de Sousmons ... Achevé de graver en 1739.
[Paris, 1739]. Grand-Aigle folio (56 x 45.5 cm). An enormous engraved map of Paris in 20 numbered sheets plus a key map, at a scale of about 1:2000, each segment measuring 55 x 84 cm (plate size 51.5 x 80.5 cm; image 48 x 79 cm) which would give an assembled map with image size about 240 x 316 cm! The key map is slightly larger than the segments and folds out at the head. Bound as an atlas (but with segments 18 and 19, containing the cartouche, assembled to make a long fold-out) in contemporary gold-tooled red morocco, each board with as centrepiece the Paris coat of arms (a ship with chief a field of fleurs-de-lis). Full description

CARACCIOLO, Roberto. 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. [100], [17], [1 blank] ll. Full description

CAVALLI. [Letter to an unknown person].
Paris, 18 August 1726. 4to. [1] leaf. Full description

CERF, J. de. [Oval miniature portrait painting of Voltaire].
[France?], "1687" [= ca. 1735?]. Oval portrait painting (11 x 9 cm) in grisaille on copper, with a note on the back "J. de Cerf A[nn]o 1687". Mounted in a gilt rectangular wooden frame (34.5 x 28 cm). Full description