Highlights

[ACTON, Sir John Francis Edward & Antonius Count of THURN and Valsassina]. Istruzione per il servizio de bastimenti della Real Marina di guerra.
Naples, 1800. 8vo. With the engraved coat of arms of King Ferdinand IV of Naples on the title page. Contemporary gold-tooled "marbled" calf with tan and blue spots on a chemically darkened background. 86 pp. Full description

ALLARD, Carel. Niewe[!] Hollandse scheeps-bouw, vertoonende een volmaakt schip ... noch een doorgesnede schip ... voorts allerhande scheeps vlaggen.
Amsterdam, Carel Allard, 1705. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With 208 contemporary hand-coloured engraved plates (1 folding, 23 double-page, 184 single page), the title pages of volume 1 and 2 are printed in red and black. Modern gold- and blind-tooled vellum (mimicking contemporary style), a black paper label on the spine with the title and author lettered in gold, green closing ties, dark blue edges. The work is kept in a marbled paper and brown book cloth clamshell box, with a brown paper label on the spine. 56; 72; [8] pp. Full description

ARENA, Filippo. La natura, e coltura de' fiori fisicamente esposta.
Palermo, Angelo Felicella, 1767-1768. 2 text volumes (4to), bound as 3, and 1 plates volume (oblong folio). With 65 engraved plates printed in colour, occasionally combining up to 6 colours on one plate. The first plate (here wholly printed in dark green) serves as an (allegorical) frontispiece and includes the name of the author and that of Mario Cammerari, the second plate depicts tools, seeds and details of flowers, the third plate contains parterre designs and the other plates depict flowers (several to each plate). Modern flexible boards, covered with decorated paper. VIII, 440; VIII, “116” [= 416]; [2], 167, [1 blank], [8] pp. plus 65 plates. Full description

BALFOUR, Frederic Henry. The divine classic of Nan-Hua; being the works of Chuang Tsze, taoist philosopher.
Shanghai & Hongkong; Yokohama; London, Kelly & Walsh; Kelly & Co.; Trübner & Co., 1881. 8vo. With Chinese characters in the text. Contemporary blue buckram, with the title and author lettered in gold on the spine. IX, [1 blank], XXXVIII, 425, [1 blank] pp. Full description

BASTER, Job. Natuurkundige uitspanningen behelzende eene beschrijving, van meer dan vier hondert planten en insekten.
Utrecht, O.J. van Paddenburg and O.J. van Dijk, [1817]. 2 parts in 1 volume, each part divided in 3 sections. 4to. With 29 contemporary hand-coloured, folding, engraved plates. Early 20th-century quarter white cloth. "169" [= 159], [4], [1 blank]; "167" [= 159], [4], [1 blank] pp. Full description

BELON, Pierre. L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naifs portaicts retirez du naturel: escrite en sept livres.
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat (colophon: printed by Benoit Prévost), 1555. 7 parts in 1 volume. Folio. With a woodcut portrait on the back of the title page (apparently of the dedicatee King Henri II, though copied in other books as a portrait of the author), large woodcuts of the skeletons of a man and a bird on pp. 40-41, plus 158 woodcuts (157 birds, 1 bat) in the text. Contemporary blind- and gold-tooled calf (rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down). [28], 381, [1], [2 blank] pp. Full description

BERG, Johan August. Bilder ur svenska folklifvet.
Gothenburg, D. F. Bonniers Förlag, 1855. Oblong folio (ca. 39.5 x 50 cm). With 12 full-page chromolithographed plates, separated by tissue paper guards. Contemporary quarter gold-tooled brown leather, [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [24] pp. Full description

BORJA, Juan de. Empresas morales ...
Prague, Georg Nigrin, 1581. 4to (17.8 x 13.6 cm). With a hand-coloured engraved title page, incorporating the coat of arms of the dedicatee King Philip II of Spain, 100 hand-coloured engraved emblems, 2 hand-coloured woodcut decorated initials, and numerous woodcut ornamental tail-pieces throughout, all text and illustrations are set within a frame of double red lines. Contemporary overlapping limp vellum with the manuscript title on the spine and remnants of ties. [2], 101, [3] ll. Full description

[BOTANICAL MANUSCRIPT - FRIAR LUC DAVID]. [Drop title:] Traite des plantes universelles par figures au naturel par le frere Luc david Recollet, chirrugien oculiste ...
[France], 1742. Large folio (ca. 45 x 28 cm). With 423 botanical drawings in bright watercolour. Manuscript with French text (including Latin names of the depicted plants), written in an 18th-century cursive hand. Most leaves contain a "Strasbourg bend" watermark: a fleur-de-lis above a shield with a diagonal band and the countermark "L Laroche" (identical to Heawood 65, but erroneously listed by him as "I Laroche", date: 1718-1721). The French papermaker Léonard Laroche (1646-1721) was active in the French province of Angoumois (now Charente) in the period 1673-1721.
Contemporary vellum, later endpapers. [2], 423, [1 blank], [19] ll. Full description

BOXEL, Johan. Exercitie memorie van de compagnie guardes van de Ed: Groot Mog: Heeren Staten van Holland en West-Vrieslandt. Bestaende in 't exerceren van 't musquet, spies, ende de generale exercitie.
The Hague, Nicolaes van Coevenhoven, [privilege dated 18 February 1669]. 2 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With a letterpress general title page printed in red and black, 2 engraved divisional titles pages, and 82 full-page engraved plates. Contemporary gold-tooled mottled calf. [24], [2 blank]; [16], [24] pp. Full description