Rare books from White Fox Rare Books and Antiques

London: Thomas Kelly, 1821. First Edition. Three-Quarter Leather. Very Good Plus. 8vo. 2 volumes, with 31 handcolored plates (15 in vol 1, 16 in vol 2) in the satiric style associated with Thomas Rowlandson or George Cruikshank. xii + 660 pp., Vol 1; x + 620 pp. Vol 2. Plates and interiors in fine condition, generally clean, occasional light foxing on text pages, usual offsetting. Bindings are tight. 3/4 morocco has some shelf wear and rubbing along edges of spine. Spine itself is bright and gilt lettering bright. Altogether, VG+. This work is a loose rendering of the Don Juan tale, taking as its most immediate inspiration Byron's Don Juan, which it is of course lampooning, but there also seems to be some debt owed to Da Ponte, who wrote the libretto to Mozart's opera, "Don Giovanni". The second volume is subtitled "Life in London", and this is an adaptation of Don Juan, or a kind of sequel, with obviously London as a setting. The illustrations can best be… Read More

London: James Cawthorn, 1813. Second Edition. Half Morocco over Marbled Boards. Very Good. 2 volumes, 4to, with 17 hand-colored plates, seven of which are double page plates. Also two folding maps and an uncolored frontis plate as well. Abbey 202. Hobhouse apparently made this journey in the company of Lord Byron, whose executor he later was. Occasional light foxing, with the maps a bit more heavily foxed. Plates are bright and generally clean. Some scuffs and faint dullness to the leather and shelfwear to the boards. Still an attractive binding.

Amsterdam: Barend Visscher, 1722. Full Calf. Very Good. 8vo. Unpaginated, but 92 leaves, with an illustration covering about two-thirds of every recto, for a total of 92 illustrations of lives of the early Christians, with plenty of gore, torture, and gladiatorial action to make the blood curdle and speak to those with an aversion for the purely devotional. The imagery is well within the tradition of high Dutch Baroque and in this, transcends the subject matter or not infrequently, ties in the subject matter with contemporary Dutch life. Not in Brunet or Landwehr. Some occasional light foxing but mostly clean. Tight. Calf boards appear to have had a coat of shellac or the like slapped on at some point, rendering an appearance not unlike plywood. Spine has dryness and rubbing along joints. Spine label with small chip.

Paris: Chez Silvestre, 1834. First Limited Edition Thus. Full Calf, with Blindstamping, Gilt Decoration, etc.. Fine. Eight spectacular hand-colored and illuminated plates on vellum. No. 20 of a limited edition of 200 total, and one of 15 copies on Hollande paper. 8vo. 22.5 by 15 cm, 9 by 6 inches. lxiv, [4 leaves], 334, [2] pp. Each of the plates is accompanied by a plain black and white lithographic version. The hand-colored versions easily pass for actual illuminated paintings, and indeed, the hand-colorist did not merely fill in color but also made some subtle changes to the illustration so that the hand-colored version does not match exactly the black and white one. The illumination on the vellum is of an uncommon precision and beauty so as to read as tantamount to manuscript, and the work is unquestionably superior to what one would find in the better works of Henry Shaw, who contemporaneously was producing important books on the topic of illuminated manuscripts. The "Roman de la… Read More

Paris: Gabriel de Gonet. Quarter Morocco. Pebbled cloth boards.. Very Good. Two volumes in one. N.d., circa 1852. 4to. 27.5 by 18.5 cm. 232, [4], 258, [3] pp. 35 whimsical anthropomorphic hand-colored plates, including two frontises. Scattered light foxing and soiling. Still, a tight and attractive copy.

Siena: Presso Vincenzo Pazzini Carli e Figli, 1783. First Edition Presumed. Hardcover. (Half patterned paper.). Very Good. Scarce, with no copies located on OCLC First Search. (Given ambiguity of the title, search terms were broadly "Pazzini Carli" and "Poesie", which should have picked up any copies. We have found copies of a collection of sonnets relating to the same event, but this work, issued in octavo format, is clearly different than the one on offer here.) 4to. 30.5 by 21.5 cm. [10], LXXIII (78) pp. An anthology created in honor of a wedding, the work contains 28 poems, many of which are accompanied by a finely rendered copper engraved illustration, and a few also decorated with lovely tailpiece vignettes. The event being celebrated is the marriage between Anton-Giulio Brignole Sale (patrician of Genoa) and Anna Maria Pieri (patrician of Siena). Title page heavily soiled. Otherwise, quite clean, with linen rich paper stock. Later binding has decorative paper on spine and… Read More

Bregenz, Austria: Frank Spieler Verlag. Lithography by G. Fischer, of Graz. . First Edition. Folio. Card stock. Very Good. Scarce, with no copies found on OCLC First Search, KVK, Kunstbibliothek (Berlin) or other catalogues checked. N.d., circa 1920s. 33 by 25 cm. 24 color plates of Art Deco interior walls, with bold colors and interesting color combinations, stylized geometric and lineal design elements. In terms of Art Deco, a tilt more towards the Bauhaus aesthetic than the more ornate and frilly end of the spectrum. Orange folio with light soiling. Bottom interior flap (of three flaps to hold in plates) missing. Light wear to plates themselves -- a few minor flattened creases, and the like.

C. L. F. Panckoucke. Dictionaire des Sciences Médicinales, 1814-1820. Full Calf. Very Good. Seven volumes in eight. 8vo. 20.5 by 13 cm. 425 hand-colored stipple engravings. Condition: volume I leather on rear board and upper left of spine with dark, ugly dampstain, and board corner by spine and part of joint has leather completely worn through (area is triangular, with sides about 4 cm each). Otherwise, calf generally healthy and attractive, and set, when on shelf, remains handsome despite the flaw of the first volume. Within, scattered foxing, soiling, and heavy-ish age toning, but most plates read as clean.

London: Kelmscott Press, 1894. First limited edition. Full Vellum. Near Fine. One of 250 copies in limitation. 8vo. 21 by 14.5 cm. xvii, [2], 255 pp. Printed in black and red. Original publisher's vellum with yapp edges. Condition: very light soiling on the vellum. Ribbon ties torn, as typical. Light browning, perhaps, of the fore-edge. Neat 1895 brief inscription on FFEP. Bookplate on FEP. Otherwise, a clean, crisp copy.

Lacquer, Calf Boards, Fabric covering box. Very Good Minus. N.d., circa late nineteenth century. 25 by 20 cm. With 24 hand-tinted and/or colored photographs, all embedded in very thick card leaves, which have gilt edges. The margin of each photo is embellished with traditional Japanese watercolors of flowers, trees, birds, including ducks, pheasants, cranes, fish, waves. The watercolors tend to be diagonally arranged, with the artwork predominantly occupying two kiddy corners. In some of the watercolors, the colors jump off the page with their brightness, and it is these that distinguish the use of watercolors from mere color printing. Overall, the watercolors are exquisite and set this album apart from most other albums of this ilk, plus this one comes with the original decorative box from K. Tamamura. (Kozaburo Tamamura (1856-1924) was a photographer based in Yokohama from 1883 on and an originator of "Yokohama Shashin", the kind of tourist photographs present in this album and reaching a… Read More

Innsbruck. Cloth. Paper pastedown on buckram. . Fine. Beautiful ethereal painting of Tyrolean boy rendered on material woven from actual cobweb. Exquisite, and scarce, with supposedly fewer than 100 paintings of this type (cobweb) paintings ever done. N.d., circa 1870s. The artwork is about 9 by 5 cm, in a frame, 13 by 10 cm and the outer folder is 15 by 12 cm. Also contained in the small folio is a sample of cobweb material. The painter, Franz Unterberger (1838-1902), was a well-known Austrian painter known for his traditional Tyrolean genre artwork. He retained local artisans to render his image on to the cobweb material.

Napoli (Naples). Full Cloth. Very Good. N.d., circa 1880s. Leporello of the ruins, including one of the museo and a photogravure of local paesane carrying baskets generally over head in the ruins. Closed, 18 by 13 cm. 22 panels with photographs. Probably missing two photos. Giogio Sommer (1834-1914) was a well-known, and extremely prolific, German-born photographer who made a successful business out of photographing and selling photographs of Italian scenery and ruins, and most specifically, in and around Naples, where he came to have multiple storefronts operating simultaneously. Condition: as noted, probably missing two photos. Soiling of the spine. Some fraying of the cloth along the joints, and a few folds reattached discreetly on the blank backs. Some scattered minor soiling within.

Asnières (Seine), today, Asnières-sur-Seine: Printer: Breger & Javal, Paris, 1913. Wraps. Very Good. Beautiful trade catalogue for a mundane product -- polishes for all kinds of objects. 4to. 26.5 by 18.5 cm. 32 pp. 21 pages of brilliant chromolithographic renderings of the company's packaging (tins/cans or cannisters), with a two page color plate with a rendering of the company's factory (and inset illustrations of its Brussels factory and its London storefront). Scarce, with no copies of this company's catalogues found anywhere, and only a single four page brochure from the company found on OCLC, with one institutional holding of such. Condition: staples of binding rusty and the wraps separated from the rest. Soiling on cover. Clean within.

Whitehall, London: T. & I. Egerton, 1792. First Edition. Three Quarter Morocco. Cloth Boards. . Very Good Plus. Uncommon hand-colored copy, with three quarter morocco binding by Bayntun. 8vo. 25 by 18 cm. xvi, [2], 209, [1], viii, [2], 258, [1] pp. With 54 hand-colored plates, and also hand-colored text vignette illustrations, both at the end of sections and sometimes interspersed in text. In other words, color was applied to all illustrative and decorative elements, in essence. The two frontis plates are dated June 1791. Also half titles, maps, and errata, in both volumes. (One map per volume.) Condition: some light rubbing and other wear to the binding, which nonetheless remains attractive. Occasional soiling on leaves. Plates remain bright, generally clean. A truly beautiful copy overall.

Framed. Fine. The illustration, done in black and red ink and wash, shows a rather grand stage, with side boxes populated with formally dressed theatergoers. On stage are two women and a man in 18th century attire. measures 24 by 39 cm, and the frame, 56 by 71 cm. Raoul Pene Du Bois was a highly successful theater scenic and costume designer for both stage and film. Among the many shows he worked were several Ziegfeld Follies and many Ethel Merman vehicles, including "Gypsy". His movie credits include the musical "Lady in the Dark". He came from a family of well-known artists. His uncle was American Master Guy Pene Du Bois and his father was a successful book illustrator. The picture comes from the estate of James Frasher, who was the manager of many years for Lillian Gish, and we believe the picture originally hung on her walls. Condition: there is a fold down the center of the picture. Otherwise, very attractive in its frame.