Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books

Wallpaper, Color Perfect 1938 Wall Decorating Guide, Sears, Roebuck and Co. 

Chicago:  Sears,  1938.  96 leaves and samples!  10x10 inches  Printed color wrappers.  Very good, rubber stamp on front cover  This wonderful production includes 95 10-inch square samples of wallpaper that Sears was selling to the middle-income world of the USA in 1938. The backs of the samples are somewhat browned, but the samples themselves are still bright and fresh.  This is an unusual and wonderful insight into some of the forgotten aspects of culture just before WWII.   $150

[Nils Christian Tonsberg.] Norske Nationaldragter, tegnede af forskjellige norske Kunstnere, og ledsagede med oplysende Text. Udgivne af C. Tönsberg.  Christiana, [n.d.] 

15 very fine chromolithogrpahic plates. Each illustration with a sheet of accompanying text. 38x25 cm.

Ex-libris; rebound in cloth. Each plate has a small circular ownership stamp on lower left.

This seems to be the second book published on costumes and dress of the Norwegians and Lapps (the other published in 1847). There is no date on the chromolithographic title page of this work; OCLC/WorldCat calls for an edition of 33 plates in 1852. According to the table of contents, this edition is complete with 15 plates. From what I can see the plate numbers in this work and the 1852 edition are different; also, the present edition seems to be larger--or taller--than are the descriptions for the 1852 edition (15.5 vs 13 inches tall).  

Overall, a good, sturdy copy. $SOLD

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.

 

 

 

Classic work in Art Deco Style (1931)

"EA. Seguy."  Prismes.  40 Planches de Dessins et Color Nouveaux.  Editions d'Art Charles Moreau, Rue de Prague, Paris.  [1931]   $1450.00

First Edition, the (former) portfolio bound in green cloth.  There are forty fantastic, art deco full-page pochoir plates, all in very vivid and full color.  "Seguy" (sometimes called "Émile-Allain Seguy") may or may not be the name of this prolific artist, but it will do well enough for now.

The following images are from the NYPL design collection, as my bound versions are too large for the scanner.  The images offered here are at least as fien and crisp as those below, or better.   (See the NYPL link to view all forty images.)

Fantastic Cover Art: Electric RCA, 1947

This image is that of the television antenna of station WNBT and for many years it sat on top of the Empire State Building.  WNBT was the flagship station of NBC, which was owned by RCA (Radio Corporation of America, 1919-1986) which (according to its name) was really the first national broadcasting radio network in the United States, and which (as experimental station W2XBS) became the first to broadcast a television picture (of a papier mache Felix the Cat) in 1928.  This fantastic cover art for a 1947 promotional for the company pictured the famous antenna,  the great visual of the company's external hardware, right there on top of the world's tallest building. 

This was really a picture of the future, and in 1947 the future of mass communications and entertainment (and in making money in the two) was seen in television, much more so than the formerly gargantuan radio.

 

We're selling a full-color 20x12" reproduction of this cover for $20.

The original pamphlet,  (12x9", 44pp, illustrated) is also available and is in excellent condition.  $95

Swiss Design, 1926

Travaux d'Art Applique Executes dans les Ateliers de l'Ecole des Arts et Metiers de Zurich.  (Ouvrage publie par l'Ecole des Arts et Metiers de Zurich...)

Zurich, published by Eugene Rentsch, 1926.  4to, few pages of text follwoed by 66 plates of illustrations (including 15 plates in color).  Lovely book on applied design.  Scarce.  $95