SCHIFF (Mortimer L.) - Catalogue of the Famous Library, Principally of Fine Bindings, Rare Engravings, Illustrated Books and French Literature Formed by the late Mortimer L. Schiff.

Sotheby & Co. 1938. 3 Vols., coloured frontispieces, 132 plates of bindings (of which 34 are in colour), orig. printed wrappers, 2,493 lots. "Although he had purchased a number of important books in the first few years of the century, the Robert Hoe III sale in 1911 launched Schiff's collecting career. The bindings of Padeloup, Derôme, and Le Monnier and the tasteful illustrations of Boucher, Moreau le Jeune, Cochin, Eisen and Gravelot all appealed to his love of the sumptuous... In 1920, A.S.W. Rosenbach sold Schiff a number of distinguished French illustrated books from the Robert Schuhmann library, including Graffigny's 'Lettres d'une Péruvienne' with Lefèvre drawings and 'L'Eloge de la Folie' with seventeen original sketches by Eisen... Three years after Schiff's death, Seymour De Ricci produced an elaborate catalog of the signed bindings in the library... Three years after the publication of the catalog, the heirs disposed of the library in a disastrous auction in London. The only beneficiaries were collectors like Lessing J. Rosenwald... Schiff is remembered as a connoisseur who brought together an unrivalled collection of decorative bindings and illustrated books"—Dickinson, Dictionary of American Book Collectors, pp. 281-282.)

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