Asher Rare Books

Large map of the Pyrenees

[MAP - PYRENEES]. SANSON, Nicolas. Les Monts Pyrenées, ou sont remarqués les Passages de France en Espagne.
Paris, Hubert Jaillot, 1719. Engraved map on 2 assembled sheets (54.5 x 88 cm). With title in decorated cartouche (signed F.C.) in upper right corner and scalebars in decorated cartouche in the lower left corner. Coloured in outline. Full description

€ 500

Charts & Maps France Spain

Fine collection of 16th-century Italian cartography from the school of Antonio Lafreri

[LAFRERI - DUCHETTI - FLORINI - MAPS AND ENGRAVINGS - ITALY]. [Large album with 16th-century maps and engravings of Italy].
[Italy, late 16th and early 17th century]. Large oblong folio (ca. 59 x 42.3 cm). With 76 full-page engravings, and 12 full-page etchings. 17th-century gold-tooled brown calf, sewn on 6 supports with the corresponding raised bands on the spine, a red morocco title label on the spine with the title "Novissim[a] urbis Romae descript[io]" lettered in gold, gold-tooled board edges. Full description

€ 150,000

Architecture Art & Art History Charts & Maps City Plans, Topography & Views Classical Antiquity Italy Prints & Print Series

Highly detailed and brightly coloured botanical emblematic fore-edge painting
taken from Camerarius's Symbolorum et emblematum

MARCHESE, Duca Annibale. Tragedie Cristiane.
Naples, Felice Mosca, 1729. 2 volumes in 1. Large 8vo. With two title-pages in red and black, an engraved frontispiece by Jeremias Jakob Sedelmayr after Francesco Solimena, an engraved author's portrait by Antonio Baldi and 11 engraved plates by Sedelmayr and Baldi after Solimena, accompanying the 10 tragedies and the dedication. Also with some engraved initials, woodcut tailpieces and 40 pages of engraved polyphonic music for the choruses. Contemporary gold-tooled brown goatskin morocco, gilt and gauffered edges with an intricate fore-edge painting, incorporating both a closed and fanned design for the fore-edge. The head and foot edges are painted with floral and botanical designs. [4], [16], 502; [4], 504, [2]; pp. plus 40 pp. of engraved music. Full description

€ 8,500

Bindings Drawings & Watercolours Italian Literature Italy Literature

Emblem book devoted to the Sun-King Louis XIV of France

MARTINET, Jean. Emblesmes royales a Louis le Grand.
Paris, Claude Barbin, 1673. 8vo. With 60 numbered half-page engraved emblems and one unnumbered emblem on extra inserted leaf. Modern marbled boards. [10 (of 12)], 219, [3] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Emblems France French Literature

Stunning collotypes and chromolithographs of Pompeii wall paintings in situ soon after their excavation

MAU, August. Geschichte der decorativen Wandmalerei in Pompeji ... Mit 20 Tafeln in einer Mappe.
Berlin, G. Reimer, 1882. 1 text volume & 1 portfolio with plates. 8vo (text volume) and 1mo (plates portfolio 53 x 43 cm). With 20 large numbered plates showing Pompeii wall paintings in situ, mounted on card stock, loose in a separate portfolio with letterpress title-leaf and contents leaf: 9 sepia collotypes (21 x 16 to 26.5 x 24.5 cm) and 11 chromolithographs (21.5 x 19 to 37 x 36 cm), no. 18 actually comprising 7 small chromolithographs on 1 card, each plate with a letterpress label on the back; and 7 black and white floor plans in the text. Contemporary half sheepskin parchment (text); contemporary blue half cloth portfolio (plates). XII, 462 pp. Full description

€ 7,500

Architecture Art & Art History Classical Antiquity Italy

30 hand-coloured lithographed views of the zinc industry

MAUGENDRE, Adolphe. Société anonyme des mines et fonderies de zinc de la Vieille Montagne[.] Album de 30 vues.
Paris, (printed by Auguste Bry), 1850-1851. Oblong 1mo (55.5 x 38.5 cm). Tinted lithographed title page and 30 tinted lithographed plates (55.5 x 38.5 cm, one slightly smaller: 35 x 50.5 cm), all in fine contemporary hand-colouring. Loose in modern clamshell box. Full description

€ 22,500

Belgium Earth Sciences Germany Mineralogy & Gems Technology

Detailed illustrated account of archaeological discoveries in and around Pozzuolo,
including the rare folding map

MAZZELLA, Scipione. Sito, et antichita della citta di Pozzuolo, e del suo amenissimo distretto ...
Naples, Tarquinio Longo for Giorgio Varisco (part 1) and Bartholomeo Carampello (part 2), 1606. 2 parts in 1 volume. Small 8vo (15 x 10 cm). With 3 title-pages, a large folding woodcut map with letterpress title and text (the woodcut itself 17 x 24.5 cm) showing Pozzolo and the surrounding area (omitted in some copies), 15 woodcut illustrations (plus 4 repeats) in text. 17th-century limp sheepskin parchment. [16], 284, [4], 103, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 5,000

Archaeology Architecture Charts & Maps Classical Antiquity Italy

Catherine de' Medici and the Ottoman Sultan Murad III

[LETTER - SIGNED]. MEDICI, Catherine de'. [Letter to Jacques de Germigny in Constantinople (Istanbul)].
Chenonceaux, 2 September 1584. Folio (34 x 24 cm). Signed letter in French, in brown ink on paper, written in a clear gothic hand. Folded for sending and addressed on the outside, with a slot for a ribbon and traces of a red wax seal. [1], [3 blank (except for address)] pp. Full description

€ 12,500

Autographs & Letters France Law & Politics Turkey & Ottoman Empire

European history of the years 1620-1625, including the founding of the Dutch West India Company

MEERBEECK, Adriaen van. Neder-landtschen Mercurius oft waerachtich verhael vande geschiedenissen van Nederlandt, ende oock van Duytschlandt, Spaengien, Italien, Vrankrijck ende Turckijen. Sedert den iare 1620. tot 1625.
Brussel, Ian van Meerbeeck, 1625. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With an engraved vignette on the title page. 19th-century quarter brown calf, with a brown paper title label on the spine, lettered in gold, marbled paper sides. [8], 156; [4], 192; [4], 40, 18, 73, [1 blank], 8, [16] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Spain Turkey & Ottoman Empire WIC

Splendid funeral ceremonies in Brussels 1515-1622

MEERBEECK, Adriaan de. Theatre funebre ou sont representéez les funerailles de plusieurs princes et la vie, trespas, & magnifiques obseques de Albert Le Pie de tres haulte memoire Archiduc d'Autrice, Duc de Bourgoigne, Brabant, &c. faicts a Bruxelles le 12. de Mars, 1622.
Brussels, Ferdinand de Hoeymaker [printed by Henrick van Hastens in Louvain], 1622. 8vo. With a small woodcut decoration on the title-page and a full-page woodcut representing a "chapelle ardente" on the verso; a large folding woodcut plate with two horses, one dressed as a "cheval de bataille" and the other as used "à la pompe funebre du ... Archiduc". Further with 3 woodcut decorated initials (2 series) and 2 woodcut factotums. Contemporary vellum, remnants of ties. [8], 278, [2] pp. Full description