BELLORI (Giovanni Pietro):

Veterum Illustrium Philosophorum Poetarum Rhetorum et Oratorum Imagines Ex vetustis Nummis, Gemmis, Hermis, Marmoribus, aliisque Antiquis Monumentis desumptae. A Io: Petro ellorio. Christinae Reginae Augustae Bibliothecdario, & Antiquario Expositionibus Illustratae.

Romae, Apud Io: Iocbumde Rubeis ad Templum S. Mariae de Pace suis sumptibus, & cura, cum Privilegio Summi Pontificis. 1685. Folio, 338 x 225 mms., pp. [x], 20 [21 - 22 divisional title], 16 [2], 15 [16 errata], engraved frontispiece and 92 full-page engraved plates, contemporary quarter calf, marbled boards; joints cracked and front cover holding on for dear life, boards worn. A working copy. The painter, biographer, and antiquary Giovani Pietro Bellori was" brought up in the household of Francesco Angeloni, a well-to-do writer, collector, and antiquarian. It was Angeloni who established the intellectual climate in which Bellori's interests developed. Angeloni assembled, probably with Bellori's help, what was then one of the finest private collections of classical antiquities, important enough to be noted in contemporary guidebooks.... His Notes on Museums, a guide to the art treasures of Rome, which appeared in 1664, contains an addendum on the remains of ancient Roman painting that is said to be the first essay ever written on this subject. Both before and after this date he worked on his Lives of the Modern Artists, which was published in 1672" (Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe: "Art & Theory in Baroque Europe").

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9211

Catalogue: Illustration

Keywords: illustration engraving prose

CARRACCI (Annibale), and Michelangelo Monsagrati; Carlo Gesi:

Aedium Farnesiarum Tabulae ab Annibale Caraccio AEdium Farnesiarum tabulae ab Annibale Caraccio depictae: a Carolo Caesio aeri insculptae, atque a Lucio Philarchaeo explicationibus illustratae.

Romae: Sumptibus Venantii Monaldini Bibliopolae in via Cursus, 1753. FIRST EDITION. Folio, 435 x 305 mms., 7 preliminary leaves, followed by lxxiv pages, with engraved frontispiece, title-page in red and black, and thirty-three engraved plates (15 folding), engraved tail-pieces, contemporary vellum; small paper flaw in one plate, but a fine copy of these superbly engraved plates. These engravings (by Carlo Cesi) of the frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese that Carracci (1560 - 1609) are the result of Carracci's being "recommended by the Duke of Parma, Ranuccio I Farnese, to his brother, the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, who wished to decorate the piano nobile of the cavernous Roman Palazzo Farnese. In November–December of 1595, Annibale and Agostino traveled to Rome to begin decorating the Camerino with stories of Hercules, appropriate since the room housed the famous Greco-Roman antique sculpture of the hypermuscular Farnese Hercules. Annibale meanwhile developed hundreds of preparatory sketches for the major work, wherein he led a team painting frescoes on the ceiling of the grand salon with the secular quadri riportati of The Loves of the Gods, or as the biographer Giovanni Bellori described it, Human Love governed by Celestial Love. Although the ceiling is riotously rich in illusionistic elements, the narratives are framed in the restrained classicism of High Renaissance decoration, drawing inspiration from, yet more immediate and intimate, than Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling as well as Raphael's Vatican Logge and Villa Farnesina frescoes. His work would later inspire the untrammelled stream of Baroque illusionism and energy that would emerge in the grand frescoes of Cortona, Lanfranco, and in later decades Andrea Pozzo and Gaulli.Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Farnese Ceiling was considered the unrivaled masterpiece of fresco painting for its age. They were not only seen as a pattern book of heroic figure design, but also as a model of technical procedure; Annibale's hundreds of preparatory drawings for the ceiling became a fundamental step in composing any ambitious history painting" (Wikipedia). The tail-pieces of small children, one or two of which could be construed as rather naughty, are by Giacinto Gimignani (1611 - 1681). Leopoldo Cicognara: Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte e d'antichità posseduti dal Conte Cicognara (1821), 3376: "L'autore del testo pose grandissima cura a impinguarlo di erudizione, e l'editore v'aggiunse quantita d'altri rami, e vignette prese da altre opera, ma le 33 tavolo di Carlo Cesio sono in questa ristampa alquanto logore per quata sia fresco e nitido l'esemplare."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 8223

Catalogue: Illustration

Keywords: illustration art prose

GOLDSMITH (Oliver):

The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith Embellished with Engravings from the Designs of Ricdhd. Westall, R. A. The Traveller, The Deserted Villag,and Other Poems

London: Printed for John Sharpe, Piccadilly..., 1816. [1817 for printed title-page]. 12mo, 166 x 96 mms., pp. [5] 6 - 166, including half-title, engraved and printed title-pages, 5 engraved vignettes, contemporary green morocco, panelled in blind, with gilt roll on borders, spine gilt; joints rubbed, lacking title-label. With the simple bookplate of "Jane Bird" on the front paste-down end-paper. Samuel Johnson, who contributed some lines to The Traveller didn't hesitate to give a very enthusiastic endorsement in the Critical Review for 1764: "as a production to which, since the death of Pope, it will not be easy to find any thing equal." It has been a popular poems since its publication, and, for example, the bibliographer Egerton Brydges (1762 -1837) said of it, "The sentiments are always interesting, generally just, and often new; the imagery is elegant, picturesque, and occasionally sublime; the language is nervous, highly finished, and full of harmony." I still read Goldsmith with pleasure, and many lines, such the ones which open The Deserted Village have stayed with me for decades. Hands up those of you who still read Goldsmith.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9657

Catalogue: Illustration

Keywords: illustration poetry literature