Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books

Paper Brain Dissection II--1876

Witkowski, Gustave Joseph.  Brain dissection, ca. 1876-1878.  10.5 inches at its widest measurement.  Chromolithographs.  3 sheets, folding, with four other moveable pieces.  Rare.  Offered as-is, lacking the original portfolio with printed key.  $200

Earlier in this blog I posted about a lateral dissection of the human brain accomplished via 150-year-old engravings.  The images below come from a series of atlases created by Gustave Joseph Witkowski (1844-1923) called Anatomie Iconoclastique, and include the one I have here on the skull and brain. I think that they are gorgeous works.  (The original, available at our blog bookstore, measures about ten inches at its widest).  

Modern Stained Glass Windows, 1937

MALLET-STEVENS, Robert. Exposition internationale de 1937. Vitraux modernes. Avant-propos de Paul Léon. Paris: Charles Moreau, 1937. Portefeuille in-4 (320 x 250 mm). 48 fine plates reproducing the work of  Décorchemont, Maumejean, Cingria, Robert Delaunay, and others.

14x10 inches, portfolio, with original ties.  Most plates have their original tissue guards. 

Nice copy:  very slightly ex-library, with bookplate, a perforated stamp of ownership in the bottom-right corner, and small inked numerical stamp on the back of each plate's bottom corner.  A nice, fresh copy.  $350

"L'Exposition de 1937, qui nous montre la 'généralisation' de l'architecture moderne, nous offre quelques vitraux de tout premier plan... Quand l'architecte voit dans l'espace des volumes bien ordonnés, le peintre verrier trace des lignes et oppose des couleurs heureuses... Je n'oserai dire que l'architecture moderne est en plein progrès, mais je puis affirmer que le vitrail 'va très bien'!" (Robert Mallet-Stevens, Introduction).

German Furniture Design (DIY), 1927

Farbige Wohnräume, 24 Tafeln farbig dargestellter neuzeitlicher Räume (5 Wohn-, 6 Speise-, 6 Herren-und 7 Schlafzimmer) mit den einzelnen Nöbeln im Masstab 1:20. Dazu weitere 24 Tafeln mit den zur Anfertigung erforderlichen Grund- und Aufrissen und Detailschnitten einschliessich der Sitzmöbel.  Berlin,  Verlagsanstalt Deutschen Holzbeiter Verbanes GMBH. Rebound in library cloth, very nice, workable copy.  $250.00

37x26cc, 24 color plates of room designs, followed by 24 heavy leaves of associated blueprints printed front and back, these showing a profile of the furniture to be constructed on recto and some cutting instructions on verso.  The color illustrations of the furniture in a room setting is correlated with the blueprints in rear, each of the color plates with a corresponding sheet of blueprints. 

Only four copies located in WorldCat: Yale, University of Illinois, Grand Rapids Public Library, and Cornell. 

Design Catalog (1907) for Jugendstil and Biedermeier Motifs

Paul Steuer.  Malereien fuer Flachenschablone und Pinseldruckmanier in modernem und Biedermeier-Stil, published by the Otto Baumgaertel publishers, Berlin, in 1907.  32.5x24.5 cm, 60 plates, all on very stiff paper, and hinged to the book block.  Ex-library copy, completely rebound in a workman's cloth binding.  There is a water stain in the upper right corner that is heavy on the title page but progressively less so for the first twenty plates, though not very much affecting the images.  There is also a ten-digit library number stamped on the back-bottom of each plate.  Still, the plates are fresh and bright.  [On hold/please inquire for price.]

This beautifully illustrated 1907 German book¹ seems to me to be a sales catalog for a company selling flat-masks, or templates, through which desirable and somewhat complicated (or at last complex) nmay be produced.  A customer could leaf through this book of 60 designs which are arranged according to room type, and perhaps, if the fancy struck, could purchase the sheets and instructions necessary for the job to be done.  For example, plate #44 (Reggie Jackson's number in the great summer of 1977), the "Pause mit Hilfsschablone" (its identifier in the "Preisliste" and offered at 10 Marks) is meant to decorate a wall for a stairway. 

The great bulk of the designs are those for ceilings, and ceiling corners, as well as for wall designs and the small bits that run slightly above the floor and the wall (I'm sorry, but I don't know the technical term for this).

In any event it is a very surprising work to find--for me, at least--to see someone selling the possibilities of such advanced design motifs in a simple, order-it-from-our-catalog format.  [The catalog is available for purchase from the blog bookstore, here.]

Notes:

1.  Paul Steuer.  Malereien fuer Flachenschablone und Pinseldruckmanier in modernem und Biedermeier-Stil, published by the Otto Baumgaertel publishers, Berlin, in 1907.  Only two copies of this work are found in WorldCat, at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and another in the Wissenschcaftliche Staatsbibliothek in Mainz. 

2.  "Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions. Although the term itself is a historical reference, it is currently used to denote the artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design."--WIki.

 

 

 

HABERT-DYS, J[ULES-AUGUSTE] - Fantaisies Decoratives. Documents pour servir a la decoration des Faiences, Meubles, Tissus, Bijoux, appartements, etc. .... Quarante-huit planches renfermant environ deux cents motifs.

Paris, Librairie de l'Art, n.d. [1887] .  48 superb chromolithograph plates by Gillot, greatly influenced by the Japanese style and in a very accomplished art nouveau air, all heightened with gold, on cream paper, mounted on heavy white paper. Folio,  (4) pages,  title and list of plates.

This copy bound in library cloth (the original issued in parts in portfolio), with each plate mounted on cloth tabs.  The spine of teh book has been damaged with tears on the upper portion, but the plates are FINE.   $1750. 

The following description of the lithographs from the Fantisies Decoratives at the Tides Institute and Museum of Eastport (Maine, seen here) from 2009:

"By 1886, Habert-Dys was a well-respected designer and illustrator, but the main problem for him, in terms of posterity, is his subtle style. Without seeing the originals, his work is not striking enough to attract attention and no reproduction can do justice to the delicate, beautiful, details and colors that he incorporates into his designs. The Fantasies Decoratives, published in 1886, was a one-year project with forty-eight lithographs issued in twelve parts. The colored gravures, many containing gold, were printed on “papier du Chine” by noted lithographer, Charles Gillot (1853 – 1903), whose work was so respected that his lithographs were called “Gillotypes”.

"The intricate patterns, featuring birds, animals, flowers, fish, insects, shellfish, and frogs, were designed for ceramics, plates and dishes, textiles, wallpaper, vases, and jewelry. In these exquisite creations, Habert-Dys adopted many elements of Japanese influence (Japonisme), which reflect the late nineteenth century’s fascination with Japanese art. The Fantasies Decoratives also contain elements of line and curve that later became an intrinsic characteristic of the next major movement in the art world, Art Nouveau.

 

RAYMUND, Alexander. ALTTURKISCHE KERAMIK In Kleinasien und Konstantinopel. Munich: Bruckmann, 1922. Folio, 28pp, 40 color plates. Rebound in heavy library cloth, ex-library, each of the lovely plates having a small. circular library stamp in the bottom right of each image.  Wonderful plates, and scholarly work.  Difficult to find effort on 13th to 17th century Turkish tile work, with chromolithographic color in high detail.  Also includes a bibliography.  Nice copy.  $395

Rare Work on Russian Ornament

N.P. Sireitschikoff and D.K. Treneff, Ornements sur les Monuments de l'Ancien Art Russe.  [Text in Russian and French.] 2 volumes.    Volume 1:  16 1/2x11 1/2 inches,   7 pp descriptive text of plates (in double columns) followed by 25 chromolithographic plates   Volume 2: 16 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches, 1910.  4pp text, 16 chromolithograph plates. 

All together, 2 volumes, 1904-1910: 41 plates.

[This is only half of one plate.]

Library copies, rebound in stout cloth, with all plates mounted on tabs.  Ex-library perforated tamp on title pages; plates have a small stamped number on the reverse, not affecting images whatsoever.  Text and plates are all fresh, bright and clean. 

This seems to be a scarce set, fewer than a dozen copies of either can be found in WorldCat/OCLC.  There was a third volume published in 1916 that is not present. 

[Detail of one quarter of the image, above.]

Classic Work on Pochoir

Saude, Jean.  Traité d'enluminure d'art au pochoir, par Jean Saudé; précéde de notes par MM. Antoine Bourdelle, Lucien Descaves ... et Sem [pseud.] Aquarelles de Beauzée-Reynaud, Benedictus [e. a.] Reproductions d'après Jean Foucquet, A. Besnard, image de Georgin.

  Paris; Aux Edtions de L'Ibis, 1925.  Limited edition of 500 copies, signed by Saude.  Pochoir illustrations on heavy paper  by de Beauzee-Reynaud, Benedictus, Bourdelle, Brunetta, L. Chapuis, Dorival, Abel Faivre, Halouze, Lepape, Madelaine, Morisset, Rodin, Sem and Vignal.

• Good, solid academic's copy.  Of the twenty large plates, three are missing (#11, 12, 18), and there is a stamp on the title page and another ont he spine.  The work is an unbound assembly in a folding box, in pochoir boards (which are quite nice; the whole of which is placed in another folding box and then slipcased. The later is done in sturdy black cloth and is in fine condition, save for a gilt-stamped call number on the bottom of the spine.  This work sells for a wide range, 2-4,000 Euros; we're asking $1150 for this copy. 

The plates for this work are rather too large for my scanner, so  you can follow this link to the NYPL for full scans of all of the illustrations in this work.  The work we're selling here is modestly ex-library, though there are no ownership stamps on the plates.   

Le messager.  [The messenger.] (1925)

Claire de Lune, 1925.

La biche blanche.  [The white hind.] (1925)

 

The Successor to the Vitae of Vasari--Baldinucci, 1808-1812.

Baldinucci, Filippo.  Notize de Professori del Desegno di Cimabue in qua Opera di Flippo Baldinucco.  Printed in Milano, by the Societa Tipografica na' Classici Italiani, 1808-1812. Complete in 14 volumes. 

Balinucci is seen as a virtuoso int he field of art history--he was academically many decades ahead of the coming modern masters of art history, performed great stylistic comparative studies between the great artists, and was dedicated to investigation of artists well outside his Tuscan background.  The first volume (in its 300 pages) provides biographical and critical evaluations of Durer, Luca di Leida, Marcantonio Raimondi, Hubert Goltz, Giovanni Sadalaer, Antoni Tempesta, Henry Goltz, John Saenredam, Egidio Sadalaer, Jacopo Callot, Cornelius Bloemaert, Stefano della Bella, Reimbrond Vanrein, Pietro Testa, Robert Nanteuil and  Francesco Spierre, all of whom are followed by an 18-page index.

Good, sturdy copies, lovely paper.  Rebound in 1981 in workman's library cloth.  A solid, scholar's copy of a work that seems uncommon.  $450

Anatol Petrizky: Stage and Costume Design, Constructivist, 1929

 

[FRONTISPIECE]

PETRIZKY, Anatol (1895-1964). [B. Chmury]  Anatol Petrizky, Theatre-Trachten.  [Anatol Petrizky Teatralni Stroi] Iintroductory essay by V. Khmury (Chmury).  [Soviet Union]: StaatsVerlag der Ukraine, 1929. One of 1500 unnumbered copies.  Design and images by Anatol Petrizky, text by B. Chmury.

Text in Ukrainian and German. Folio, 347 x 261 mm. 26 pages of text, with 13 black and white textual illustrations and sketch-design head & tailpieces. Also 28 full-page mounted color lithographs, many with gold or silver metallic inks, and 27 mounted full-page black & white plates. All save the frontispiece are mounted front and back on heavy card stock, and all (except the last plate) have their glassine tissue guards. Each image is about 240x170mm and pasted on the thick grey card-stock leaves.

Scholar's/reader's copy, being an ex-library copy, with the library's name stamped at the bottom of each plate (in black).  The spine has been replaced by black librarian's tape. Covers are worn.  A good copy.  $1500 (a fraction of the price offered for the two other, better, copies found online (one at $3,000 and the other at $4200)).