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The Royal Academy of Arts
Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition 1886;
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The Royal Academy of Arts. Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition 1886; Published in London by William Clowes 1886;- Large Red Folio Edition, with 150 full page illustrations to the back of the Folio;- Dry stains to the covers, front and back, with Gilt lettering and Royal Crest to the Front cover. Re-backed spine in a darker red cloth. Damage to the last plate but only to the margins. New end-papers to the front of the Folio, and original black endpapers to the back of the Folio;- still a fine copy of a very Rare/ Scarce, Collectable Art Folio. No other copies to be found on the world-wide web. 1886 - Including;- General List of Exhibitors, with their Addresses;- Lists of Illustrations;- List of Artists;- Oil Paintings;- Water Colours;- Miniatures;- Etchings, Drawings, Engravings;- Architectural Drawings;- Sculpture;- For the first hundred years of its existence, from 1769 until 1869, the Royal Academy had held only one exhibition each year: the Annual (now called Summer) Exhibition. When the RA moved to its current home, Burlington House, in 1868, it built a wonderful suite of galleries on the gardens behind the house. Rather than have them remain unused for over half the year, from 1870 the RA began staging a second exhibition each year, which it cleverly named the Winter Exhibition to distinguish it from the Summer show.Where the Summer Exhibition showed contemporary art by Royal Academicians and other artists, the Winter Exhibition complemented this by displaying works by Old Masters borrowed from private collections, along with works by recently deceased British artists.From 1870 until the First World War, the format of the Winter Exhibitions remained fairly constant, but from 1920 onwards the programme began to evolve and the RA started to organize major art-historical survey exhibitions, such as Flemish and Belgian Art 1300-1900 (1927), Italian Art 1200-1900 (1930) French Art 1200-1900 (1932), and retrospective exhibitions devoted to individual artists, such as Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (1923) and John Singer Sargent RA (1926). 'Italian Art' was particularly popular, receiving an average of 6,810 visitors a day. The ‘blockbuster’ exhibition had arrived.In addition, for the first time, Illustrated Catalogues began to be published, in tandem with the traditional un-illustrated ‘lists of works’. As well as including reproductions of around 3000 of the works shown in the exhibitions, these illustrated catalogues contain introductory essays by renowned art historians such as Sir James G. Mann, Sir Robert Witt and Adolfo Venturi.Many of the works lent to these exhibitions now reside in major museum and gallery collections such as those of the Tate, Louvre, Yale Center for British Art and Wallace Collection. We have added images of many of these works to the website, with embedded links taking you to pages on the owner institutions’ websites where larger images and more information can be found.Some surprises lay in store as we began researching these loans. A search for the Mona Lisa revealed that Leonardo’s most famous painting was twice shown at the RA Winter Exhibitions! Sadly, on both occasions it was a later copy rather than the original from the Louvre that was on display. In 1886 the Earl of Wemyss lent his copy, and the version on display in 1902, lent by Earl Brownlow, was once owned by the Academy’s first President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who firmly believed that it was the original and that the version in the Louvre was a copy.

EDWARDS, Sydenham
The New Botanic Garden.
Price SOLD

Published in London;- by J. Stockdale, 1812. in two Volumes. 1st. Edition;- small folios, pages 1- 234 vols.1.-pages 235- 503 vols. 2;- 26 hand-coloured plates to both Volumes 1 and 2;- with 52 in total, exquisite hand-coloured engraved plates. Re-bound in full black leather binding. Missing title pages to Volumes one and two. Originally published with 60 hand-colour plates, these two Volumes have only 52 hand coloured plates. Eight coloured plates missing. Still a highly collectable set of rare garden volumes with hand-colour plates. "Also published under the title of 'The new Flora Britannica' 1812 . The plates are hand-coloured and many American flowers for the 1st. time, are included"; The fine hand coloured plates were originally published in the work of the gardener R.W. Dickson (pseudonym Alexander McDonald) entitled 'A complete dictionary of practical gardening' (London 1807). Edwards' illustrations turned out to be enormously popular. He flourished during a period when adventure-filled collecting expeditions were made to previously unknown corners of the earth. These expeditions gripped the public imagination and the desire for new plants and illustrations seemed to be endless. Against this backdrop Edwards produced plates at a prodigious rate: between 1787 and 1815 he produced over 1,700 watercolours for the Botanical Magazine alone. He illustrated Cynographica Britannica1800 (an encyclopaedic compendium of dog breeds in Britain), New Botanic Garden 1805-7, New Flora Britannica 1812, and The Botanical Register 1815-19. Edwards established the latter under his own editorship in 1815 after a disagreement with John Sims, who succeeded Curtis as editor. He also provided drawings for encyclopaedias such as Pantologia and Ree’s Cyclopaedia. He was buried at Chelsea Old Church, London.There is confusion over the spelling of his middle name. He was baptised Sydenham Edwards, but by the 1790s adopted the middle name 'Teak' on some of the signatures of his drawings. His death certificate has this as 'Teaste', whereas his tombstone, in Chelsea Old Church, it was 'Teast'. The tombstone was destroyed by bombing in World War Two, but has been replaced. Highly collectable;-Rare/Scarce set of Botanic Garden Books.

FENN, John.
Original Letters, Written during the Reigns of Henry VI. Edward IV, and Richard III.
Price $500 Buy Now

FENN, John.

Original Letters, Written during the Reigns of Henry VI. Edward IV, and Richard III. By various Persons of Rank or Consequence; Containing Many curious Anecdotes, relative to that turbulent and bloody, but hitherto dark, Period of our History; And Elucidating, not only Public Matters of State, but likewise the Private Manners of the Age: Digested in Chronological Order; With Notes, Historical and Explanatory; And Authenticated by Engravings of Autographs, Facsimiles, Paper-Marks, and Seals.

Published by G. G. J. and J. Robinson, in London, 1787;- 2nd. Edition, with additions and corrections in 2 Volumes. Small Folios;- Additional engraved title, hand-coloured frontispiece, to Volume 1, plus a vignette within the text to both Volumes 1 and Volume 2;- . A Hand- colour plate of Henry VI, to frontispiece to Volume 1. Also a large folding genealogical table, and another hand-coloured engraved plate also to Volume 1;- 16 engraved plates of signatures, watermarks, seals & autograph letters to the last pages of Volume 2. Hand-coloured frontispiece. So a total of 18 engraved plates, plus 2 vignettes. One of the great surviving English family correspondences of the 15th century, "an invaluable collection of letters and papers, consisting of members of the Paston family, and others connected with them, between the years 1422 and 1509, and also including some state paper and other important documents". This extraordinary archive first surfaced in the early 18th century and eventually came into the hands of Thomas Worth, a chemist at Diss, in Suffolk. Worth sold them to the Norfolk antiquary John Fenn, who set to work collating and transcribing the collection. These two volumes, the first fruits of his labours, were dedicated to King George III to whom the original manuscripts were then presented. The manuscripts subsequently vanished, and some doubts were expressed in the mid-19th century about their authenticity; in time, however, fragments of the collection came into the hands of Francis Douce, the fragments now in the Bodleian Library. John Fenn went on to prepare two further volumes which appeared in 1789; a fifth volume was left unfinished at his death in 1794, and was not printed until 1823.

THE TRYAL OF SIR HENRY VANE, KNIGHT. 1662

Price $2,500 Buy Now

THE TRYAL OF SIR HENRY VANE, KNIGHT. AT THE KINGS BENCH, WESTMINSTER, JUNE THE 2D. AND 6TH. 1662. TOGETHER WITH WHAT HE INTENDED TO HAVE SPOKEN THE DAY OF HIS SENTENCE (JUNE 11.) FOR ARREST OF JUDGMENT, (HAD HE NOT BEEN INTERRUPTED AND OVER-RULED BY THE COURT) AND HIS BILL OF EXCEPTIONS. WITH OTHER OCCASIONAL SPEECHES, &c. ALSO HIS SPEECH AND PRAYER, &c. ON THE SCAFFOLD

London printing of 1662;- 135 pages with a poem, ‘on the sufferings of the renowned Sir H. Vane, Knight.’ to the last page 134 and on page 135 ‘ the printer to the reader’ errata leaf. The book starts on page 5, THE TRYAL OF SIR HENRY VANE, KT. AT THE KINGS BENCH, WESTMINSTER, JUNE THE 2D. AND 6TH. 1662. ;- Reader;- otherwise a scarce/rare book. Brown leather spine, with faded marbled paper to the covers. Page 48 censored on six lines with old ink scribble out, the same on page 55, but also hand-written notes in old ink. ex-libro of New College, London on ink stamps.

1st. Edition and the only edition;- Henry Vane was born in England in 1613, came to New England in 1635, and was elected governor of Massachusetts the following year, aged only twenty-three. Deeply religious, Vane was among the most radical of Puritans. He supported Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian crisis, and became a close ally of John Cotton. Vane's stay in Massachusetts was tempestuous, and he returned to England in 1637 to become a member of the Long Parliament, though his interest in New England continued. Vane was instrumental in procuring the Rhode Island charter, and his friendly efforts to aid the New England colonies were appreciated by Roger Winthrop and Roger Williams. Soon after the fall of Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy he was imprisoned for two years, convicted of treason, and executed. Lowndes says "THE TRYAL was written by a Sectarist in favour of Vane and printed by stealth." The text contains the speech he had intended to speak from the scaffold (but was forbidden by court order) which would have elaborated his revolutionary ideas on parliamentary supremacy and the compact between ruler and ruled, issues that resounded in colonial American history for more than the next one hundred years.

MILTON, JOHN (Robert Vaughan,Editor)
Price: $1,000 Buy Now

Milton's Paradise Lost Illustrated by Gustave Doré Edited with Notes and a Life of Milton by Robert Vaughan Parts 1- 16 Complete Published in London, By Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1860? 16 parts Folio in original light blue paper covers, with black lettering to all 16 front covers. Price two shilling each at the time. 16 stunning Illustrations with tissue guards throughout. In fine collectable condition. Slight wear to some spines, minor repairs to some spines. Size x 1foot w. by 15 inches, tall. Un-usual and rare to have all 16 parts, no other completed parts to be found on the world wide web. John Milton’s PARADISE LOST, one of the greatest works of the English language, is most appropriately met by the magnificent steel engravings of Gustave Doré. The powerful and mood-inspiring images make this one of the greatest issues of a true classic yet produced. The poem has remained one of the greatest classics of modern English vernacular, indeed some say, that it constitutes the beginning of modern English poetry and literature.

Il Don Giovanni. A Grand Romantic Opera in two acts. Arranged & Edited From his German Copy for the Piano Forte by John Barnett. Italian and German text. Vocal score.MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus

Published in London: By Mayhew, Isaac & Co., [1835?]. National Library of Standard Music. Folio 250 pages. Original binding with green leather spine and corners, and green marbled paper. Gilt lettering and decorations along the spine. In fine condition for an early published music book of Mozart.
The opera was commissioned as a result of the overwhelming success of Mozart's trip to Prague in January and February of 1787. The subject matter may have been chosen in consideration of the long history of Don Juan operas in Prague; indeed, the genre of eighteenth-century Don Juan opera originated in Prague.

Don Giovanni was originally to have been performed on 15 October 1787 for a visit to Prague of the Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, niece of the Emperor Joseph II, and her new husband, Prince Anthony of Saxony; however, the production could not be prepared in time and Le nozze di Figaro was substituted instead on the order of the emperor himself. The score was completed on 28 October 1787 after Da Ponte was recalled to Vienna to work on another opera. Reports about the last-minute completion of the overture conflict; some say it was completed the day before the premiere, some on the very day. More likely it was completed the day before, in light of the fact that Mozart recorded the completion of the opera on 28 October.

The score calls for double woodwinds, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones (alto, tenor, bass), timpani, basso continuo for the recitatives, and the usual string section. The composer also specified occasional special musical effects. For the ballroom scene at the end of the first act, Mozart calls for two onstage ensembles to play separate dance music in synchronization with the pit orchestra, each of the three groups playing in its own meter (a 3/4 minuet, a 2/4 contradanse and a fast 3/8 peasant dance), accompanying the dancing of the principal characters. In act 2, Giovanni is seen to play the mandolin, accompanied by pizzicato strings. In the same act, two of the Commendatore's interventions ("Di rider finirai pria dell'aurora" and "Ribaldo, audace, lascia a' morti la pace") are sustained by trombones and bassoons, albeit this moment occurs during a recitativo secco.

The opera was first performed on 29 October 1787 in Prague under its full title of Il Dissoluto Punito ossia il Don Giovanni – Dramma giocoso in due atti (The Rake punished, or Don Giovanni, a dramma giocoso in two acts). The work was rapturously received, as was often true of Mozart's work in Prague, (See Mozart and Prague). The Prager Oberpostamtzeitung reported, "Connoisseurs and musicians say that Prague has never heard the like," and "the opera ... is extremely difficult to perform."[5] Provincialnachrichten of Vienna reported, "Herr Mozart conducted in person and was welcomed joyously and jubilantly by the numerous gathering.

Mozart also supervised the Vienna premiere of the work, which took place on 7 May 1788. For this production, he wrote two new arias with corresponding recitatives – Don Ottavio's aria "Dalla sua pace" (K. 540a, composed on April 24 for the tenor Francesco Morella), Elvira's aria "In quali eccessi ... Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata" (K. 540c, composed on April 30 for the soprano Caterina Cavalieri)[7] – and the duet between Leporello and Zerlina "Per queste tue manine"

Vanity Fair. A Weekly Show of Political, Social, & Literary Wares. Volume VI from July 8th. 1871 to 30th. December 1871;-
Price $500 Buy Now

Published in London, By 'Vanity Fair' Office, 1871. London, 'Vanity Fair' Office, 1871. Folio, -208 pages plus 26 full-page chromolithographs, including the rare one of Men of the Day No. 33;- Charles Darwin. Original three quarter brown leather binding with red marbled paper to covers, and marbled edgings, some wear and tears to the covers, otherwise a good copy of this rare edition. The Vanity Fair Album: A Show of Statesmen, Judges, and Men of the Day.

Rare Books Page 15.

The Royal Academy of Arts Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition 1886;Price $500 Buy Now

EDWARDS, SydenhamThe New Botanic Garden.Price SOLD

FENN, John. Original Letters, Written during the Reigns of Henry VI. Edward IV, and Richard III. Price $500 Buy Now

THE TRYAL OF SIR HENRY VANE, KNIGHT. 1662Price $2,500 Buy Now

MILTON, JOHN (Robert Vaughan,Editor) Price: $1,000 Buy Now