Autographs, Documents & Manuscripts

[AUTOGRAPH]. HUMBOLDT, Alexander von. [Autograph letter to Le Chevalier de Rossel, director of the Dépôt des Cartes of the Paris Académie des Sciences].
[Paris, 1818?]. 4to (23 x 18.5 cm) Letter in black ink on laid paper, in Humboldt's somewhat cramped but still legible hand. Formerly folded for posting, with the address written on the otherwise blank final page and with traces of a paper seal. [1], [3 blank] pp. Full description

[ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT - ALTAR CANON]. Accipiendo in manibus hostiam dicat[!].... Initium Sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem. ... Cibavit illum dominus pane vitæ et intellectus.
[Belgium?], [ca. 1790?]. Three illuminated manuscript wall panels in matching style, forming a three-part altar canon lettered in blue and red ink on parchment (one 47.5 x 57 cm & two 31 x 22 cm; image sizes 46 x 54.5 cm & 29.5 x 21 cm), the larger stretched over a wooden frame and each of the smaller two over a wooden panel. All three panels meticulously and finely lettered in the style of roman printing types with 1 line in italic capitals, all 12 initials and some of their decoration in gold. All three panels richly illuminated around and between the text blocks with a gold background and extensive gold highlights, the illumination including decorated cartouches. The principal scenes at the head (miniatures in a wide variety of colours) show the Last Supper, Saint John the Evangelist and Christ washing his apostles feet; the central scenes at the foot (ink and ink wash drawings, probably emblematic, that on the large panel in grey and those on the small panels in red) show a lamb and cross on an altar, 4 standing figures with long staffs around a table with a platter (of bread?: some of the figures are eating something) and herald angels before a kneeling figure (it doesnt look like a shepherd or the Virgin Mary). Full description

[INCUNABLE - GERMANY]. [12 leaves from: Statuta synodalia herbipolensia].
[Würzburg, Georg Reyser, ca. 1486]. Folio. Printed in red and black in rotunda type (32 lines; printed area: 18 x 12 cm; type: 112a). With illustrations cut from 19th- or 20th-century reproductions of early woodcuts (ca. 21 x 14 cm) pasted on the front (Annunciation) and back pastedown (Christophorus, with the year "cccc xx tercio").. Later bound in two leaves from a 13th-century vellum theological manuscript, rubricated and decorated with alternating red and blue initials with penwork. [12] ll. Full description

[FRENCH INDIA - MANUSCRIPT]. Des castes Indiennes.
Karaikal, 11 April [1743]. 4to (ca. 24 x 18.5 cm). Manuscript written in dark brown ink on beige laid paper. Blue mottled stiff paper wrappers. [23], [1 blank] pp. Full description

[PHOTOGRAPHY - INDIA]. [W. RAHN (photographer).] [Album with photographs of the Tirah Expedition].
Including:
- Key [manuscript identifying sitters in 1 photograph in the album]. 2 loose leaves.
- [Manuscript list of captions to 10 photographs in the album]. 1 leaf.Kirkee (Pune, India), Sappers and Miners' Press, [1898]. Folio album (40 x 33 cm). A photo album with 53 photographic prints on 12 paperboard leaves, hinged to stubs with 3 cords. Including 9 large albumen prints from 21 x 26.5 cm to 13.5 x 29 cm, 43 gelatin silver prints from 12 x 18 cm. to 9 x 10.5 cm., and a loosely inserted large albumen print 21 x 28.5 cm on a similar paperboard support. Contemporary cloth with closing straps. Manuscripts loosely inserted in the album.
(2) PARK, Superintendent. 1898. Catalogue of photographs by Sergeant A.J. Clarke R.E. taken during Tirah Expedition, 1897-1898.
[Kirkee (Pune, India), Sappers and Miners' Press, 1898]. Small folio (22 x 14.5 cm), [4] pp. With a lithographed title-page. Loosely inserted in the album. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT]. JOFFROY, Joannes Baptista (Jean-Baptiste). Daegelyksche aenteekening van alle de goederen te verwen komende bij Joannes Baptista Joffroy begonst 1734.
[Mechelen (Malines, Belgium), 1 April 1734-31 August 1759]. Folio (32.5 x 21 cm). Manuscript journal of accounts in dark brown ink on paper, written in Dutch in an upright gothic hand, with each page ruled in double and single lines to make 4 or 5 columns and up to 22 rows, decorated with hundreds of pen flourishes, three forming pictures of birds as tailpieces and with a decorative cross to begin 1750 (some other years with a simpler cross), a couple headings with additions in red. Contemporary vellum. [268] pp. Full description

JONG, Jacobus de. Geschriften.
Noordwijk-Binnen, 1761. Oblong folio (21 x 33 cm). Manuscript calligraphic copybook in brown ink on paper, with a calligraphic title-page followed by sample texts (mostly from the Old and New Testament) in Dutch in a roundhand script with decorative flourishes, and verses by Jacob Cats on the outside of the first and last leaves, the last illustrated with a penwork father, son and a large fish eating a small fish. Side-stitched, with the first leaf and last leaf serving as wrappers. [31] ll. Full description

[AUTOGRAPH]. KRAYENHOFF, Cornelis Dionysius. [Letter to Thomas de Saint Laurent].
Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 30 December 1783. 4to (21×17 cm). Autograph letter in French, signed, written in dark brown ink on paper in a Latin hand. In a later paper folder. [2] pp. Full description

LAMPUGNANI, Girolamo. In [quatuor] libros institutionu[m] imperialiu[m] disputationes.
[Rome?, first half of the 17th century]. 2 parts in 1 volume. 12mo. With floral decorations in ink at the start of some of the chapters. Contemporary limp vellum, gilt edges. [2 blank], 128, [2 blank]; 129-260 [= 132 leaves] ll. Full description

[AUTOGRAPH]. LANGLÈS, Louis Mathieu. [6 autograph letters, signed, mostly to Antoine-Jean de Saint-Martin].
[Paris], 7 April [1820?]-13 January 1824. 8vo & 4to. Signed autograph letters in brown ink on laid paper, the 1824 letter on a letterpress "Bibliothèque du Roi" letterhead with the royal arms. 7 letters, each written on 1 side of a single leaf. Full description