urniture dfe corative arts - cbwoodbooks.comcbwoodbooks.com/furnituredecarts-partone-final.pdf ·...

FURNITURE & DECORATIVE ARTS

PART ONE

Charles Wood

Bookseller

P.O. Box 382369 / Cambridge / MA 02238

[[email protected]]

617-868-1711

October 2019

CHARLES WOOD RARE BOOKS

A FINE ENGRAVED BROADSIDE ADVERTISEMENT

1. BRODIE, ALEXANDER. New patent fire stove invented and

sold by Alexander Brodie, White Smith, near Temple Barr. [London, Ca. 1800] $500.00

Handsome engraved broadside illustrating, on the upper portion, a cast iron firefront decorated with Adamesque swags and bellflower ornaments. Engraved text on the lower half explains how it worked; a chief feature was to “prevent chimneys smoaking or taking fire, to hinder any evil disposed person coming down into the room...” Also advertised in the description is a “new invented patent bed-screw lever” for invalid beds. Though it is not really a trade card (it’s too large and it advertises a specific product), in its general form it is similar to many illustrated in Ambrose Heal, London Tradesmen’s

cards of the XVIIIth century (1925). Rare and in fine condition. OCLC locates only one copy (AmPhSoc) but it is not clear to me if it is a hard copy or on microfilm.

Folio (13 x 8 ½") printed on laid paper with a watermark (but undated). Slight trace of old fold; a fine clean copy, a rich impression and decent margins outside the plate mark.


RARE UPHOLSTERER’S MANUAL

2. GARNIER-AUDIGER, M. Manuel du tapissier, decorateur,

et marchand de meubles. Paris: Roret, 1830 $550.00

First edition, fine copy of a rare work “contenant les principes de l’art du tapissier; les instructions necessaires pour choisir et employer les matieres premieres, decorer et meubler les apartmens, composer un ameublement complet, conserver les mobiliers, etc.” The fine folding plate illustrates two classical window hangings, a draped empire bed and an upholstered banquette. The author was Ancien Verificateur du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne. Viaux, Bib du meuble, 4492. NTJC locates three copies under GARNIER, ATHANASE (1767-1837). OCLC locates five copies in this country (Yale Harvard, NYPL, Getty, Winterthur). I have owned one other copy in the past fifty-two years.

12mo, orig. marbled sides, black calf spine. iv-i-248 pp. with 1 fdg. engr. plate and 36 pp of ads.


“SURPASSES IN EVERY RESPECT ANYTHING OF THE KIND YET PRODUCED”

3. HAMPTON & SONS. Designs for furniture and decorations

for complete house furnishing. Illustrated with fifty collotype

reproductions of artistic interiors, in various styles, specially designed

for this work; upwards of 2000 halftone blocks of furniture

photographed from stock, and many coloured illustrations, of carpets,

curtains, linens, blinds, china and glass, etc. London, Pall Mall East & Cockspur Street. [Enfield: Printed by bound by the Graphotone Company, collotype printers], 1893 $1250.00

This was an old and prominent company, founded in 1830. The long title pretty much sums up the contents of this catalogue. They were proud of this production and state in the preface: “The substitution of high-class reproductions of the latest designs for the hackneyed woodcuts of commonplace articles usually found in trade catalogues is an innovation which will, without doubt, be fully appreciated by all who may have occasion to refer to the book.” This catalogue was singled out for comment by Gail Winkler: “Hampton & Sons 1893 catalogue gives room-by-room furnishing budgets which range from £250 to furnish an eight room house to £2000 for a twenty room house. All aspects of household furnishings are covered, with thirty pages on window curtains, bed, drapery, portieres, and household linens, including napkins and table covers.” - Capricious Fancy,

draping and curtaining the historic interior 1800-1930, p. xxv. OCLC locates four copies of this edition, all in USA: NYPL, Gr. Rap. PL, Princeton, and Ath of Phil. McKinstry, Trade Cats at Winterthur lists two Hampton catalogues (870, 871) but not this one.

Oblong folio (10 x 14 ½ x 1 ½"), bound in full gilt stamped and embossed leather. 432 pp (but in fact there are considerably more as there are many bis pages or plates). With 43 collotype plates, 21 full color plates (mainly of draperies & rugs); 24 two color plates of beds; and 12 plates of china and glass in either tints or full color. Scattered light faxing here and there; inner front hinge cracked, but a very good copy. Rare.


ART NOUVEAU DECORATIVE ARTS

4. LAMBERT, TH(eodore). L’art decoratif moderne. Exposition

Universelle de 1900. Sections francaise et étrangèrs. Paris: Charles Schmid, Editeur, [1900] $2250.00

A scarce portfolio of 40 plates of Berthaud phototypies. It is included in R. Kempton’s Art Nouveau an annotated bibliography, 145a and 145b: “Forty loose plates. An interesting collection of fine photographs rarely or never seen elsewhere. Primarily in Art Nouveau style. Countries emphasized are France, Austria, Germany, Holland, and Norway. Copy in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.” Kempton is correct; the majority of names are not all well known outside their own countries but there are still a litany of world-class artists and designers: Art Nouveau Bing, Daum and Gallé (both of Nancy), Majorelle, Eduard Cuypers (archt), Otto Wagner, Prof. Joseph Hoffmann, Joseph Urban, Joseph M. Olbrich, Alphonse Mucha, C. F. A. Voysey, Salubra (wallpapers), Walter Crane, Eliel Saarinen, and others. “Art nouveau enjoyed a special prominence at the [1900] exposition, notably in the decorative arts and the architecture of smaller buildings. . .Art nouveau rooms, featured in the German and Austrian exhibits, filled the pavilions of the art dealer Samuel Bing and the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs; a room from the latter, designed by Georges Hoentschel and containing jewelry by René Lalique and glassware by Emile Gallé, survives in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.” (Several views of this are shown in the Lambert portfolio). Another useful text which relates to the present item is Gabriel Mourey, “Round the Exhibition I. The House of the “Art Nouveau Bing” in E. Holt (ed), The expanding world of art 1874-1902 (1988), pp. 132-134. OCLC locates eight copies in American libraries: Buffalo State Coll; Columbia; Hagley; UWisc; Ga. Inst Tech; UTAustin; Art Inst Chi; and Harvard. I have owned this once before the past fifty-two years.

Folio (18 ½ x 13 ¾"), orig. printed boards. T.p. and 40 plates containing about 180 images. Spine and ties replaced; the t.p. and plates have been encased within a custom-made chemise by Green Dragon Bindery.


5. The LONDON Cabinet Makers’ union book of prices. By a

Committee of Masters and Journeymen. London: Printed by Richard F. Benbow for the Committee and sold at the meeting house of the West-End Cabinet Makers’ Society, 1866 $750.00

The fourth edition of the price book which superseded that originally issued in 1788. By now the designs of Shearer, Casement and Hepplewhite are well out of fashion and the plates have been replaced by far less elegant designs with more concentration on details. In this edition they are mostly details and include doors, panels, pier table tops, table mouldings, standards, stretchers and brackets for sofa or writing tables; table legs, firescreen standards, the horseshoe (i.e. extendible) dining table, Grecian pillars, etc. This edition is a curiosity to appear as late as 1866; even the designs illustrated were by then well out of date. The Preface to this edition was a straight reprint of the edition of 1811. For a good general discussion of price books see C. Montgomery, American furniture, the Federal period, pp. 19-26; also pp. 488-89 where he notes there were four revised editions of this work: 1811, 1824, 1836 and 1866. The appearance of this work as late as 1866 says much for the tradition of conservatism in 19th century English furniture design. Weinreb, 29:124. This edition not in NUC. [NUC does locate editions of 1811, 1821, 1824, 1831, 1836 and 18461.

4to, orig. blue paper wrappers. (xii)+(xiv)+474+1 pp with 8 engr. plates. Untrimmed copy, and largely unopened.


THE BEST MAPLE CATAOGUE I HAVE EVER HAD

6. MAPLE & CO. Illustrated Catalogue Furniture. London, [1893]$650.00

Excellent copy of a massive catalogue, 675 pages, arranged by room function: dining room furniture, suites of furniture shown in full room settings; library, board room and office furniture, also billiard rooms; drawing room and boudoir including ‘artistic’ furniture and ‘artistic cozy corners;’ valences and curtains, bed hangings, etc. Also sections on ornamental and decorative pottery; bedsteads and bedroom furniture (including 100 plates of brass and iron beds printed in black and yellow), interior views of fully furnished bedrooms including ten color plates of bedroom toilet ware, also six color plates of dinner, tea and breakfast ware; lamps of all sorts; table silver, and many, many other things. They particularly solicited the business of hotels, clubs and public institutions and on the inside of the front cover they give a list of 54 such places they have completely furnished. The final page is a full index. OCLC locates one copy, British Library.

Oblong 4to (7 ¼ x 9 ½ x 1 ¾" thick). Orig. color printed boards. 675 pp., profusely illus. The illustrations are primarily high-quality electrotypes of wood-engravings; also some primitive halftones; and finally 18 color litho plates and 100 plates of bedsteads in black and yellow. Excellent copy.


RARE ENGRAVED TRADE CATALOGUE OF STOVE GRATES AND METALWARES

7. METALWORK TRADE CATALOGUE. “Grate Makers

Director(y)” N.p., N.d. [?Birmingham, Ca. 1790] $4500.00

A rare and perhaps unique engraved trade catalogue (or ‘pattern book’ - the terms are used interchangeably). It consists of the original marbled paper wrappers with original label and 6 leaves of engraved designs. They are numbered 1-72 and illustrate the following products: register and pantheon fire or stove grates (numbers 1-22); kitchen ranges and vents (23-31); kitchen and cooking accessories (32-57), i.e. tongs, cast iron spout, plain plates, waffle irons, hanging pan, kettle, baking oven, andirons, trivet, etc.; and final designs no. 58-72 (stair banisters, iron fencing, foot scrapers, lawn roller, iron gates, etc.). There is no indication in the book itself of date or place of origin or manufacturer. A former owner has written on the inside front cover: ‘Walsall, ca. 1790’. Walsall is a town in the West Midlands near Birmingham, which was a center of metal manufactures; this cata-logue could very well have originated there. The date of c. 1790 is based on the styles of the goods shown; the paper is not watermarked. I can locate no other copy but there is said to be a similar pattern book in the V & A. This copy comes from the noted collection of Martin Orsky.

Oblong sm. folio (7 ½ x 12 ¼"). Orig. marbled covers, remains of original roan spine. The label on the upper cover, which is quite worn) appears to have been engraved. Preserved in a custom-made foldback solander case with a gilt lettered dark red morocco label on upper cover.


VERY CLEAN UNTRIMMED LARGE PAPER COPY

8. PERCIER, C. & P. F. L. FONTAINE. Recueil de decorations

intérieures comprenant tout ce qui a rapport a l’ameublement. Paris: chez les auteurs, 1812 $1800.00

Fine large untrimmed copy of the second and best edition; the first edition appeared in 1801 without text. “The Recueil ... not only used the term ‘interior decoration’ for the first time but showed that [Percier & Fontaine] had already created an Empire style which needed only the addition of a few motifs - giant Ns in laurel wreaths, eagles and bees - to make it fully Napoleonic. It includes designs for canopied beds, throne-like armchairs flanked by winged lions and such preposterous fantasies as a huge jardinière cum goldfish-bowl and bird-cage, supported by sphinxes with flower-pots on their heads and crowned by a statue of Hebe. Their furniture is always of simple form lavishly decorated with Antique motifs.” - Fleming & Honour, Dict of

the decorative arts, p. 300. This work is especially important to the student of the Empire style in America, especially for its designs of individual furniture forms and their relation to the actual pieces made by Lannuier, Joseph Brauwers, John Greuz and Querville. Fowler 244. Berlin Catalogue 4056. Cicognara 605. Not in Viaux, Bib du meuble.

This is a very clean untrimmed copy. It is 18 ½" tall (1 ¼" taller than the Millard copy) and is perhaps on large paper. See Millard French 134 (this same edition). RIBA, Early Printed Books, 2491 has only the later edition of 1827.

Folio, recent boards, tan calf spine and corners; untrimmed. (ii)+43 pp with 72 engr. plates. Not a particularly distinguished binding, but serviceable and otherwise a very appealing copy.


ROSEVILLE’S LINE OF ART POTTERY

9. ROSEVILLE POTTERY COMPANY. Rozane ware. Refining

decoration is a rest, a pleasure and a duty. Zanesvi1le, Ohio, Roseville Pottery Co., 1905 $700.00

A special catalogue, illustrated in color throughout, devoted to Roseville Pottery’s art pottery, largely due to one man, Frederick H. Rhead (1880-1942). Rhead was one of America’s most talented and influential art potters; a good account of him and Rozane ware is given in L. Bowman, American Arts and Crafts Virtue in Design (1990) pp. 176-7. The present catalogue explains How Rozane originated, Why Rozane is an art pottery, How Rozane is made, and then gives sections on four of their lines: Rozane Mongol, Rozane Egypto, Rozane Mara, and Rozane Woodland. OCLC locates seven copies.

Tall narrow 8vo, orig. yapp edged printed and embossed wrappers. 40 pages with 78 color illus. With a printed price list, order form and original envelope laid in. Cover hinge partially cracked; small area of loss (½ x ¼") lower corner of front cover; does not affect image. Else a nice copy, rare.


TRADE CATALOGUE OF WEDGWOOD POTTERY

THE BEST EDITION

10. WEDGWOOD, JOSIAH. Catalogue of cameos, intaglios,

medals, bas-reliefs, busts and small statues; with a general account of

tablets, vases, escritoires, and other ornamental and useful articles,

the whole formed in porcelain and terra cotta, chiefly after the

antique, and the finest models of modern artists. Sixth edition, with

additions. Etruria, 1787 $2900.00

Wedgwood ceramics are justly famous and nothing need be said here of their importance. The wares were sold at Wedgwood’s rooms in Greek Street, Soho and at his manufactory in Staffordshire. The first catalogue was published in 1773. Solon, writing in 1910, stated “all of the editions of this catalogue have become rare, those issued in 1773 and 1787 command the highest price, from £3 to £5 being asked for a good copy.” The edition I offer here was the last and fullest and the only one to have the two colored plates. It lists all the wares available in twenty classes, with explanatory introductions to each group. All of Wedgwood’s catalogues are rare in commerce; of this one the on-line ESTC locates twelve copies. OCLC also locates twelve copies. I have owned one other copy of this edition in the past 52 years.

The “revival of the arts” or the “true style”, as the neoclassical style was then called, the popularity of “Adam” colours - principally, though not invariably, pastel shades of blue, green pink, yellow or grey - with white or gilded plasterwork; the fashion for collecting cameos and intaglio seals (“gems”); the growing demand for portraiture in a wide variety of media; and the failure of the European porcelain manufacturers satisfactorily to adapt to changing taste, all combined to offer a magnificent opportunity to a potter of vision and technical ability. . . Wedgwood and Bentley were, after all, the potters of neo-classicism and they were without serious rivals in the field.” - R. Reilly, Josiah Wedgwood, p. 152.

8vo, old marbled boards. vi+44, 45*_46*, 45-48, 45*_48*, 49_73 + (1) with two color-printed stipple engraved plates & one wood-engr text illus of an ink stand. Title a little soiled and stained, some slight marginal damp-marking. But a quite acceptable copy of a rare and important trade catalogue.


“THE MOST CAREFULLY CRAFTED WORKROOM GUIDE” - Winkler

11. VERDELLET, JULES. Manuel géométrique du tapissier.

Ouvrage publié avec l’approbation et sous les auspices de la Chambre

Syndicale des Tapissiers de la ville de Paris. Paris: L’Auteur; Carillan-Goeury; Bordeaux Freres; & Les Principaux Libraires, N.d. [1864]

$1250.00

First edition. This important work is given a long note in Gail Winkler’s Capricious fancy (2013): “The Manuel geometrique du

tapissier is a “calculations manual” for upholsterers (that is, drapery workrooms). Its value to the profession is confirmed by the fact that it was reprinted four times between 1851 and 1883, with an undated version also published in Berlin. . . It is unquestionably more sophisticated [than Muidebad of 1839], containing a complete account for constructing the complex draperies popular during the last half of the nineteenth century. The manual is composed of two volumes: an atlas folio of sixty plates illustrating window draperies, portieres, bed hangings, and so on, and a companion text describing the illustrations. Samuel J. Dornsife [whose collection was given to the Athenaeum of Phila] acquired a first edition atlas folio of Verdellet’s Manuel but could not locate the companion volume of text. When Peter Thornton, then Keeper of Furniture and Woodwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, discovered that the museum had a copy of the text but not the folio of plates, photocopies of each were exchanged...” Winkler, p. 108. The volume of plates on offer here also lacks the text volume but a copy is provided as a ‘print-on-demand’ volume. There is one aspect to this work that Winkler does not mention; it is of considerable aesthetic appeal - all of the litho plates were printed in tint by Lemercier, the foremost lithographic printers in Paris. The copy she describes is in the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. OCLC locates two more copies in this country: MMA, and NYPL.

Folio (17 x 12"), orig. pebble grain cloth sides, roan spine. Letterpress t.p. and 60 litho plates uniformly printed in a gray-brown tint. Of the total of 60 plates six are double-page taking two numbers each and one is quadruple taking four numbers (45-4647-48). Name of the original owner, ‘P. Grange’, is stamped in large gilt letters on the cover. Scattered light marginal faxing but a good copy.


12. YAPP, G. W.Art Industry. Furniture, upholstery and house

decoration illustrative of the arts of the carpenter, joiner, cabinet-

maker, painter, decorator, and upholsterer. London: Virtue & Co., [ca. 18791 $1750.00

An excellent copy of a highly valuable work given a good note by Edward Joy: “His Art Industry has some 1200 illustrations. An important introductory section on woodworking has sketches of joints and of machinery, with technical descriptions. There are also descriptions of papier maché, carton pierre, and other materials connected with furniture making. For illustrations of furniture Yapp selects some of the more elaborate exhibits from the International Exhibitions of 1851, 1855, and 1862 as well as examples from a collection of antiques shown at Gore House, London, in 1853. He expresses approval of the Gothic designs of Pugin, “a learned and skilful revivalist”, but is strongly critical of the “modern mediaeval” of contemporary designers. Art Industry is backward looking; it ignores the changes of the 1870s and stamps its approval of mid-Victorian taste.” - Pict dict of British 19th cent furnit design, p. xxxviii. Illustrations are as follows: furniture (151 plates); textile fabrics (84 plates); house decoration (47 plates) and carpets and floor cloths (38 plates). One of the essential works for the study of Victorian furniture and decoration.

Folio, orig. dec. cloth, title in gilt on upper cover and spine. vi+76 pp with several hundred wood-engr. text illus and 320 fine full-p. wood-engr. plates. Expertly rehinged with original spine laid down by Green Dragon Bindery.

urniture dfe corative arts - cbwoodbooks.comcbwoodbooks.com/furnituredecarts-partone-final.pdf ·...

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