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EMBLEM BOOKS
Ginther, Antonius. Speculum amoris et doloris in sacratissimo ac divinissimo corde Jesu incarnati, eucharistici, et crucifixi, orbi christiano propositum....editio IV. Augustæ Vindelicorum: Joannis Jacobi Lotteri, 1743. 4to (21.1 cm, 8.4"). [38], 408, [16 (index)] pp. (lacking engraved title, pp. 49/50); illus.
$875.00

Very uncommon fourth edition of this emblem book, following the first of 1706. Ginther also published a book of sermons, Currus Israel, et auriga ejus, along with a Marian emblem book, Mater amoris et doloris; the present item was printed in Augsburg, Germany, with the text in Latin and illustrated with 50 engraved emblems. The emblems are unattributed, but the frontispiece (not present in this copy) was done by Johann Caspar Gütwein.
Rare in the U.S.: We trace only the Getty copy of this edition, and earlier editions are no less rare.
Landwehr, German Emblem Books, 317. Boards covered in music-printed paper from an 18th-century antiphonal, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Engraved title and pp. 49/50 (emblem VII) lacking. Title-page and next leaf with long-ago repaired holes, one on the latter affecting an initial on the verso; title-page with old inked device(?) and 19th-century institutional stamp on verso, showing through in part to recto; a small hole in a third leaf, taking perhaps a letter or two. Final blank leaf and two other leaves also stamped. One leaf torn from margins into text, repaired with Japanese tissue. Pages slightly age-toned, some with mild foxing or the odd spot. Faults noted, this is yet a worthwhile and studyable/enjoyable volume.
Larwood, Jacob, & John Camden Hotten. The history of signboards, from the earliest times to the present day... sixth edition. London: John Camden Hotten, 1867. 8vo (18.8 cm, 7.4"). Col. frontis., x, 536 pp.; 19 plts.
$375.00
Click the interior images for enlargement.
Sixth edition (following its initial appearance in the previous
year) of this engaging account, full of anecdotes, historical digressions, and
literary quotations, as well as attempted analysis of
emblems
and their meanings (though this is not, of course, the classic “emblem
book”). “One hundred illustrations in fac-simile” are
attributed to Larwood on the title-page; the work features 19 plates, each depicting
an assortment of house- and pub-signs, as well as a hand-colored frontispiece
“Drawn by Experience . . . Engraved by Sorrow,” in which a cheerful
gin-drinking lady rides her woebegone, care-laden husband.
Provenance:
Title-page stamped by a private collector: “Thomas Witherell
Palmer, Log Cabin Park” (Detroit).
Contemporary half calf with marbled paper–covered sides,
spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and ornate gilt-stamped decorations
within compartments; binding with light to moderate rubbing overall, with
spine leather starting to show some cracking. All edges stained red.
Delightful
reading and looking, and a delightful copy.
Murray, Hannah Lindley & Mary. The
toilet. Washington, DC: William Ballantine [Ballantyne], 1867. 8vo (21 cm, 8.25"). [4] pp.; 20 col. plts.
$750.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
First issue of the Ballantyne printing, with the publisher’s name given as “Ballantine” on the chromolithographic title-page. This variant of The Young Lady’s Toilet (or The American Toilet) was inspired by the original handmade books constructed by Hannah and Mary Murray of New York, two young ladies who cut pictures out of periodicals and pasted them onto blank leaves, adding their own captions. The publisher of the present edition proudly proclaims that the Murrays’ version realized one thousand dollars in sales, all of which was given to the Foreign Missionary Society, and adds that the work “now appears in a somewhat altered garb.” The chromolithographed pictures display their maxims behind moveable flaps, a concept that the Murrays may have adapted from Grimaldi’s earlier, London-published Toilet.Provenance: Inscription to Ellie Bond Robinson (from her cousin Elizabeth); elegant small booklabel, “Gardner.”
Publisher’s textured cloth, framed in blind, front cover with gilt-stamped title; covers and corners showing very slight traces of wear. Front free endpaper with small booklabel and with inked gift inscription dated 1887. One flap (“Circumspection”) lacking, with all other flaps present and working.
An attractive copy of an uncommon item.

Virtuous EMBLEMS — Engraved Title-Page
after RUBENS
Pietrasanta, Silvestro. Symbola heroica. Amstelaedami: Janssonio Waesbergios & Henr. Wetstenium, 1682. 4to (21.3 cm, 8.4"). lxxx, 480, [32] pp.; illus. (lacking 1 portrait).
$3000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Second edition, following the Plantin printing of 1634 (under the title De Symbolis Heroicis) with the addition of new preliminary material. Pietrasanta (or Petra Sancta), a Jesuit priest, here explicates a wide variety of “heroic” emblems and allegorical images. The copper-engraved title-page was done by Cornelis Galle after Peter Paul Rubens, and the volume is illustrated with
264 in-text copper engravings. One emblem features a telescope aimed at the sun, with the heading “Non ideo maculor”; Pietrasanta's anti-Galilean explanation is that any flaws to be perceived in the character of a virtuous prince are as imaginary as the illusory sunspots created by optical vibrations.
Pietrasanta was the confessor of Cardinal Pier Luigi Carafa — hence the preliminary section of this book dedicated to the lineage and armory of the Carafa family. He was also an
accomplished heraldic scholar credited with promoting (if not indeed originating) the modern hatching method in heraldry.
Sterling Maxwell Collection SM1427; Landwehr, Emblem & Fable Books (3rd ed.), 634; Held, Rubens & the Book, 142; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 740–41. Recent quarter morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-ruled raised bands, leather edges with gilt roll. Fore-edge and title-page with early inked numerals of different generations; age-toning with occasional dust-soiling or the odd stain/spot; one leaf with tear from outer margin, not approaching text. Preliminary portrait of Cardinal Carafa, only, lacking; engraved title-page trimmed to (NOT into) plate at top; all emblems and other embellishments present and lovely. Two illustrations with English translations of mottos pencilled in margins. (26098)

Spanish Golden Age Sonnets — EMBLEMATIC Woodcuts
of
the Muses
Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco Gómez de. Las tres musas ultimas castellanas. Segunda cumbre del Parnaso español. Madrid: en la oficina de Alonso Balvas, a costa de la Hermandad de San Juan Evangelista, en el Martyrio de la Tina, patron del arte de la imprenta, 1729. 4to. 338 pp., [5] ff.
[SOLD]
Click the interior images for enlargements.
A click to the one above, right, takes you to a detail . . .
An early 18th-century edition this great Golden Age writer's compilation of sonnets whose collective title is El Parnasso español. Offered here is a complete copy of the Segunda cumbre with the three more-than-half-page delightfully naive woodcut emblematic engravings of the muses — Euterpe, Calliope, and Urania — that head the text's three sections; these are presented in
full “emblem” style, with caption, image, and verses below. In addition to the images of the muses, there are nearly 40 xylographic head- and tailpieces
Although this was issued with the companion volume of the Primera cumbre, that is not found here and the two are often found separately.
Palau 244345. Contemporary limp vellum lacking ties. Age-toning or actual browning and occasional foxing as in all copies seen, because of the water used in manufacture of the paper; occasional light waterstains, brown stain at top of the title-page and some other leaves; still desirable. (25090)
Schreger, Odilo. Studiosus jovialis, seu auxilia ad jocosè, & honestè discurrendum, in gratiam & usum studiosorum juvenum, aliorúmque litteratorum virorum, honestae recreationis amantium ... editio quinta. Pedeponti: Joannis Gastl, 1757. 8vo (16.4 cm, 6.5"). [4] ff., 744, [4 (index)] pp.
$275.00
Early edition, following the scarce first of 1749, of an entertaining and educational miscellany including collections of proverbs, riddles, and comic anecdotes, as well as a section on symbols and emblems. The title-page is printed
in red and black, and the text in black-letter type for the German portions and roman for the Latin.
Uncommon. Searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 locate only three copies in U.S. libraries.
Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (for first ed.). 19th-century quarter morocco (refurbished) over paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges of paper sides rubbed. Front pastedown with bookseller’s ticket from B. Westermann & Co. of New York, private collector’s 19th-century bookplate, and institutional stamp (no other markings). Small repaired hole to title-page, with four letters unobtrusively replaced. Foxed, with a few corners crumpled or dog-eared. One engraved plate from another work laid in.
A pleasant, we would say “atmospheric” little volume.
Zoller, Josephus. Conceptvs chronographicvs de concepta sacra deipara. Septingentis sacræ scripturæ, Ss. Patrum, ac rationum, nec non historiarum, symbolorum, antiquitatum, et anagrammatum suffragiis roboratus.... Augustæ: Joannis Michaelis Labhart, 1712. Folio (32.5 cm, 12.75"). Frontis., [28], 353, [19 (index)] pp. (pp. 171/72 bound in after 173/74); illus.
$2750.00
Click any image above for an enlargement.
First edition of Zoller’s unusual emblem book, a treatise on the art and symbolism of the Immaculate Conception. Zoller, a Benedictine monk who had previously published another Marian emblematical work (Mariae Hochst-Wunderbarliche und Ohne alle Suenden-Mackl Gnaden-reich beschehene Empfaengnuss), created a curious textual construct to accompany the numerous emblems here: In addition to some anagrammatical sections, the letters representing Roman numerals are capitalized in a fashion that presumably provides another level of cryptographic or numerological interpretation, although the work seems not to have been thoroughly analyzed to date.
The engraved frontispiece was done by Philipp Jacob Leidenhoffer after a design by Johann Asem; one of the engraved in-text emblems attributes its design to “I.C. Banaivir,” about whom no information could be found, while the others are unsigned.
The title-page bears an inked inscription reading “SanCto MarCo / In aVgIa DIVIte,” dated 1714; a few small scraps of paper with notes in an early inked hand are laid in.
Landwehr, German, 660; Praz 543. Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind triple fillets, spine thickly blind-stamped with arabesque motifs; binding rubbed and abraded with leather cracked over joints and spine, spine stamping dimmed, and shelving number inked on spine. A few spots of pinhole worming to front cover, front free endpaper, and first few leaves; front pastedown with old bookseller’s ticket. Some pages with light foxing; one leaf with an old repair to the upper corner and one with a short tear from the lower margin. An interesting rarity, and one worthy of study.
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