Forum Islamic World

A unique view into the private life of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan

[ABU DHABI – ROYAL FAMILY]. [Photograph archive of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's private life].
[Pakistan], [1968-1984]. An archive of 807 loose photographs, 541 in colour (including several duplicates, some printed in a different format), including 65 photos depicting falcons (3 duplicates, 36 in colour) and 14 photographs of camels (1 in colour). Full description

€ 75,000

Photographs of Sheikh Zayed's state visits to Pakistan

[ABU DHABI – STATE VISITS TO PAKISTAN]. [Photograph archive and album. Album title]: Visit to Lahore of His Highness Skeikh Zayed bin Sultan Alnahayyani the ruler of Abudhabi (16th to 28th November, 1967).
[Pakistan, 1967-1971]. An archive of 183 photographs: 133 loose black and white photographic prints (ca. 30 x 25 cm), 30 smaller ones (ca. 5 x 6 cm) numbered and mounted together on a single sheet of paper, and 20 additional prints in the album. Further with numerous rolls of original medium format negatives.Original black half morocco album, green cloth sides with title and emblem of the United Bank Limited Pakistan on the front board. Full description

€ 125,000

History of the Islamic Almoravid and Almohad dynasties in Spain and north Africa

ABU-MOHAMMED ASSALEH el Abdel-Halim and José de SANTO ANTONIO MOURA (translator). Historia dos soberanos Mohametanos das primeiras quatro dynastias, e de parte da quinta, que reinarao na Mauritania,..
Lisbon, Academia real, 1828. 4to. Contemporary motted sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. [4], 454, [4] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Comprehensive 12th-century Arabic treatise on agriculture

ABU ZAKARIYA ibn al-AWWAM. Libro de agricultura. ... Tomo I[-II].
Including:
BROECK, Victor van den. Catecismo de agricultura.
VILLE, Georges. Abonos químicos conferencias agrícolas.
Seville, Biblioteca Científico Literaria; Madrid, Victoriano Suarez (colophon: printed by Salvador Acuña y Comp., Seville), 1878. 2 volumes. Imperial 16mo (18 x 11.5 cm). Later half turquoise sheepskin. 512; 552 pp. Full description

€ 1,750

Medical secrets plus a largely imaginary Medieval European view of India

[ACHILLINI, Alessandro]. Secreta secretorum Aristotelis.
Including:
ARISTOTLE [pseudo]. Maximi philosophi ... de signis aquarum: & tempestatum.
ARISTOTLE [pseudo]. Maximi philosophurum ... de mineralibus.
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS. De intellectu.
AVERROES. De beatitudine anime.
ACHILLINI, Alexander. De universalibus.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT [pseudo]. De mirabilibus Indie.
(Colophon: Lyon, Antoine Blanchard, 1528. Small 8vo. With a title-page with a 4-piece decorated woodcut border with flowers, birds and snails, woodcut printer's device on last page, 6 woodcut initials and a leaf ornament. Set in 3 sizes of rotunda gothic types, with the title in roman capitals. Contemporary blind-tooled sheepskin(?) parchment over wooden boards, in a panel design with quadruple fillets and 2 decorative rolls, brass catch-plates and anchor-plates (straps and clasps lost). LXXXIII ll. Full description

€ 11,500

Pope Clement XI's copies of three important works concerning the Armenian language

AGOP, Joannes (Yovhannès KONSTANDNOWPOLSECÍ). Puritas Haygica seu grammatica Armenica ...
Rome, Sacrae Congretationis de Propaganda Fide, 1675.
With:
(2) AGOP, Joannes. Grammatica Latina Armenice' explicata: ...
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1675.
(3) AGOP, Joannes. Puritas lingue Armenicae ...
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1674. 3 works in 1 volume. 4to. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [6], 246, [4]; 215, [1 blank]; 215, [1] pp. Full description

€ 24,000

Of lasting value of the history of Arabic literature

AHLWARDT, Wilhelm. Verzeichniss der Arabischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin.
Berlin, A. W. Schade (I) and A. Asher & Co. (II-X), 1887-1899. 10+1 volumes. 4to. With 12 photographic halftone plates of 62 manuscript specimens in vol. X. Added: separate atlas issue of the 12 plates. Altogether 11 vols. in publisher's light blue printed boards. Full description

€ 8,500

First edition of Islamic Golden Age scholar Al-Zamakhshari's proverbs in Arabic and German

AL-ZAMAKHSHARI, Abu al Qasim Mahmoud ibn Omar (Joseph von HAMMER-PURGSTALL, ed.). Samachschari's Goldene Halsbänder. Als Neujahrsgeschenk arabisch und deutsch.
Vienna, widow of A. Strauss, 1835. 8vo. With two identical plates showing the golden necklace around a calligraphic Arabic inscription, the necklace hand-coloured in gold and the inscription in blue, as a frontispiece for both the Arabic and the German text (on the first and the last page). The Arabic title is incorporated into a printed circular medallion with decorative points at the head and foot on the first page, and the main Arabic text opens on the back of the same leaf with an elaborate headpiece. Text set in German and Arabic. Contemporary green calf (spine faded to brown), with a gold- and blind-stamped frame on each board. [1], [1 blank], 54 pp. (German text); 27, [1] ll. (Arabic text). Full description

€ 2,500

Latin translation of a classic Arabic surgical manual that reformed European knowledge of the subject

ABULCASIS (Abu al-Quasim Khalaf Ibn Al-Abbas). Chirurgicorum omniu[m] primarii, lib. tres.
I. De cauterio cum igne & medicinis acutis per
singula corporis humani membra ...
II. De sectione & perforatione, phlebotomia, & ventosis ...
III. De restauratione & curatione dislocationis me[m]brorum ...
preceded by:
[THEODORUS PRISCIANUS] (mis-attributed to "Octavius HORATIANUS"). Rerum medicarum lib. quatuor ... Per Herma[n]num Comitem a Neüenar, nuper restitutus autor.
Strasbourg, Johannes Schott, 1532 (colophon: 26 February). 2 works in 1 edition. Folio in 6s (32.5 x 21 cm). With a 5-piece woodcut frame on the title-page (each side piece with 2 roundels containing a portrait and coat-of-arms), 8 full-page woodcuts by Hans Wechtlin (ca. 1480-post 1526) and numerous woodcuts in the text. Set in Venetian-style roman types, with 14 mm typographic Roman capitals (probably by Peter Schoeffer the younger) used as initials. Later half sheepskin, with the title in ink on the foot edge. [8], 319, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 65,000

Largest assembly of natural history illustrations published before the 18th century

ALDROVANDI (ALDOVANDUS), Ulisse. [Opera omnia].
Bologna, 1599-1668. 13 volumes. Folio (35 x 24 cm). With engraved title-page to each volume, engraved full-page portrait of Aldrovandi in 3 volumes and several thousand woodcut illustrations in text, mostly after designs by J. Ligozzi and many full-page. Blind-tooled vellum (ca. 1645 & ca. 1670), with a large centrepiece on each board (the 11 volumes dated 1599-1642 from a single block; the 2 volumes dated 1648 & 1667 from a different block), the spines uniformly gold-tooled in the 18th-century. Full description

€ 150,000

A love story from the Arabian Nights in Portuguese, extremely rare second edition

[ALF LAYLA WA-LAYLA]. Historia de Ganem, filho de Abou Aibou, denominado o escravo de amor. Traduzida do Arabio em Francez, e ultimamente no idioma Portuguez, por B.A.E.
(Colophon: Lisbon, Francisco Borges de Sousa, 1792). Small 4to (21 x 15 cm). Disbound, spine lined with a strip of black paper. 39, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 4,950

One photographic print of Mecca as the remarkable exception in an album
containing 50 photographic prints of the people, cities and scenery of Algeria and Tunisia in North Africa

[PHOTOGRAPHY - ALGERIA - TUNISIA] Algerie - Tunisie.
[Tunis, Photographie Garrigues, late 19th century]. Oblong album (32 x 41 cm). Album with 50 photographic prints of various sizes (13.5 x 9.5 to 29 x 21.5 cm , each pasted on thick paperboard. Half black leather with title in gold lettering on front board. [50] ll. Full description

€ 45,000

Charming album with accomplished pencil and watercolor sketches and views
from France, Algeria and Spain

[ALGIERS & SPAIN]. J. M. (artist?). [Views and people along the Mediterranean coasts of France, Spain and Algeria].
[London sketchbook used in the Mediterranean], 1881. Small oblong 8vo (8,5 x 13 cm). Album (sketchbook) containing 28 pencil drawings (1 double-page), 2 colored drawings and 4 watercolors (1 double-page ) with handwritten captions in English. Half checkered black morocco. With advertising label of "Lechertier, Barbe & Co. Artists colourmen and Stationers, Regent Street, London" with prices of the various sketchbooks for sale; at the head the artists(?) initials and date: "J.M. 1881". 70 pp. Full description

€ 1,850

Peace treaty between the Dutch Republic and the Regency of Algiers

[ALGIERS - TREATY - STATES GENERAL]. Tractaat tusschen haar hoog mogende de heeren Staaten Generaal ... en de regeeringe van Algiers. Geslooten in het jaar 1757.
With: (2) Ampliatie tot het tractaat van vrede tusschen ... de Staaten Generaal ... en den Dey en regeering van Algiers. Exhibitum den 10 October 1760.
Middelburg, Johan Bakker, [1758]. 4to. With the woodcut coat of arms of the Dutch admiralty on the title-page. Contemporary marbled wrappers. 18; 3, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

First English translation of volume 8 of Al-Hamdani's historical, geographical
and genealogical description of ancient South Arabia

AL-HAMDANI [transl. and ed. Nabih Amin FARIS]. The antiquities of South Arabia being a translation from the Arabic with linguistic, geographic, and historic notes of the eighth book of Al-Hamdani's Al-Iklil, reconstructed from Al. Karmali's edition and a MS in the Garrett collection Princeton University Library.
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1938. 8vo. With 1 page with the text of fol. 22(a) of the Princeton MS; p. 73 shows inscriptions of Himyarite characters; 1 map titled "Ancient Arabia Peoples, places and routes". The notes are partially in Arabic and Hebrew (and possibly other types of) script. Black cloth, with title information on spine. [6], 119, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Dala'il al-khayrat written in China

AL-JAZULI, Muhammad ibn Sulaiman. Dalâ'il al-khayrat. [= "Waymarks of benefits"].
[Eastern Turkestan, now Xinjiang, China, early 17th century CE]. 4to (19 x 14 cm). Manuscript written in black ink on paper in Arabic script, with a red single- or double-line frame around each page, rubricated throughout, and two illustrations on pages 47 and 48) showing the "Ka'ba of Allah" (!) and the burial sites of the first three Rashidun Caliphs. The Arabic script is in the sini calligraphic style used in China, an archaic form mixing features of naskh and muhaqqaq. Contemporary(?) black, red and gold painted and lacquered leather over paper and cloth. The painted sides show floral designs in black and gold on a red background, in a black border with red wave designs. With remnants of leather on the brown cloth spine. [1], 337 pp. Full description

€ 38,000

Printed by the first director of the Imprimerie Royale, with notes in Arabic and Syriac type

AL-SUYUTI, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr. De proprietatibus, ac virtutibus medicis animalium, plantarum, ac gemmarum, tractatus triplex.
Paris, Sébastien et Gabriel Cramoisy, 1647. 8vo. With 2 woodcut headpieces, a woodcut tailpiece and woodcut decorate initials, plus decorations built up from arabesque typographic ornaments. Set in roman and italic type with a few words in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac. Contemporary vellum with manuscript spine label (faded). [24], 179, [17] pp. Full description

€ 25,000

Three letters written in 1539 on the Ottoman threat in the Mediterranean

[LETTERS]. ALVAREZ DE TOLEDO, Pedro and Maria OSORIO Y PIMENTEL. [Three letters to Ferrante Gonzaga, Viceroy of Sicily, two from Pedro Alvarez de Toledo and one from his wife Maria Osorio y Pimentel].
Andria (in the Kingdom of Naples), 13 August to 10 September 1539. Folio (21.5 x 30 cm).
(1) Letter in Italian, signed, from Pedro Alvarez de Toledo in Andria to Ferrante Gonzaga, 13 August 1539, with a 23 mm seal bearing Alvarez de Toledo's coat of arms (with a chain of flags) stamped on a slip of paper attached with red wax.
(2) Letter in Spanish, signed, from Pedro Alvarez de Toledo in Andria to Ferrante Gonzaga, 3 September 1539, with the 45 mm imperial armorial seal stamped on a slip of paper attached with red wax.
(3) Letter in Italian, signed, from Maria Osorio y Pimentel [in Andria] to Ferrante Gonzaga, 10 September 1539, with the remains of what appears to be her husband's 23 mm red wax seal.
Each letter, in brown ink, occupies one page, with the last page containing the address and the sender's seal. The two inside pages of the second and third letter are blank. Each formerly folded for posting, so that the address would have appeared on one side and the seal on the other. [4]; [4]; [2] pp. including blanks. Full description

€ 15,000

The ideas of Ibn Sina, Al-Farabi and other Arabic philosophers incorporated in the very first edition
(ca. 1475/1476) of Alvernus's most important work

ALVERNUS, Guillelmus (William of AUVERGNE). Libri ... de fide et legibus.
[Augsburg, Günther Zainer, ca. 1475/1476]. Small folio. Set in a hybrid roman type with gothic elements (a single column of 43 lines per page plus running heads), with the first 3 lines, including the title, in a slightly larger rotunda gothic. With all initials supplied in manuscript in red, rubricated throughout. Contemporary, richly blind-tooled vellum over wooden boards, two brass clasps, blue edges, "Nr. 56" in red ink written at the foot of the spine. [139] ll. Full description

€ 45,000

First book in Arabic type printed in Norway

AL-ZAMAKHSHARI and Jens Peter BROCH. Al-Mufassal, opus de re grammatica Arabicum.
Oslo, W.C. Fabritius, 1859. 8vo. Near contemporary cloth with title in gold on spine, covered with protective plastic. 229, [5] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Important biography of the fourth viceroy of Portuguese India

ANDRADE, Jacinto Freire de. Vida de D. João de Castro, quarto viso-rei da India; ... Nova edição.
Lisbon, Typ. Rollandiana, 1861. 8vo. Modern orange paper wrappers. [8], 341, [1 blank], [2] pp. Full description

€ 600

Private photographs of a visit to the oilfields of the APOC, by the founder of Toc H

[ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY - PHOTOGRAPHS]. [CHAPPELL, Henry Pegg (photographer)]. A Christmas pilgrimage to the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. in Persia made by P.B.C.. S.C.. H.P.C.
[Greece, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, 1931-1932]. Oblong photograph album (20.5 x 32 cm). With 72 sepia photographs (ca. 6 x 8.5 cm). [19], [5 blank] ll. Full description

€ 8,500

Presentation copy of an authoritative handbook on the Arab states of the Lower Gulf

ANTHONY, John Duke. Arab states of the Lower Gulf: People, Politics, Petroleum.
Washington D.C., The Middle East institute, 1975. 8vo. With two black and white maps on the endpapers. Brown cloth with publisher's illustrated dust jacket. X, 273, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 500

Very rare work on an Islamic procession in the city of Mecca in 1728

ANTONIO, João Carlos (pseudonym of António Correia de LEMOS). Relaçam de huma solemne, e extraordinaria procissam de preces, que por ordem da corte Ottomana fizeraõ os Turcos na cidade de Meca, no dia 16. de Julho de 1728. ... Primeira[-segunda] parte.
Lisbon, Pedro Ferreira, 1730. 2 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With woodcut title vignettes, headpieces and initials. Modern blue marbled paper wrappers. 23, [1 blank]; 24 pp. Full description

€ 7,500

First official Antwerp pharmacopoeia

[ANTWERP - PHARMACOPOEIA]. [BOUDEWIJNS, Michiel, and others]. Pharmacia Antverpiensis galeno-chymica.
Antwerp, Joris Willemsens I, 1660. 4to. With an integral engraved architectural title-page by Petrus van Caukercken after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, letterpress title-page with a woodcut decoration, a divisional title for part 2, woodcut tailpieces, woodcut decorated initials. Set in roman and italic, with incidental Greek, textura and pharmacological signs. 18th-century vellum, faded manuscript title on spine. [1], [1 blank], [46], “285” [= 281], [32], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,750

Ephemeralia, including Arab constitutional documents and an introduction to the history of Arab medicine

[ARABIA]. [A collection of ephemeralia regarding the Arab states].
New York & London, 1951-1962. 3 booklets and a menu. Full description

€ 1,800

Abundantly illustrated performance report of ARAMCO in 1955

ARABIAN AMERICAN OIL COMPANY. 1955 Report of operations to the Saudi Arab government.
[Dhahran], Saudi Arabia, Arabian American Oil Company, 1956. 28 x 21.5 cm. With a portfolio of photographs, 8 pages in the middle of the work, with captions in both English and Arabic. Thoroughly and colourfully decorated with photographs, maps and other decorations in the text. The 56 pages of text appear twice in the present work as published, once in English on the left side of the portfolio and once in Arabic on the right side of the portfolio. Original publisher's decorated wrappers, with the title in English on the front wrapper and the title in Arabic on the back wrapper. VIII, 48, [8 - portfolio of photographs], 48, [8] pp. Full description

€ 750

The life of Muhammad and a history of Arabia under the first four Caliphs

[ARABIAN HISTORY]. Hedendaagsche historie; of het vervolg van de algemeene historie; ... Behelzende het leeven van Mohammed; en het begin van de historie der Arabieren, onder de drie eerste Khalifs ...
Utrecht, Hermanus Besseling (vols. 1-2), Leiden, Amsterdam, P. van der Eyk, G. de Groot and son, K. van Tongerloo and P. Schouten (vol. 3), 1760-1764. 6 parts in 3 volumes. 4to. With 3 engraved frontispieces, engraved coat of arms and 6 folding plates. Contemporary boards covered with sprinkled paper. Full description

€ 5,000

Arabian nights in Dutch translation

[ARABIAN NIGHTS]. Duizend en één nacht. Arabische vertellingen.
Amsterdam, Hendrik Frijlink, 1829-1831. 9 volumes. 8vo. With an engraved frontispiece and engraved title-page to each volume. Contemporary half calf, gold-tooled spine. [8], [2], 355; [8], 338, [2]; [8], 296; [8], 322, [2]; [8], 339; [8], 366, [2]; [8], 303; [8], 344; [4], I-VIII, 309, [2] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Attractively bound set of the Arabian nights in the first accurate English translation

[ARABIAN NIGHTS]. LANE, Edward William (translator). The thousand and one nights, commonly called, in England, the Arabian nights entertainments.
London, Charles Knight and Co. (back of title-page volume 1 & 3: William Clowes and sons; volume 2: Whitehead & Co.), 1840 (vol. 2) - 1841 (vols. 1 & 3). 3 volumes. 8vo in 4s. With a different lithographed title-page for each volume and hundreds of wood-engraved illustrations in text.19th-century red morocco (signed on flyleaf: "Jefferies & Sons, Bristol" - the sons joined the firm in 1863), richly gold-tooled spines, boards, board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges. XXXII, 618; XII, 643, [1]; XII, 763, [1] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Including a manuscript leaf by Burton

[ARABIAN NIGHTS]. BURTON, Richard F. The book of the thousand nights and a night[:] a plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments.
With:
(2) BURTON, Richard F. Supplemental nights.
(3) BURTON, Richard F. [Autograph manuscript book review of an 1881 Panchatantra edition].
(Colophons: U.S.A. [Boston, MA?]), The Burton Club, [ca. 1940]. 16 volumes (incl. 6 supplements). 8vo. With an original manuscript leaf written by Burton (with the manuscript heading: "Proof to Sir R.F.B. Hotel des Bains, Aigle, Canton Vaud, Switzerland" and a note "Long Primer Pressig.") and each volume with a different frontispiece in two states (coloured and uncoloured). Contemporary richly gold-blocked green morocco, boards with Arabic script in gold, gold-tooled turn-ins. Full description

€ 25,000

Very early manuscript treatise about the fatwa

[ARABIC MANUSCRIPT]. Kitab Al-Waqi'at fi'l-Fatawi [Kitab Al-Waghi'at Fi Al-Fatwi].
[Levant, ca. 1290]. Small 4to in 6s (17 x 14) cm. Arabic manuscript, 15 to 17 lines to the page, written in clear cursive ta'liq script on brown Middle Eastern paper. With occasional red rubrication.
Contemporary (?) blind-tooled calf, mostly covered with later calf leaving only the contemporary back cover exposed. 19th century European paper endpapers. With a loose leaf of 18th century European paper with Arabic manuscript writing on one side. 374 ll. Full description

€ 35,000

Aramaco and the Arabic Superman: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Nabil fawzi!

[ARAMCO]. Aramco World. Vol. 21 no. 2: March-April 1970.
New York, Aramco, 1970. 4to. Illustrated wrappers. 32 pp. Full description

€ 1,500

The establishment of archaeology and philology as fields of study, bound for a Bourbon(?) count, including a work on the famous Rosetta Stone

[ARCHAEOLOGY - PHILOLOGY] BARTHÉLEMY, Jean-Jacques and others. [Collection of texts on early archaeology and philology].
[Various places], [various publishers], 1760-1827.
Containing:
(1) [CHRISTIE'S - LONDON]. A list of the very rare and valuable Aethiopic and other oriental manuscripts, collected by the celebrated traveller, James Bruce, esq. of Kinnaird, taken from the catalogue of them made by the late Alexander Murray, editor of the travels by Mr. Bruce in Abyssinia.
[London, 1827].
(2) WEBER, Georg Friedrich. Observationes sacrae circa funera populorum orientis. ...
Strasbourg, Johann Heinrich Heitz, [1767].
With a woodcut headpiece, tailpieces (2) and open-sided factotum.
(3) SEYFFARTH, Gustav [and Friedrich August Wilhelm SPOHN]. Brevis defensio hieroglyphices.
Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1827.
(4) SCHLICHTEGROLL, Friedrich von. Ueber die bey Rosette in Aegypten gefundene dreyfache Inschrift...
München, printed by Ignaz Joseph Lentner, [1818?].
(5) BARTHÉLEMY, Jean-Jacques. Explication de la mosaïque de Palestrine. Paris, H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour, 1760.
With 1 large folding engraved plate of the mosaic, 1 plate showing the names of animals written in the mosaic. Bound with it is an unrelated engraved plate on a 4to leaf, showing Samaritan medals (drawn and engraved by Poisson in 1790) that accompanied another one of Barthélemys publications.
(6) BARTHÉLEMY, Jean-Jacques. Lettre de m. l'abbé Barthelemy ...
[Paris, 1760].
With 2 plates of the Phoenician medals and Phoenician inscriptions found on Malta, with an elaborate woodcut headpiece and a woodcut tailpiece.
(7) BARTHÉLEMY, Jean-Jacques. Seconde lettre de m. l'abbé Barthelemy, ... sur quelques médailles Phéniciennes. [Paris, 1763].
With one plate of the Phoenician medals and the same elaborate woodcut headpiece as ad 6.
(8) [PARQUOY (assistant to labbé François BEJOT at the Bibliothèque du Roi). Lettre à messieurs les auteurs du Journal des Savans, sur un projet d'edition du Syncelle.
[Paris, 1778].
(9) BARTHÉLEMY, Jean-Jacques. Lettre a monsieur le Marquis Olivieri, au sujet de quelques monuments Phéniciens ... Paris, L.F. Delatour (printer), 1766.
With 4 plates (numbered I-IV, nos. I & III folding), the first 3 signed by P.L Charpentier, of Phoenician inscriptions, alphabet and medals. With a woodcut (oak branches with a ribbon) on the title-page and a woodcut headpiece.
(10) [D'ANSSE DE VILLOISON, Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard (draughtsman) and DROÜET (engraver)]. Alphabetum codicis bibliothecae coislininae, nunc sangermanensis, ineunte decimo saeculo manu exarati, ex quo Apollonii lexicon descriptum est. Paris, 1771.
10 works in 1 volume. 4to. A wholly engraved monograph, in Greek and Latin with a few words of Syriac.
Mid-19th-century half red goatskin morocco, sewn on 4 supports, gold-tooled spine (blind-tooled fillets) with the cypher monogram of a French count in compartments 1, 3 & 5 and "labbé|Barthelemy" and "Dissertations|1760-1792" in mid-19th-century roman capitals across compartments 2 & 4, "agathe" chemical-marbled sides, Spanish-marbled endpapers, red sprinkled edges, green ribbon marker. 16; 43, [1 blank]; 24; 28, XIV; [2], 44; 12; 8; 12; [1], [1 blank], 45, [1 blank]; 9, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 12,500

Incunable on poisons, using various Arabic sources

ARDUINO, Sante. [Incipit:] Incipit liber de venenis ...
(Colophon: Venice, Bernardino Rizzo, 1492). Folio (42 x 28 cm). Set in in 2 columns in 2 sizes of rotunda gothic types, with spaces left for numerous 3-line and 4-line and a few larger initials (with printed guide letters), none filled in. Modern black- and gold-tooled calf. [4], 101, [1] ll. Full description

€ 45,000

Astrological medicine, covering the theory of critical days as introduced by Galen into the Arabic world

ARGOLI, Andrea. De diebus criticis et ægrorum decubitu libri duo.
Padua, Paulus Frambottus, 1652. 4to. With ca. 230 letterpress diagrams in text. Contemporary stiff paper wrappers. [8], 6, [2], 371, [1 blank], [11] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

The Ottoman state and its officials in contemporary portraits, coloured by hand

ARIF PACHA, Muchir. Les Anciens Costumes de l'Empire Ottoman, depuis l'origine de la monarchie jusqu'a la reforme du Sultan Mahmoud ... Tome 1er [all published].
Paris, Lemercier, 1863. Folio (54.8 x 40 cm). With lithographic portrait of Arif Pacha, drawn on stone by M. Julien, printed on India paper, with caption and imprint lithographed directly on the leaf, 16 tinted lithographic plates after Arif Pacha (image size 24.5 x 34 cm), coloured and finished by hand. Modern cloth. 24 ll. printed both sides, plus plates. Full description

€ 35,000

Rare study describing a 622 AH (1225/26 CE) celestial globe with Cufic lettering, with 3 folding plates

ASSEMANI, Simone. Globus caelestis Cufico-Arabicus Veliterni Musei Borgiani ... illustratus. Praemissa ejusdem De Arabum astronomia dissertatione et adjectis duabus epistolis Cl. Josephi Toaldi.
Padua, Seminary printing office, 1790. Small folio (21.5 x 29.5 cm). With 3 large folding engraved plates. Contemporary green half calf, gold-tooled spine, marbled sides. [16], CCXIX, [9] pp. Full description

€ 28,000

First printed edition of a famous work on optics

BACON, Roger. Perspectiva. In qua, quae ab aliis fuse traduntur, succincte, nervose & ita pertractantur, ut omnium intellectui facile pateant. Nunc primum in lucem edita. Opera & studio Joannis Combachii.
Frankfurt, Wolffgang Richter for Antonius Hummius, 1614. 4to. With 8 full-page woodcuts printed on both sides of four leaves inserted as plates, and numerous woodcut figures and illustrations in text, several full-page. Modern plain paper boards. [8], 189[=205], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 9,500

"Ruler of group of Islands"

[PHOTOGRAPHY - BAHRAIN]. HH Sheikh Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa with three other sheikhs.
Gulf region, 1920s. Black and white photograph (gelatin silver print, 8 x 7 cm) mounted on brown cardboard (9 x 8.5 cm). Captioned in white ink. Full description

€ 4,500

Important history of ancient astronomy, with chapters on Egyptian, Chaldean and Persian astronomy

BAILLY, Jean-Sylvain. Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, depuis son origine jusqu'a l'établissement de l'École d'Alexandrie.
Paris, Debure brothers, 1775. 4to. With 3 numbered folding engraved plates. Beautifully bound in contemporary gold-tooled red morocco, each board with coat of arms of Simon-Pierre Merard de Saint-Just in the centre, marbled endpapers. In modern slipcase covered with marbled paper. [2], XXII, 526 pp. Full description

€ 25,000

Collection of Greek, Arabic, Latin, Egyptian and Asian medical and chemical theories,
both ancient and contemporary, including Chinese acupunture

BARCHUSEN, Johann Conrad. De medicinae origine et progressu dissertationes. In quibus medicinorum sectae, institutiones, decreta, hypotheses, praeceptiones, &c. Ab initio medicinae usque ad nostra tempora traduntur.
Utrecht, Gysbertus Paddenburg and Guilielmus Croon, 1723. 4to. Title-page printed in red and black, few woodcut illustrations in text. Contemporary half calf, gilt spine divided in five compartments, light brown morocco title label, red edges. (16), 680 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

A classic description of Islam

BAUDIER, Michel. Histoire generale de la religion des Turcs. Avec la naissance, la vie, & la mort, de leur prophete Mahomet; et les actions des quatre premiers caliphes qui l'ont suivy.
Paris, Jean Guignard, 1632. 8vo. With the controversial half-page engraved portrait of Muhammad. 17th-century(?) vellum, later endpapers. [70], [2 blank], 726, [50] pp. Full description

€ 2,750

60 photographs by Bechard of Egyptians and Nubians

BÉCHARD, Henri Égypte et Nubie.
[ca. 1880]. 60 photographs on albumen paper, measuring 28 x 22 cm each, signed and captioned in the plate, numbered 1 through 68. Contemporary green half calf with gilt spine and title "Égypte & Nubie", initialed "B.C.D." on first plate. Full description

€ 45,000

Tale of the Caliph who renounces Islam and engages with his mother

BECKFORD, William. The History of the Caliph Vathek.
London, Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, [ca. 1900]. Contemporary gold-tooled cloth, gilt edges. X, 189, 16 pp. Full description

€ 125

Bellarmino's Arabic catechism with the rare Arabic instructions for confession and communion

BELLARMINO, Roberto. [Title in Arabic] | Dichiarazione piú copiosa della dottrina cristiana... Tradotta dalla lingua italiana nellaraba, e dora di bel nuovo stampata.
Rome, [Propaganda Fide], 1770.
With: (2) BORGIA, Stefano. Irsad li-ajl al-i'tiraf wa-tanawul al-qurban, ... [= Instructions for confession and communion]
[Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1770?].
2 works in 1 volume. 8vo. The catechism with a woodcut of fruits and branches on the title-page and 2 woodcut headpieces The instructions with the title in a decorative border built up from cast fleurons, 1 woodcut headpiece and several further decorations built up from cast fleurons. Except for the bilingual title-page to the Bellarmino and the imprimatur on the last printed page of the Borgia, both works are set entirely in Arabic type. Contemporary half sheepskin, manuscript title on spine, paste paper sides, sprinkled edges. 411, [1 blank]; 109, [1 blank], [1], [3 blank] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Belon's account of his extensive travels in the Levant, with 44 woodcut illustrations

BELON, Pierre. Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays estranges.
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat (colophon: printed by Benoist Prévost for Gilles Corozet, Guillaume Cavellat), 1555. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With title in woodcut border with Cavellet's device and initials at the foot, each part-title with Cavellet's woodcut device, 1 folding woodcut map (31.5 x 35 cm) showing Mount Sinai, 44 woodcuts in the text (including a portrait of the author by Geoffroy Tory), and numerous fine decorated initials. Overlapping vellum (ca. 1600?). [12], 212, [1] ll. Full description

€ 12,500

First Latin edition, printed by Plantin, of Belon's illutrated oriental travel account, with 43 woodcuts

BELON, Pierre. Plurimarum singularium & memorabilium rerum in Graecia, Asia, Aegypto, Judaea, Arabia, aliisq. exteris provinciis ab ipso conspectarum observationes, tribus libris expressae.
(2) BELON, Pierre. De neglecta stirpium cultura, atque earum cognitione libellus: edocens qua ratione silvestres arbores cicurari & mitescere queant. Antwerp, Christoffel Plantin, 1589. 2 works in 1 volume. 8vo. With Plantins woodcut compasses device on each title-page, 43 woodcuts in text (6 full-page), woodcut decorated initials. With an unrecorded 2-page corrigenda leaf. Contemporary overlapping limp vellum. [16], 495, [1 blank]; "78" [= 87], [1 blank], [2] pp. Full description

€ 4,750

Diplomatic and commercial relations between Venice and Persia

BERCHET, Guglielmo. La repubblica di Venezia e la Persia.
Torino, G.B. Paravia e comp., 1865. 8vo. With 5 photographic plates. Original publisher's printed brown paper wrappers. XVII, [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], 294, [2] pp. Full description

€ 750

"on pesche les perles ... dans le Golfe Persique, principalement ... aupres de Baroyn [= Bahrain]"

BERQUEN, Robert de. Les merveilles des Indes Orientales et Occidentales, ou Nouveau traitté des pierres precieuses & perles, ...
Paris, Christophe Lambin, 1661. 4to. With an engraved portrait of Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans facing the dedication. Contemporary gold-tooled, tanned sheepskin, gold-tooled sides. [12], 112 pp. Full description

€ 25,000

Rare contemporary compilation of official accounts of Napoleon's campaign in Egypt

BERTHIER, Louis-Alexandre and Napoleon BONAPARTE. Relation des expéditions d'Egypte et de Syrie, de la bataille d'Aboukir et de la reprise du fort de ce nom, par les troupes de la République Française, commandées par le célèbre Général Bonaparte.
Including:
BERTHIER, Louis-Alexandre. Éxpedition de Syrie.
BONAPARTE, Napoleon. Bataille d'Aboukir.
BONAPARTE, Napoleon. Reprise du fort d'Aboukir.
Paris, Pelletié, an VIII [=1799/1800]. 8vo. Modern half calf, original paste-paper boards. [1], [1 blank], [2], 3-148 pp. Full description

€ 5,500

On Gothic and Arabic manuscripts in Spanish libraries

BLANCO, Pedro Luis. Noticia de las antiguas y genuinas colecciones canónicas inéditas de la Iglesia Espanola, que de órden del rey nuestro señor se publicarán por su Real Bibliotheca de Madrid, ...
Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1798. 8vo. With some lines printed in Arabic type. Later brown half morocco, gold-tooled spine. XLI [=XXXVIII], [1], 168, [2], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,500

One of the first complete French-Arabic dictionaries

BOCTHOR, Ellious and A. Caussin de PERCEVAL. Dictionnaire Français-Arabe.
Paris, Firmin Didot, 1828-1829. 2 volumes. Large 4to. Near-contemporary sprinkled gold-tooled tanned sheepskin. VII, [1], 461, [1]; [4], 435, [1] pp. Full description

€ 8,500

Souvenir album showing the Holy Land, Egypt, Athens and Venice in the second half of the 19th century

BONFILS, G. LEKEGIAN & CO, Brothers ZANGAKI, Collection MERLIN and Carlo NAYA. [Souvenir album with photographs of the Holy Land, Cairo, Athens and Venice].
[Palestine, Cairo, Athens, Venice, ca. 1890]. Oblong album (41.5 x 31 cm) containing 62 albumen prints, mostly 23 x 28 cm, with 2 smaller prints of ca. 16 x 28 and 5 large prints of 35.5 x 27 cm. Most of the photographs are numbered and captioned in French, and sometimes also in English, on the negative. Contemporary brown half morocco. [59], [11 blank] pp. Full description

€ 9,500

Ledger recording involvement in numerous infrastructural projects in Africa, Asia and the Middle East (1952-1955)

BOULTEN, F.A. [Manuscript ledger recording the time spent working on infrastructural projects].
[London?,] 1952-1955. Folio. Lined journal, each page ruled for monthly tallies, with some extra annotations. Contemporary cloth. [48] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

The remarkable life and career of Sir Hugh Boustead in the Middle East and across the world

BOUSTEAD, Hugh. The wind of morning. The autobiography of Colonel Sir Hugh Boustead.
London, Chatto & Windus, 1974. Large 8vo. With 8 double sided plates with multiple images, and 4 maps. Orange cloth with title information in gold on spine, with dust jacket, designed by John Woodcock with a photo of a caravan of people on camels on front cover and one of H. Boustead on a horse on the back, title information in purple on front cover and on spine of dust jacket. 240 pp. Full description

€ 450

Eyewitness account of a 1570 diplomatic mission to the Ottoman court,
with 28 fine original colour drawings and samples of Turkish decorated paper

[DIPLOMATIC MISSION]. BRAECKLE, Jacques de. Memoires du voiage de Constantinople de Jacques de Bracle seigneur de Bassecourt.
[Various places, [1570 or very soon after]. 4to (main text & decorated paper) & 8vo (transcription & drawings) (21.5 x 14.5 cm). Manuscript in French, written in brown ink on paper in a Flemish bastarda gothic hand, with about 26 lines per page. With 8 contemporary half-sheet specimens of Turkish decorated "silhouette" paper (folded to make 16 leaves in 2 quires), a series of 28 drawings in brown ink and coloured gouaches, highlighted in gold (mostly costume figures, some showing the Sultan and other leading figures, others showing anonymous types from various ethnic and religious groups), plus a ca. 1800, transcript of the complete text and biography of the author (with his arms in colour). Modern sheepskin parchment. [2 blank], [34]; [5 blank], [62 incl. a few blank], [1 blank] pp. plus 8 double leaves of decorated paper and [36], [4 blank]; [2], [2 blank] pp. of 18th-century additions. Full description

€ 180,000

Examination of medical pills, heavily influenced by Galen

BRASAVOLA (BRASSAVOLA), Antonio Musa. Examen omnium catapotiorum, vel pilularum, quarum apud pharmacopolas usus est.
Lyon, Jean Pullon, 1545. 8vo. With a woodcut device on title-page and some woodcut initials. Contemporary vellum. 188, [4] pp. Full description

€ 8,500

Testing Galenic medicine

BRASAVOLA (BRASSAVOLA), Antonio Musa. Examen omnium electuariorum, pulverum, et confectionum.
Venice, Vincent Valgrisi, 1548. 8vo. With a woodcut device on title-page and a larger version on the last page. Later stiff paper wrappers. 140, [2] pp. Full description

€ 9,500

Five medical treatises, heavily influenced by Galen

BRASAVOLA (BRASSAVOLA), Antonio Musa. Examen omnium trochiscorum, unguentorum, ceratorum, emplastrorum, cataplasmatum, & collyriorum : quorum apud Ferrarienses pharmacopolas usus est : ...
Venice, (colophon: Lucas Antonius Juntas), 1551. 8vo. With a woodcut device on title-page. Contemporary limp vellum, restored. 296 ll. Full description

€ 9,500

Islamic religious orders in Algeria, "a work of great learning and value", presentation copy

BROSSELARD, Charles. Les khouan. De la constitution des ordres religieux musulmans en Algérie.
Algiers, A. Bourget, August 1859. 8vo. Contemporary red half sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. 36 pp. Full description

€ 3,750

3 little-known works by Italian scientist on astronomy, hydrostatics and navigation

BRUNETTI, Francesco Saverio. Trattenimenti scientifici su la sfera, geografia istorica, meteore, ed astronomia.
Rome, Bernabò and Lazzarini, 1754. With several woodcut illustrations in the text (including an armillary sphere), and an extra added folding engraved frontispiece.
With:
(2) BRUNETTI, Francesco Saverio. Trattenimenti scientifici su lindrografia, nautica, blasone, statica, meccanica, architectura, pirotecnia, e suono.
Roma, Bernabò and Lazzarini, 1755. With several woodcut illustrations in the text, and an extra added frontispiece (facsimile of an engraving?).
(3) BRUNETTI, Francesco Saverio. Macchina semplicissima per cui lacqua da se stessa salice ad una data altezza.
Rome, Bernabò and Lazzarini, 1747. With folding engraved plate as frontispiece. 3 works (the first in 2 parts) in 1 volume. 4to. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [24], 180, 112; [8], 173, [3 blank]; 12 pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Inscribed by the author in Arabic

BURTON, Sir Richard Francis. Falconry in the valley of the Indus.
London, Van Voorst, 1852. 8vo. With a tinted lithographed frontispiece, 3 plates and with an 8-page publishers catalogue at the end. Original publisher's cloth. [16], 107, [1]; 8 pp. Full description

€ 25,000

An illustrated edition of Burton's Arabian Nights

[ARABIAN NIGHTS]. BURTON, Richard Francis. A plain and literal translation of the Arabian Nights' entertainments, now entituled the book of the Thousand Nights and a Night.
Including: Supplemental nights.
[London?], Richard Burton Club, [ca. 1910]. 17 volumes. Royal 8vo (24 x 16 cm). With numerous illustrations (including the series by Albert Letchford), each repeated on laid paper (the 17 frontispieces repeated in colour). Contemporary half green morocco, gold-tooled spine. Full description

€ 10,000

The ever-alluring aspects of Egypt's landscape and monuments in the late nineteenth-century

BÉCHARD, Émile. L'Égypte et la Nubie. Grand album monumental, historique, architectural...
Paris, André Palmieri & Émile Béchard, 1887. Large folio (45.5 x 63 cm). With 150 collotype photographic plates, all signed, numbered and captioned in the wide margins of each plate. The half title-page and divisional half title-page for the explanation of the plates are printed in red , the typographical title-page shows a small vignette of an Egyptian mask. Loose leaves. 23, [1 blank], [3 (numbered [175]-177)], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank] pp. and 150 plates. Full description

€ 35,000

Early exploration and exploitation of oil

CADMAN, John. The geographical journal. Vol. LXXXIV. No. 3.
Beccles, William Clowes & sons, 1934. 4to. With several full-page black and white photographs and maps. Original publisher's blue printed paper wrappers. X, 201-280 pp. Full description

€ 850

Rare collected works of Portugal's greatest poet

CAMÕES (CAMOENS), Luis de & João Franco BARRETO. Obras de Luis de Camoès principe des poetas Portugueses. Com os argumentos do Lecenceado João Franco Barreto & por elle emédadas em esta nova impressaõ, que comprehende todas as obras, que deste insigne autor se achàraõ impressas, & manuscritas, com o index dos nomes proprios. Offerecidas a D. Francisco de Sovsa capitão da guarda do Principe N.S.
Lisbon, Antonio Craesbeeck de Mello, 1666-1669. 8vo. With 8 woodcut tailpieces. Later mottled calf, red spine labels, red edges. 376, 368, 208, 108, [22], [ 2 blank]. Lacks the individual title-pages. Full description

€ 9,500

Arabic grammar for Spanish missionaries in the Middle East

CAÑES, Francisco. Gramatica Arabigo-Española, vulgar, y literal. Con un diccionario Arabigo-Español, en que se ponen las voces mas usuales para una conversacion familiar, con el texto de la doctrina Cristiana en el idioma Arabigo.
Madrid, Don Antonio Perez de Soto, 1775. 4to. With Perez de Soto's device on the title-page. Set in roman, italic and Arabic type. Contemporary mottled sheepskin. [1], [1 blank], [14], 272, [5], [2 blank], XVII pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Misconduct at Basra by VOC resident

[CANTER, Frans (subject)]. Deductie gedaan ... uit den name ende van wegens bewindhebberen van de Oost-Indische Compagnie ter kamer Amsterdam, eerst requiranten van appoinctement van anticipatie, en nu gedaagdens by mandament van revisie, ter eenre, op ende jegens Aaltje Fransse, weduwe van Cornelis Canter, Jan Canter, en Hendrik van Greuningen, als in huwelyk hebbende Anna Canter, zeggende te zyn moeder, broeder, en zwager respective, van Frans Canter, alle wonende te Amsterdam, ...
[Amsterdam, 1752]. Folio (31.5 x 20.5 cm). Side-stitched.
With: (2) Missive van de bewindhebberen van de generale Neederlandsche geoctroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie ter vergadering van Seeventienen.
[Amsterdam, 1758]. Folio (33 x 21 cm). Side-stitched. 28, [1 blank], [1]; 13, [3 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Beautifully illustrated first accurate monograph on the larynx, heavily influenced by Galen

CASSERIO, Giulio (Julius CASSERIUS). De vocis auditusq[ue] organis historia anatomica singulari fide methodo ac industria concinnata tractatibus duobus explicata ...
(Colophons: Ferrara, Victorius Baldinus, 1601 & "1600" [= 1601]). 2 parts in 1 volume. Royal folio (40.5 x 27.5 cm). Engraved title-page with the title in a large oval scrollwork cartouche surrounded by and incorporating dozens of skeletons and skulls of people and animals, 2 full-page engraved portraits (of the dedicatee Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, and the author) and 34 full-page anatomical engravings on integral leaves. 17th-century sheepskin parchment. [60], 191, [1 blank]; 126, [1], [1 blank] pp. including engraved title-page, 2 portraits, and illustrations. Full description

€ 27,500

"The most remarkable" medical dictionary based on works by Galen and Hippocrates

CASTELLI, Bartolomeo. Lexicon medicum graeco-latinum ex Hippocrate, et Galeno desumptum.
Rotterdam, Arnold Leers, 1644. 8vo. With a woodcut device on title-page. Contemporary vellum. [14], “315” [=353], [19, last page blank] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Pioneering book of about 300 medicinal recipes in Spanish

CASTILLO, Juan del. Pharmacopoea universa medicamenta in officinis pharmaceuticis usitata complectens, & explicans.
Cádiz, Juan de Borja, 1622. 4to. With a helmed, crested and mantled woodcut Contreras coat of arms of the dedicatee on the title-page (dexter argent paly of 3 azure, sinister an inverted tower, the whole with a bordure containing 12 Xs) repeated at the end of liber I, woodcut device at the end of the text.Tree-pattern tanned sheepskin (ca. 1830), and the owners initials J.S. (for José Saranderes) in the 5th. [7], “335” [= 332], [6] ll. Full description

€ 15,000

Geographical description/atlas of the old world, including the Middle East.
With 33 maps and bound in well-preserved, gold-tooled contemporary calf

CELLARIUS, Christoph. Notitia orbis antiqui, sive geographia plenior, ab ortu rerumpublicarum ad constantinorum tempora orbis terrarium faciem declarans. ... et novis tabulis geographicis ... illustravit.
(Volume 1:) Cambridge, John Owen, 1703; (volume 2:) Amsterdam, Caspar Fritsch, 1706. 2 volumes. 4to. With engraved author's portrait, 33 engraved double-page maps and 1 engraved double-page plate. Contemporary calf, richly gold tooled spines and binding edges, double gilt fillets on sides. [16], 862, [38]; [12], 544; 166, [38] pp. Full description

€ 5,000

A brief history of medicine, including Mesue, Avicenna, Serapion the Younger and other Arab authors

CHAMPIER, Symphorien. Castigationes seu emendationes pharmacopolarum, sive apothecariorum, ac Arabum medicorum Mesue, Serapionis, Rafis, Alpharabii, & aliorum iuniorum medicorum...
(Colophon: Lyon, Johannes Crespin, 1532). 2 parts in 1 volume (bound in reverse order). 8vo. With armorial woodcut on title-page to the second part (bound as opening title-page), repeated several times in text, and numerous woodcut initials. Contemporary vellum, richly blind-tooled in a panel design. LVI, CXII ll. Full description

€ 12,500

First edition of the first European medical book to be translated into Chinese

CHARAS, Moyse. Pharmacopée royale Galenique et chymique.
Paris, Moyse Charas (colophon: printed by R. Chevillion), 1676. 4to. With engraved frontispiece, engraved dedication and 6 numbered engraved plates. Contemporary calf, richly gold-tooled spine. f.p. + [12], 1060, [34], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Influential pharmacopoeia, choosing chemical pharmacy over Galenic pharmacy

CHARAS, Moyse. [Engraved title-page:] Pharmacopoea regia Galenice et chymica. [half-title]: Opera tribus tomis distincta: I. pharmacopoea regia galenica II. pharmacopoea regia chymica III. tractatus de theriaca & tractatus de vipera.
Comprising:
(1) CHARAS, Moyse. Pharmacopoea regia Galenica.(2) CHARAS, Moyse. Pharmacopoea regia chymica.(3) CHARAS, Moyse. Historiam naturalem animalium, plantarum et mineralium, theriacae andromachi compositionem ingredientium, cum experiments circa viperam
Geneva, Joannis Ludovici Du-Four, 1684. 3 works published as 1. 4to. With engraved general title-page, engraved author's portrait, 6 engraved plates and 3 engraved folding plates. Contemporary blind-tooled vellum. [11], [1 blank], 496; [8], 449[=451], [1 blank], [28]; [4], 275, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 8,500

Merchant voyages and trade with Arabia, Egypt & India

CIGNANO, Ludovico. Quieta solitudine di varii ragionamenti, discorsi, et concetti, ove si narra quattro navigationi ...
Bologna, Alessandro Benacci, 1587. Small 4to (21×15 cm). With a woodcut coat of arms on the title-page. Goatskin morocco (ca. 1870/80?), richly gold-tooled spine and turn-ins, signed in foot of front turn-in by the Paris bookbinders "DARLAUD FRÈRES", gold fillets on sides and board edges. 166 pp. Full description

€ 45,000

72 plates with remarkably intricate Islamic-inspired decoration, printed with coloured inks

CLERGET, Charles Ernest. Mélanges d'ornements de tous les styles Persan - Mauresque - Arabe - Grec - Gothique [-] Renaissance principalement des XVIe et XVIIe siècles ...
Paris, Ducher & Cie (colophon: printed by Eugène Heutte & Cie), [ca. 1880 (engraved 1837-1838)]. Royal folio (45 x 31 cm). With 2 elaborately ornamented part-titles, 70 numbered ornament plates (all 72 plates "engraved" on litho stones, image area mostly 26.5 x 17 cm) and a letterpress list of the plates. With each plate printed in blue, green, violet, ochre, red, black or brown (several shades) and 9 printed in 2 colours. Contemporary half red cloth, rebacked and with new corners in red goatskin morocco. [2] ll. plus [1], 37, [1], 38-70 plates. Full description

€ 6,500

One of only two 19th-century English colour-plate books mentioning the Gulf

CLIVE, Robert. A series of lithographic drawings from sketches by Robert Clive, comprising the undermentioned subjects, lying principally between the Persian Gulf & the Black Sea ...
London, Dickinson & Co., (1852). Large folio (45.5 x 590 mm). With 9 tinted lithographs on 8 plates (2 on 1 leaf) after Robert Clive. 3 leaves of letterpress text (plus 1 repeat ), printed on rectos only. Modern half morocco , marbled sides, spine title and decorations in gold. With the original publishers printed front wrapper bound in. Full description

€ 18,000

On the sales of arms and arms deals in the Middle East

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS. New perspectives on the Persian Gulf. Hearings before the subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia of the committee on foreign affairs, house of representatives, ninety-third congress, first session. June 6, July 17, 23, 24, and November 28, 1973.
Washington, U.S. Government printing office, 1973. 8vo (23.5 x 15 cm). With a small map of the Persian Gulf. Original printed paper wrappers. VIII, [1], 227 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

On "the escalating level of arms sales to Gulf states"

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS. The Persian Gulf, 1975: the continuing debate on arms sales. Hearings before the special subcommittee on investigations of the committee on international relations, house of representatives, ninety-fourth congress, first Session. June 10, 18, 24 and July 29, 1975.
Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. 8vo. Original printed paper wrappers. VI, 261 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Communism in the Middle East

[COMMUNIST ESSAYS]. [Collection of communist essays for the Arabic-speaking and Middle Eastern market].
China, Israel, Russia (USSR), United States, [various publishers], 1968-1984. 16 publications. Several fold-out maps and some works with photographic plates. Including (in chronological order):
(1) LANE-POOLE, Stanley. Coins of the Amawi Khalifehs. Catalogue of the collection of Oriental coins belonging to Col. C. Seton Guthrie.
Chicago, Argonaut Publishers, 1968.
(2) [SOVIET REVISIONISTS versus the CHINESE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY]. [Title in Arabic:] Down with the new tsars! Soviet revisionists' anti-China atrocities on the Heilung and Wusuli Rivers.
Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1969.
(3) [AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE]. [Title in Arabic:] Search for peace in the Middle East: a report prepared for the American Friends Service Committee.
Philadelphia, 1970.
(4) [AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE]. [Title in Hebrew:] Search for peace in the Middle East: a report prepared for the American Friends Service Committee.
Tel Aviv, 1970.
(5) [AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE]. Search for peace in the Middle East: a report prepared for the American Friends Service Committee.
[New York], [Hill and Wang], 1970.
(6) [AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE]. Search for peace in the Middle East: a report prepared for the American Friends Service Committee.
New York, Hill and Wang, 1971.
(7) MAO ZEDONG. [Title in Arabic:] On the correct handling of contradictions among the people.
Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1971.
(8) MAO ZEDONG. [Title in Persian:] People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs!
Beijing, Foreign Language Press, 1971.
(9) MAO, ZEDONG. [Title in Persian:] Talks at the Yenan forum on literature and art.
Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1971.
(10) [1972 NEW YEAR'S DAY EDITORIAL?]. [Title in Arabic:] Unite to win still greater victories.
Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1972.
(11) [RENMIN RIBAO (editor)?]. [Title in Arabic:] A vicious motive, despicable tricks: a criticism of M. Antonioni's anti-China film "China".
Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1974.
(12) [NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS - CHINA]. [Title in Arabic:] Documents of the first session of the fourth National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China.
Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1975.
(13) LENIN, Vladimir Ilyich. [Title in Arabic:] A letter to American workers.
Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1978.
(14) LENIN, Vladimir Ilyich. [Title in Arabic:] Two tactics of social-democracy in the Democratic Revolution.
Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1978.
(15) ENGELS, Friedrich. [Title in Arabic:] Anti-Dühring.
Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1984.
(16) [REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT]. [Title in Arabic:] Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
[1984?].
Mainly works in their original publisher's printed paper wrappers, occasionally in a hardcover binding. Full description

€ 3,500

"Ces Arabes paroissent destiné à jouer un grand rôle dans l'histoire"

[CORANCEZ, Louis Alexandre Olivier de]. Histoire des Wahabis, depuis leur origine jusqu'a la fin de 1809.
Paris, Crapelet, 1810. 8vo. Remains of original grey temporary wrappers. Stored in gilt modern quarter morocco box. [4], VIII, 222, [2] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

An Italian farmer turned into a Turkish satirist for a Croatian audience

CROCE, Giulio Cesare and Nikola PALIKUCA (translator). Himbenost pritankogh Veleznanstva Nasradinova.
Ancona, Pietro Paolo Ferri, 1771. 12mo. With a woodcut of the main character on the title-page. Contemporary plain wrappers. 71 pp. Full description

€ 5,800

Promissory note for Venetian customs taxes in Damascus in 1488

[DAMASCUS – VENETIAN TAXES]. [Promissory note for Venetian customs taxes on goods from Damascus].
Venice, 22 Feb. / 5 March 1488. Italian notarial document on vellum (44.5 x 16 cm; text block ca. 27 x 14 cm). Written in two fine cursive hands. Full description

€ 7,500

11 articles on the history of the Islamic world, including the autobiography of Ibn Khaldun

DEFRÉMERY, Charles and others. [Collection of 11 French offprints and extracts on the Islamic world].
[Paris (1 Leipzig), 1831-1859]. 11 items in 1 volume. 8vo. With many passages in Arabic. Contemporary half vellum. Full description

€ 6,500

The rare book and manuscript collection of a Franco-Russian oriental scholar, diplomat, and secret agent

[DESMAISONS, Jean-Jacques-Pierre]. The collection and research library of Jean-Jacques-Pierre Desmaisons (1807-1873), oriental scholar, diplomat, secret agent, and writer.
Various places, late 15th century to 1873/74. 193 catalogued iems, comprising printed books and manuscripts in 237 volumes. In Arabic, French, Greek, Latin, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Russian, Syriac, and Sanskrit. Full description

€ 1,050,000

First edition of a history of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt with a collection of Turkish and Egyptian tales

DIGEON, J.M. Nouveau contes Turcs et Arabes. Précédés d'un abrégé chronologique de l'histoire de la maison Ottomane & du gouvernement de l'Egypte, & suivis de plusieurs morceaux de poésie & de prose, traduits de l'Arabe & du Turc.
Paris, Dupuis, 1781. 2 volumes. 12mo. Contemporary calf, richly gold-tooled spines, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins. VIII, 347 [1 blank]; [2], 278, [4] pp. Full description

€ 2,750

Incunable edition of an influential second century description of the antique world,
including early mentions of China and Arabia

DIONYSIUS Periegetes. [incipit :] ... de situ orbis habitabilis ...
[Colophon:] Venice, Franz Renner, 1478. Small 4to (19 x 14 cm). With the first four lines printed in red and 9 white on black decorated woodcut initials (1 series), plus 1 repeat. Set in roman type, 26 lines to a page, with two words in Greek. Modern blind-tooled calf. [36] ll. Full description

€ 35,000

First edition of Ruel's translation of a foundational work on pharmacology

DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. De medicinali materia libri quinque. De virulentis animalibus, et venenis canerabioso, et eorum noti, ac remedijs libri quattuor.
(Colophon: Paris, Henri Estienne, 1516). Folio. With the title within a decorative metalcut( ?) panel. Set in roman types. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment; rebacked in calf, with new endpapers, but preserving the original paste-downs. [12], 157, [2], [1 blank] ll. Full description

€ 18,000

Extremely rare issue of a pocket edition of "the most influential treatise of classical antiquity in Greek on the natural substances used for the preparation of medicines"

DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. De medica materia libri sex.
Lyon, Thibaud Payen (Theobaldus Paganus), 1546 (colophon: 1547). 16mo. With a woodcut device on title-page and some woodcut initials. 18th-century calf, rebacked with original gold-tooled backstrip laid down. [30], 543, [147] pp. Full description

€ 3,950

"Dioscorides was held in great esteem by all the physicians and scholars in the Islamic period"

DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. De medica materia libri sex, Ioanne Ruellio Suessionensi interprete.
Venice, Domenico Giglio, 1550. 16mo. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. 274, [90], [1 blank] ll. Full description

€ 4,750

Archaeological sites in the Middle East, with 143 reproductions of photographs

DJEMAL PASCHA, Ahmed and Theodore WIEGAND. Alte Denkmaler aus Syrien, Palastina und Westarabien. 100 Tafeln mit beschreibendem Text.
Berlin, Georg Reimer, 1918. Folio (34.5 x 24 cm). WIth 100 plates with 143 reproductions of photographs. Original red publisher's cloth, with the title in Arabic and German on the front board. 10 pp., 100 ll. Full description

€ 4,500

40 years of correspondence between two leading orientalists in Russia, often concerning Georgian matters

[AUTOGRAPHS]. DORN, Bernard. [21 autograph letters, signed, to Marie-Félicité Brosset].
Saint Petersburg, ca. 1840-1879. 8vo (letters, mostly 21 x 13.5 cm) and folio (list of publications). Letters in French with an occasional (Persian?) word in Arabic script, written in black ink on paper, some with the address on the outside and one with Dorn's (Persian?) red wax seal in Arabic script.
With: (2) [Manuscript chronological numbered list of 34 publications by Dorn, 1843-1865].
[Saint Petersburg, ca. 1865]. 20 letters [4] pp. each (some including blanks); 1 letter [1, 1 blank] pp.; list of publications [4] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

Rare and old-fashioned pharmacopoeia of Douai

[DOUAI - PHARMACOPOEIA]. BRISSEAU, Michel, and others. Pharmacopoeia Duacena galeno-chymica nobilissima et amplissimi senatus authoritate et jussu munita & edita.
Douai, Jacques-François Willerval, 1732. Small folio (25.5 x 17 cm). With a woodcut of the then current Douai coat-of-arms (a shield with an arrow and eight drops of blood) on the title-page. Contemporary tanned sheepskin, richly gold-tooled spine. [1], [1 blank], [2], 180, [7], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,750

Introduction to Islam by an important Dutch orientalist

DOZY, Reinhart. Het Islamisme. Tweede, herziene druk.
Haarlem, H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1880. With 13 lithographed plates. Original publisher's gold- and blind-blocked cloth. viii, 357, [3 blank] pp. Full description

€ 250

Letter on the Mamluk-Ottoman power struggle in Egypt that would bring Muhammad Ali to power in 1805

[AUTOGRAPH]. DRUMMOND, William. [Letter on the fighting between the Ottomans and Mamluks in Egypt].
Bucharest, 13 December 1803. 4to (23.5 x 18.5 cm). Autograph letter in English, signed, written in brown ink on laid paper. [2] pp. Full description

€ 1,950

Photographs of the ruling family of Dubai during a state visit to Pakistan

[DUBAI – ROYAL FAMILY]. Photograph album.
Pakistan, Early 1970s. 40 photographs (29 in colour and 11 black-and-white). Various sizes (300 x 207 mm to 125 x 125 mm). Includes 51 original colour slides. Stored in large, six-leaf self-adhesive tan leather album (oblong folio, 43 x 34 cm). Full description

€ 35,000

First European biography of Timur derived from an Arabic source

DU BEC-CRESPIN, Jean. The historie of the great emperour Tamerlan wherein are expressed, encounters, skirmishes, battels, sieges, assaults, skalings, taking of cities and strong places, defended, and assaulted, with diverse stratagems of warre, the which this great and renowned warriour hath conducted and accomplished, during his raigne of fortie or fiftie yeares: with other instructions for the warre, which should not be unknowen of them that would attaine unto the knowledge of armes. Drawen from the auncient monuments of the Arabians, by messire Jean du Bec, abbot of Mortimer. Newly translated out of French into English, for their benefite which are ignorant in that language. by H.M.
London, R. Field for Willam Ponsonby, 1597. 4to. With a woodcut device on the title-page, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces.17th-century calf, 19th century gold-tooled spine. [4], 265, [1] pp. Full description

€ 35,000

1572 pharmaceutical work on medicines from the Greeks and Arabs

DU BOYS (SYLVIUS), Jean (Joannis de BOIS). In methodum miscendorum medicamentorum, quae in quotidiano sunt usu observationes, ex Graecic, Arabibus, & Neotericis.
Paris, Jaques Kerver, 1572. 8vo. With Kerver's woodcut device on title-page, depicting a unicorn with the family's arms, and a large cast ornament on the otherwise blank last page. Contemporary limp vellum, traces of ties. [8], 134, [10] ll. Full description

€ 4,500

Portugal's political and economic decline, with extensive chapters on France and the Umayyad Caliphate

DULAC, Antonio Maximino. Genuina exposição do tremendo marasmo politico em que cahio Portugal, com desenganada indicação dos unicos remedios apropriados a' sua cura radical... Tomo I [-II].
Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional, 1834. 2 volumes bound as 1. 4to. With lithographed frontispiece, and a small woodcut Portuguese royal coat of arms on title-page of each part. Contemporary half sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. VIII, 219, [1 blank], [4]; 206, [6] pp. Full description

€ 2,800

First edition of this pharmaceutical treatise in the Arabic tradition

DUPUIS (PUTEANUS), Guillaume. De medicamentorum quomodocunque purgantium facultatibus, nusquam anteà neque dictis, neque per ordinem digestis libri duo ...
Lyon, Mathieu Bonhomme, 1552. 4to. With woodcut printer's device to title-page and numerous woodcut initials. Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties. [8], 179, [1] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Secret correspondence between Tipu Sultan and the French, published by the British

[EAST INDIA COMPANY]. [TIPU SULTAN, Zaman Shah DURRANI, NAPOLEON BONAPARTE and others]. Official documents, relative to the negotiations carried on by Tippoo Sultaun, with the French Nation, and other foreign states, for purposes hostile to the British nation; to which is added, proceedings of a Jacobin club, formed at Seringapatam, by the French soldiers in the corps commanded by M. Dompart, with a translation ... Printed by order of the ... Governor General ...
Calcutta, Honorable Companys Press, 1799. Super Royal 4to (33.5 x 25 cm). Never bound, but side stitched through 3 holes. XX, [2], 195, [1] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Reconstructing a pre-Islamic calendar

EFFENDI, Mahmoud. Mémoire sur le calendrier arabe avant l'Islamisme, et sur naissance et l'age du prophète Mohammad.
[Brussels, 1861?]. 4to. Modern paper wrappers. 45, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Famous limited edition leaf book "Ege portfolio", containing 15 beautiful oriental manuscript leaves including texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ethiopic

EGE, Otto F (compiler & author of the annotations). [Drop-title:] Fifteen original oriental manuscript leaves of six centuries. [Binding title:] Fifteen original oriental manuscripts.
[Cleveland, Ohio?], [Cleveland Institute of Art or Western Reserve University?], [ca. 1952]. 15 manuscript leaves (in one case a fragment of a scroll) of various formats and sizes, some glazed (see the detailed list of contents for specific dimensions), 7 written on straight-forward laid paper (European and non-European), 6 more problematic (probably all non-European), 1 on straight-forward wove paper (no. 14, supposedly made in Russia) and one on vellum (no. 7), most rubricated and/or decorated in various colours, some decorated or highlighted in gold. Each manuscript leaf is mounted (hinged on one edge to allow access to both sides of the leaf) in a passe-partout (46.5 x 33 cm) and each has a letterpress slip (10 x 18 cm) with explanatory text tipped onto the foot of the passe-partout. The publication has no title-page but includes a letterpress folio leaf that serves as a table of contents and has the drop-title given above (the present copy contains two copies of that contents leaf). The display typeface used in the letterpress leaves (and on the portfolio) is the 1938 Libra by the Dutch designer Sjoerd de Roos, inspired by uncial manuscripts. Publishers original portfolio (48.5 x 34 x 4.5 cm) covered with black cloth with on-lays in black and red on the front and the authors name in white and title in red on the spine, with three pairs of black ties (one on the inside) and a label on the inside of the right black flap giving information about the limited edition: "Edition limited to forty numbered sets of which this is No 33". [1] leaf (plus a duplicate) plus 15 original manuscript leaves mounted in white passe-partouts. Full description

€ 18,000

Unique snapshots of Egypt in 1906-1908: excavations in progress, the Mahmal procession,
the Tanta fair and daily life, probably taken by a female photographer

[PHOTOGRAPHY - EGYPT]. Book I-[II] Egypt 1906-7. Book III Naples, Rome, Florence. Book IV Criccieth N. Wales, Zara, Khargeh Upper Egypt, Cairo, Freshwater Bay I.W.Egypt, Naples, Rome, Florence, Criccieth and the Isle of Wight, 1906-1908. Oblong (23 x 32 cm). An album in 4 volumes with 323 silver gelatin prints (8 x 5.5 cm to 14 x 8 cm, mostly ca. 10 x 7 cm). Side-stitched.
With:
(2) LEHNERT & LANDROCK. Souvenir of Cairo. 12 real artistic photos. Serie A.
Egypt, [late 1920s]. Envelope containing 12 silver gelatin prints (12 x 9 cm).
(3) [PHOTOGRAPHY - SINGAPORE?]. Photograph of a woman and a baby sitting in a rickshaw, with a child in front and the rickshaw puller.
[Singapore?], [late 1920s]. Silver gelatin print (7.5 x 12.5 cm). 9; 7; 12; 11 ll. Full description

€ 4,500

Afghanistan and its dependencies in Persia, Tartary and India, with 14 hand-coloured plates, in original wrappers

ELPHINSTONE, Mountstuart. Tableau du royaume de Caboul, et de ses dépendances, dans la Perse, la Tartarie et l'Inde, offrant les moeurs, usages et costumes de cet empire, ... traduit et abrégé de l'anglais, par M. Breton.
Paris, Nepveu, 1817. 3 volumes. 18mo. With 14 engraved plates depicting various costumes, lords on horseback, etc., all beautifully coloured by hand. Original publisher's printed wrappers, each volume with wood engraved illustrations on front, back and spine. Preserved in a modern gold-tooled green morocco box. XLIV, 189 [3]; [4], 222, [2]; [4], 223 [1] pp. Full description

€ 4,950

2000-page pharmaceutical dictionary

ELZEVIER, Kornelis. Lexicon galeno-chymico-pharmaceuticum, of apothekers woordenboek.
Amsterdam, Gerrit de Groot and the widow of Salomon Schouten and sons, 1755. 2 volumes. Large 4to (27 x 21 cm). With engraved frontispiece and an engraving in text. 19th-century red calf. [20], 1105, [1 blank]; [4], 966 pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Politics of the Arab World as seen by the Labour Party in 1959

ENNALS, David & Ian CAMPBELL. Middle East Issues.
London, Fabian International Bureau, February 1961. 8vo. Original printed paper covers. 29 pp. Full description

€ 200

Erpenius's excellent Arabic grammar

ERPENIUS (VAN ERPE), Thomas. Rudimenta linguae Arabicae.
Leiden, Boneventura and Abraham Elzevier, 1628. Small 8vo (15 x 9.5 cm). With title-page printed in red and black. 19th-century green sheepskin. [10], 172, [48] pp. Full description

€ 2,800

Best edition of a classic Arabic grammar, with fables, proverbs and quotations

ERPENIUS, Thomas. Grammatica Arabica; cum varia praxios materia, cujus elenchum versa dabit pagella.
Leiden, Johannes Maire, 1656. 2 parts in 1 volume. 4to. Mid 19th-century half tan calf, gold- and blind-tooled spine. [12], 172, “282” [= 284] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Exquisitely produced work on falconry and horse riding, with many coloured illustrations

ES, N.J.A.P.H. van. De hippische sport en het korps rijdende artillerie 1793-1908 ... 1e gedeelte [valkerij]. 2e gedeelte [hippische sport].
Arnhem, Coers & Roest and G.J. Thieme, [1913]. 2 volumes. Large 4to (37.5 x 31 cm). With ca. 80 lithographed plates and numerous illustrations and decorations in text, many beautifully coloured by hand and some highlighted with silver and/or gold. Original publisher's gold-blocked blue cloth, with a coloured hooded hawk on front boards, upper edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. [16], 172, [18], [2 blank]; [14], 221, [1 blank], [17], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 18,000

Eyewitness account of the bombing of Algiers in 1688

ESPINOSA, Antonio de. Copia de una carta que ha escrito desde la ciudad de Argel el padre procurador Fray Antonio de Espinosa, religioso calzado del Orden de la Santissima Trinidad, redencion de cautivos, y administrador de los cinco reales hospitales, que su sagrada religion tiene en aquella ciudad.
(Colophon: Madrid, Sebastian de Armendariz), 12 October [1688]. Small 4to (19 x 14 cm). With a large woodcut initial with a parrot. Disbound. 6 ll. Full description

€ 2,500

First edition of nearly all Euripides plays, in Aldus's best and last Greek, type:
Thomas More's fictional hero gave a copy to the Utopians in 1516!

EURIPIDES. [Title in Greek then Latin:] Tragoediae septendecim [recté octodecim], ex quib[us]. quaedam habent commentaria. & sunt hae. Hecuba[,] Orestes[,] Phoenissae[,] Medea[,] Hippolytus[,] Alcestis[,] Andromache[,] Supplices[,] Iphigenia in Aulide[,] Iphigenia in Tauris[,] Rhesus[,] Troades[,] Bacchae[,] Cyclops[,] Heraclide[,] Helena[,] Ion[, Hercules furens].
(Colophon to each volume: Venice, Aldus Manutius, February 1503). 2 volumes. 8vo. With Aldus's anchor device on the last page of each volume, printed in Aldus's beautiful Greek type.Matching limp vellum (made from 2 leaves from a ca. 1560/70? Spanish legal manuscript), constructed or reconstructed ca. 1900. [268]; [190] ll. Full description

€ 40,000

Notorious forged binding, gold-tooled with Ottoman imagery painted red, white and green on dark brown

FLORUS, Lucius Annaeus. [Epitome rerum Romanarum].
Leiden, Adriaen Wijngaerden (colophon: printed by Philippe de Croy), 1648. 8vo (18 x 12 x 3 cm). With an engraved allegorical title-page by Cornelius van Dalen. Contemporary or near-contemporary calf. The decoration on the binding is believed to have been executed in Bologna ca. 1880/1900 by a group of forgers: each board with the same scene, showing 2 women in Ottoman costume, one kneeling to play a qanun (Turkish zither) at left and the other perhaps dancing at right, framed by drapery as though on a stage, with a crescent moon and 5-pointed star in each corner and the name "IBRAHIM" at upper left, the whole in a frame of double fillets. The figures' skin is painted white and the clothes and drapery red and green. The crescent moon and star repeat in spine compartments 1 and 3-5. [32], “595” [= 535], [69], [4 blank] pp. including the integral engraved title-page. Full description

€ 39,500

The standard handbook on geomancy, a divination system with Arabian origins, including a 12th-century translation of a work by the Arab Alfakini, published here for the first time

FLUDD, Robert, Henri de PISIS and ALFAKINI. Fasciculus geomanticus, in quo varia variorum opera geomantica continentur.
Verona [= Frankfurt am Main], 1687. With 5 (of 6) large folding letterpress tables, 1 double-page engraved folding plate with 2 engraved illustrations, and some woodcut illustrations and numerous letterpress geomantic figures in text.
With: (2) Tabulae geomanticae, seu liber singularis de tribus ultimis ex antiquo manuscripto de anno MDXXXV. Iam primo luci datus, annexis duabus tabellis huic studio mirè inservientibus, caeteroquin utilibus & jucundis.
Frankfurt am Main, Johann David Zunner, 1693. With 2 letterpress folding tables following text, and nearly 200 pages of letterpress tables with geomantic figures. 2 works in 1 volume, bound in reverse order. 8vo. Contemporary vellum. 647, [1 blank]; 197, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

The first world chronicle to include bio-bibliographies of Arab scholars

FORESTI DE BERGAMO, Jacobus Philippus. Supplementum chronicarum.
Brescia, Boninus de Boninis, 1. XII. 1485. Small folio (21 x 31 cm). Double rules along inner margins of text and between table columns, rubricated throughout. Contemporary richly blind-tooled vellum over wooden boards, bound in the monastic shop of the Würzburg Benedictines, two clasps. [1 blank], [18], [1 blank], [3], 358, [1] ll. Full description

€ 65,000

Important study of the Aramaic language and its survival in Arabic loanwords

FRAENKEL (FRÄNKEL), Siegmund. Die Aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen.
Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1886. 8vo. Later cloth with original publisher's printed paper wrappers bound in. [2], XXII, 327, [1] pp. Full description

€ 950

Italian manuscript criticizing contemporary France in a dialogue between Muhammad and Colbert

[MANUSCRIPT - FRANCE]. Colloquio su'gli affari presenti del 1683 fatto nell'Inferno, tra Maometto, e monsieur Colbert, già ministro di Francia.
[Italy, ca. 1684?]. Small folio (29 x 20.5 cm). Manuscript in brown ink on laid paper in a legible hand. Sewn. [54], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

A physician's account of the slave trade

FRANK, Ludwig. Memoire sur le commerce des Negres.
Paris, Migneret, 1802. 8vo. Stitched as issued with a paper spine. 52 pp. Full description

€ 7,500

No more than 16 piastres for a litre of wine

[FRENCH MANDATE FOR SYRIA AND THE LEBANON]. Recueil des Arrêtés et Décisions de la Z. O. (24 Octobre 1918 - 31 Août 1920). Interessant toutes les branches de lAdministration: Administration Civils, Justice, Finances, Hygiène Publique, Agriculture, Douanes.
Beirut, Impimerie des Lettres J. G., 1924. 8vo. Original printed wrappers. 188 pp., 2 final blank leaves. Full description

€ 1,500

"one of the most renowned nineteenth-century photobooks"

FRITH, Francis. Egypt and Palestine. Photographed and described.
London, James S. Virtue, [1858-1859]. 2 volumes. Folio (44.5 x 32.5 cm). With 76 photographs on plates by Francis Frith (ca. 14.5-16.5 x 21.5-23 cm), each with a separate leaf of text. Contemporary red morocco, gold-tooled spines and boards, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Full description

€ 40,000

The natural history, politics and medicine of India and Persia, with a section on Muscat

FRYER (FREYER), John. Negenjaarige reyse door Oostindien en Persien, ... Begonnen met den jaare 1672 en geeyndigt met den jaare 1681.
The Hague, Abraham de Hondt, Jacobus van Ellinkhuysen and Meyndert Uytwerf, 1700. 4to. With engraved frontispiece, engraved author's portrait, 3 folding engraved maps, 7 folding engraved views and other plates, and several woodcut illustrations in text. Contemporary vellum. [8], 566, [26] pp. Full description

€ 3,750

Diplomatic treaty between the UK and North Yemen

FURLONGE, Sir Geoffrey Warren, and Qadi al-AMRI. Exchange of notes regarding relations between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of the Yemen.
London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951. With a woodcut British Royal arms on the title-page. In a blue paper wrapper with a clear plastic front. 8 pp. Full description

€ 350

Early French translation of Galen’s simples

GALENUS (GALEN), Claudius. Deux livres des simples de Galien.
Lyon, Etienne Dolet, 1542. 8vo. With a woodcut device on title-page and a larger version on the last page, both partly coloured by hand. Rubricated throughout. 19th-century vellum. “162”[=163], [1] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Rare third French edition of the One thousand and one nights in the first translation
into any European language, by Antoine Galland

GALLAND, Antoine (translator). Les mille et une nuit, contes Arabes, traduits en Français.
Paris, La Compagnie des Libraires (colophon vol. VI: printed by [André-François] Le Breton, imprimeur ordinaire du Roi), 1745. 6 volumes. 12mo in 4s & 8s. Uniform gold-tooled mottled calf. [16], 350; [12], 352; [8], 415, [1 blank]; [4], “369” [= 375], [1 blank]; [4], 419 [1 blank]; [4], “181” [= 183], [3], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Five treatises in French concerning the Arabs and Turks, including a translation of an account of a pilgrimage to Mecca

GALLAND, Julien-Claude. Recueil des rits et cérémonies du pelerinage de la Mecque, auquel on a joint divers ecrits relatifs à la religion, aux sciences & aux mœurs des Turcs.
Amsterdam; Paris, Jean Desaint and Charles Saillant, 1754. 8vo. Contemporary mottled, tanned sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. VIII, 215, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,950

Well-illustrated encyclopaedia of astronomical and surveying instruments from the time of Galileo,
with a world map in two hemispheres, and 3 volvelles

GALLUCCI, Giovanni Paolo. Della fabrica et uso di diversi stromenti di astronomia, et cosmografia, ove si vede la somma della teorica, et pratica di queste due nobilissime scienze.
Venice, Roberto Meietti, 1598. 4to (22 x 16.5 cm). With engraved title-page, folding woodcut plate, 3 woodcut volvelles with moving parts, and numerous woodcut illustrations in text. Including a world map in two hemispheres (incl. America and a scattering of islands at the location of Australia) on two facing pages, they reappear with volvelle attachments on both sides of leaf 149 and leaf 153. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [8], 228 ll. Full description

€ 35,000

Influential work on the Islam in India

GARCIN DE TASSY, Joseph Héliodore. Memoire sur les particularites de la religion Musulmane dans l'Inde, d'après les ouvrages Hindoustanis.
Paris, Adolphe Labitte, 1869. 8vo. Late 20th-century half black morocco. [4], 108 pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Wonderful album of 89 early photographs of the most important cultural monuments from the El-Andalus period

GARZÓN RODRÍGUEZ, Rafael. [Photography - Spain]. Toledo, Córdoba, Granada.
1890. Large oblong album (32 x 40 cm). 89 original photographs, mostly 20 x 26 cm. Half blind-tooled greenish brown calf and grey/green net grained cloth over boards, with the title in gold on the front board, red edges and decorated endpapers. [52] ll. interleaved with tissue paper. Full description

€ 28,000

Treating the plague in Ottoman Turkey, from the library of “le Régent”, Philippe d'Orléans

GAUDEREAU, Abbé Martin. Relation des differentes especes de peste que reconnoissent les orientaux, des précautions & des remedes qu'ils prennent pour en empêcher la communication & le progrès; et de ce que nous devons faire à leur exemple pour nous en préserver, & nous en guerir.
Paris, Jacques Quillau, 1721. 12mo. Contemporary gold-tooled red morocco, with the arms of Philippe d'Orléans (1674-1723) on both boards, richly gold-tooled spine, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges. 134, [5], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 15,000

Syrian land and water molluscs

GERMAIN, Louis. Mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de Syrie.
Paris, Baillière and son (colophon: Rouen, Lecerf), 1921-1922. 2 volumes. 8vo. With 118 figures on 23 plates and some smaller illustrations in text. Later blue cloth. 523, [1]; 242, [2] pp. Full description

€ 500

The gastropods of Anatolia, with 17 plates

GERMAIN, Louis. Mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles d'Asie-Mineure.
Paris, Paul Lechevalier (colophon: Rouen, Lecerf), 1936. 8vo. With 17 plates with photographic reproductions and many illustrations in text. Modern brown half morocco, gold-tooled spine; with the original publisher's printed paper wrappers bound in. 492 pp. Full description

€ 375

Classic work on distillation, with dozens of woodcuts

[GESNER (GESSNER), Conrad]. Thesaurus Euonymi Philiatri, de remediis secretis.
Lyon, Balthazar Arnoullet, 1554. 16mo (12.5 x 8 cm). With dozens of woodcut illustrations in text. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [44], [4 blank], 499, [8], [5 blank] pp. Full description

€ 5,000

Famous military manual in magnificent contemporary colouring. From the library of the last Margrave of Bergen op Zoom, grandson of Leopold Philippe, Duke of Arenberg

GHEYN, Jacob II de. Waffenhandlung von den Rören. Musquetten. undt Spiessen. Gestalt nach der ordnung dess Hochgebornen Fursten und Herrn herrn Moritzen Printzen zu Oranien, Graffen zu Nassaw.
The Hague, [Hillebrant Jacobsz. van Wouw, 1607-1608]. 3 parts in 1 volume. Small 1mo (37.5 x 28 cm). With engraved title-page and 117 full-page engraved plates (ca. 26 x 19 cm). All plates and the engraved title-page magnificently coloured and lavishly highlighted with silver and gold by a contemporary hand. 18th-century mottled calf, gold-tooled with the arms of the Count Palatine of Sulzbach and his wife on each board and richly gold-tooled spine. [10], [8], [11] ll. Full description

€ 250,000

Diseases and deformities in Egypt and Palestine, with 27 plates

GODARD, Ernest. Égypte et Palestine observations médicales et scientifiques.
Paris, Victor Masson et fils (back of half-title: printed by Simon Raçon et Comp.), 1867. 2 volumes: 8vo (text) and 4to (plates). With an engraved author's portrait by Jean Charles Le Vasseur and 27 numbered lithographed plates, each preceded by a leaf with a short letterpress caption. Later black half goatskin, with the original boards (text) and the plates loosely inserted in original publisher's portfolio, printed boards, rebacked with black cloth. [6 incl. portrait], XXXI, [1 blank], 438 pp. Full description

€ 4,750

On the expediency of British rule in the East Indies

GRANT, Robert. The expediency maintained of continuing the system by which the trade and government of India are now regulated.
London, printed for Black, Parry and J. Hatchard (back of title-page: printed by Cox and Baylis), 1813. 8vo. With 2 letterpress folding tables (1 printed in red and black). Contemporary calf, gold-tooled. [1], [1 blank], XIX, [1 blank], 404 pp. Full description

€ 4,500

The British navy's pilot guide for crossing the South Indian Ocean

[GREAT BRITAIN, HYDROGRAPHIC DEPARTMENT]. South Indian Ocean pilot. Madagascar, Îles Comores, Île de la Réunion, Mauritius, Seychelles Group, Chagos Archipelago, and other islands lying westward of Longitude 80° East. Eighth edition.
Taunton, published by the hydrographer of the navy, 1971. With supplement no. 5 (1977). 8vo. With 2 small maps, 8 coastal profiles, 9 diagrams and 11 climatic tables in the book and also 1 view of the coast of Marie Louise Islet (1975) in the supplement.Contemporary blue cloth with printed title in yellow. XI, [1 blank], 333, [1]; 40 pp. Full description

€ 600

British interpretership examination for Arabic

[GREAT BRITAIN - ARABIC]. Civil service commission pamphlet containing the question papers of the preliminary and interpretership tests in Arabic used at an examination held in June 1936 of the officers of the Royal Air Force. Crown copyright reserved.
London, printed and published at Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1936. Folio. Printed in English and Arabic. Original publisher's printed paper wrappers, in later blue paper wrappers. 10 pp. Full description

€ 1,250

British interpretership examination for Arabic

[GREAT BRITAIN - ARABIC]. Civil service commission pamphlet containing the question papers of the preliminary and interpretership tests in Arabic used at an examination held in June 1938 of officers of the Army and Air Force. Crown copyright reserved.
London, printed and published at Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1938. Folio. Printed in English and Arabic. Original publisher's printed paper wrappers, in later blue paper wrappers. 10 pp. Full description

€ 475

Directions for processions ordered by the Turkish Sultan Suleiman III:
a testimony of the problematic Turkish-European relations in the 17th century

[THE GREAT TURKISH WAR]. Traduction d'un exemplaire en langue Turque contenant le detail & la description des processions des jeunes, & des penitences que le grand seigneur dit Mahomet Soliman, Empereur Turk du soleil levant, & du couchant, souverain seigneur des seigneurs, & veritable successeur de la race du grand prophete Mahomet, a commandé de faire en tout son empire.
Bordeaux, Pierre Abegou, 1687. 4to. With an engraved frontispiece portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and (extra added) a portrait of the Polish King Jan III Sobieski, by F. Jollain, inserted as a second frontispiece. Marbled wrappers. [2], 7, [1] pp. Full description

€ 9,000

Marking the brief golden age of Christianity in the Arabian peninsula

GREGENTIUS, Saint. [Title in Greek followed by:] Disputatio cum Herbano Iudaeo: nunc primùm Graecè edita, cum interpretatione Nic. Gulonii, Carnutis, literarum Graecarum professoris regii, notis illustrata. Hoc dialogo sides Christiana tum divinorum oraculorum exposition, tum miraculorum effectu confirmatur.
Paris, Fédéric Morel, 1586. 8vo. With text in Latin and Greek on facing pages. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [8], 204 ll. Full description

€ 6,500

Carpets and rugs from Turkey and Persia, with 120 colour-printed plates

GROTE-HASENBALG, Werner. Der Orientteppich[:] seine Geschichte und seine Kultur.
Berlin, Scarabaeus (colophon: Dr. Selle & Co.), 1922. 3 volumes (26 x 26 cm). The text volume with colour-printed frontispiece, 28 plates numbered I-XXII (13 colour-printed), 139 numbered and 14 unnumbered illustrations in text, and a folding map; the two plate volumes with a total of 120 colour-printed plates mounted on grey-black paper.Original publishers cloth. XVI, [2 blank], 228, [8] pp. plus plates(text). Full description

€ 950

Carpets and rugs from Turkey and Persia, with 120 colour-printed plates

GROTE-HASENBALG, Werner. Der Orientteppich[:] seine Geschichte und seine Kultur.
Berlin, Scarabaeus (colophon: Dr. Selle & Co.), 1922. 3 volumes (26 x 26 cm). The text volume with colour-printed frontispiece, 28 plates numbered I-XXII (13 colour-printed), 139 numbered and 14 unnumbered illustrations in text, and a folding map; the two plate volumes with a total of 120 colour-printed plates mounted on grey-black paper. Original publisher's cloth. XVI, [2 blank], 228, [8] pp. (text) Full description

€ 1,250

Luxurious Arabic grammar, intended for native speakers in spite of the Latin text

GUADAGNOLI, Filippo. Breves Arabicae linguae institutiones.
Rome, Propaganda Fide, Joseph David Luna, 1642. Folio. Set in roman, italic and Arabic type with incidental Hebrew. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [12], 349, [1], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 12,500

Early work on navigation and a primary source for seamen’s “barbaric” language

GUEVARA, Antonio de. Libro de los inventores del arte de marear, y de muchos trabajos que se passan enlas galeras. ... Tocanse enel muy excellentes antiguedades, y avisos muy notables para los que navegan en galeras.
Antwerp, Martin Nutius, [ca. 1545/46]. Small 8vo (13.5 x 10 cm). With Nutius's woodcut device on the title-page. Set in rotunda gothic type with a few words in a large roman. Blind-tooled brown goatskin (1920s?) in 16th-century style by Victor Arias (1856-1935) in Madrid, gold-tooled turn-ins. XXIX, [1], [2 blank] ll. Full description

€ 12,000

Rare album with magnificent lithographed views of an untouched Northeast Algeria (Constantine),
shortly after the French occupation

GUYON, Jean Louis Geneviève. Voyage dAlger aux Ziban lancienne Zebe en 1847. Avec vues des principales oasis et de quelques monuments du Tell, en deça des Aurès, et un portrait du dernier Bey de Constantine. Atlas.
Algeria, Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1850. Oblong 4to. With 35 plates, namely a portrait of Hadj Hamed (or Ahmet Bey ben Mohammed sherif, the last Bey of Constantine; 1784-ca. 1850), and 34 views of various parts, cities and Roman remains in Algeria (Constantine), Half black morocco, brown cloth sides, gold-tooled spine. [4] pp. Full description

€ 2,250

First edition of the first English translation of the poems by the Persian Sufi poet Hafez

HAFEZ (HAFIZ) [Khwaaja Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi]. The Dîvân, written in the fourteenth century by Khwâja Shamsu-d-Dîn Muhammad-i-Hâfiz-i-Shîrâzî otherwise known as Lisânu-l-Ghaib and Tarjumânu-l-Asrâr. Translated for the first time out of the Persian into English prose, with critical and explanatory remarks, with an introductory preface, with a note on Sûfîism, and with a life of the author, by: Lieut.-Col. H. Wilberforce Clarke.
Calcutta, Government of India Central Printing Office, 1891. 2 volumes. Large 4to. Titles and mottos printed in red and black. Original publisher's vellum. [2], XLIV, 494; [4], 495-1011 pp. Full description

€ 6,500

American edition of Arabian proverbs

HALDEMAN-JULIUS, Emanuel (ed). Proverbs of Arabia.
Kansas, Girard, 1924. Orange wrappers. 32 pp. Full description

€ 350

Bound for King Louis XV

HAMILTON, Hugh. De sectionibus conicis. Tractatus geometricus. In quo, ex natura ipsius coni, sectionum affectioens [!] facillime deducuntur. Methodo nova.
London, William Johnston, 1758. 4to. With numerous illustrations on 17 folding engraved plates. Contemporary French gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, with the arms of the French King Louis XV in the centre of each board and his crowned monogram in each compartment (except that with the title) of the spine. [4], VIII, 211, [1] pp. Full description

€ 13,000

Important work on the natural history of Palastine

HASSELQUIST, Friedrich and Carl LINNAEUS. Reise nach Palästina in den Jahren von 1749 bis 1752. auf Befehl ihro Majestät der Königinn von Schweden herausgegeben vond Carl Linnäus aus em Schwedischen.
Rostock, Johann Christian Koppe, 1762 (colophon: Leipzig, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, 1761). 8vo. With woodcut tailpieces. Contemporary half vellum. [18], 606 pp. Full description

€ 1,800

From the Bohemian mountains to the Arabic Gulf

HENRY, René. Des monts de Bohême au Golfe Persique ... Deuxième édition.
Paris, Plon-Nourrit et Cie., 1908. 8vo. With 5 folding maps. Publisher's original printed paper wrappers. [2 blank], [4], XIV, 566, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 750

"Father of History" in elegant & famous first Greek edition by Aldus Manutius, from the Arenberg library

HERODOTUS. [Historiarum] libri novem. Quibus musarum indita sunt nomina.
(Colophon: Venice), Aldus Manutius, (colophon: September 1502). Folio (29.5 x 20 cm). With Aldus's anchor and dolphin device on title-page and the verso of the last leaf. Late 19th-century blind-tooled, polished tan calf, the central panel with the arms of the Dukes of Arenberg. [140] ll. Full description

€ 69,500

Edition of Hippocrates's aphorisms, very popular in the Islamic World

HIPPOCRATES (BOQRAT). Aphorismi, ad mentem ipsius, artis usus, & corpis mechanismi rationem expositi.
Paris, Guillelmum Cavelier, 1724. 2 volumes. 12mo. With a woodcut device on title-page and a tailpiece on the last page. Contemporary calf, gold-tooled spine, red edges, marbled pastedowns and endpapers. [2], xl, [4], 316; [4], 317-“601” [=591], [33] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Law in Arabic sources

HOMMEL, Karl Ferdinand. Bibliotheca juris rabbinica et Saracenorum Arabica instructa.
Bayreuth, Joh. Andr. Lubekus, 1762. 8vo. Later sprinkled paper boards. 63, [17] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Globe made for the rulers of the Southerns Netherlands

[GLOBE - TERRESTRIAL]. HONDIUS, Jodocus. [Terrestrial globe].
Antwerp, Joan Baptist Vrients [produced by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam], Diameter (21 cm). The globe is assembled from 12 engraved gores, mounted over a hollow wooden sphere, the gores hand-coloured in outline, some areas with full colour infill. The zero meridian set at the Azores, the seas decorated with ships and sea monstors, the continents with several figures. The cartouche enclosing a lenghty adress to the reader by Hondius, pointing out the problems of determining longitude. A decorative cartouche set in North America crowned with the coat of arms of the Albert and Isabella Clara of Austria, the text below this cartouche is signed by Hondius and Vrients dedicating this globe to Albert and Isabella. The globe is mounted in a brass meridian circle set within a fixed brass outer circle, secured at the base into 2 brass plates supported by a brass rod rising from an carved wooden mount of ca. 1800. The walnut mount carved, into four faces each with scrolled cartouche divisions, one face with the carved coat of arms of Albert and Isabella. Overall height 50cm. Full description

€ 295,000

An excellent source on Iraq and the Gulf

HOPE, William Edward Stanton. Arabian adventurer. The story of Haji WIlliamson.
London, Robert Hale, 1951. 8vo. With 23 half-tone photographic illustrations, one as a frontispiece. Original purple-blue cloth with gold lettering on the spine. 335 pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Massive navigational directory, with sections on the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Gulf

HORSBURGH, James, Gerrit KUIJPER and D. BOES LUTJENS. Zeemans-gids, naar, in en uit Oost-Indiën, China, Japan, Australiën, de Kaap de Goede Hoop, Braziliën en tusschenliggende havens, volgens de vierde Engelsche uitgave van James Horsburgh, ...
Amsterdam, C.F. Stemler, (back of half-title: printed in Haarlem by H. Bakels), 1841. 4to. Contemporary half calf, spine lettered in gold, marbled sides. I-XII, [2], XIII-XXIV, XXVIII, 1376 pp. Full description

€ 3,750

Massive navigational directory, this edition updated with information on the northeast coasts of Africa and Arabia

HORSBURGH, James. The India directory, or, directions for sailing to and from the East Indies, China, Australia, and the interjacent ports of Africa and South America ... Seventh edition.
London, Wm. H. Allen & Co. (back of title-pages: printed by Cox and Wyman), 1855. 2 volumes. Large 4to (28 x 23 cm). Contemporary half calf; rebacked with the original backstrips laid down. XII, XXXIV, [2], “681”[=683], [1 blank]; VIII, 978 pp. Full description

€ 18,000

Rare edition of two medical works, on the mystery of the golden tooth and sleepwalking

HORSTIUS, Jacob. De aureo dente Maxillari Pueri Silesii, primum, utrum eius generatio naturalis fuerit, nec ne; deinde an digna eius interpretatio dari queat.
Including: HORSTIUS, Jacob. De natura differentiis et causis eorum, qui dormientes ambulant, vigilantium opera, eaq.
Leipzig, Valentinus Voegelinus (colophon: printed by Michael Lanzenberger), 1595. 2 parts in 1 volume. Small 8vo (14 x 9 cm). With woodcut printers device on title-page (repeated above the colophon). 19th-century half vellum. [12] 318, [14] pp. Full description

€ 5,000

Ancient Hebrew & other Middle Eastern, Greek, Roman and Arabic numbers, coins, weights and measures

HOST, Matthäus (Matthaeus HOSTUS). Historiae rei nummariae veteris scriptores aliquot insigniores ...
Including:
HOST, Matthäus. Tres libros de veteribus mensuris ...
HOST, Matthäus. Quaedam opuscula variae ...
[SARDI, Alessandro] (misattributed to John SELDEN). Liber de nummis ...
LABBE, Philippe. Bibliotheca nummaria ...
BUDÉ, Guillaume. De asse et partibus ejus libri quinque.
Leiden, Pieter van der Aa, 1695 (colophon at the end of Hosts works: Jena, Johann Zacharias Nisius, 1692). 15 works in 5 volumes, paginated as 3 and bound as 2. 4to. With 2 engraved portraits (vol. I) and 3 folding tables. Contemporary or near contemporary vellum. [36], 372, [8]; [26], “637” [= 535], [7], [2 blank], [lacking 1-2], 3-716, [86] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

On Assab, Eritrea, and the first years of the Italian government

[HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT - ASSAB - ERITREA]. Egypt. No. 15 (1882). Correspondence respecting Assab Bay.
London, Harrison and sons, 1882. Folio. Modern blue paper wrappers. X, 195, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,950

Trade within Ethiopia

[HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT - ETHIOPIA]. No. 2531 annual series. Diplomatic and consular reports. Abyssinia. Reports for the year 1899-1900 on the trade of Adis Abbaba and Harrar.
London, Harrison and sons, 1900. Folio. With a folding lithographed map with some coloured details. Bound as sewn. 25, [1] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

The Arabian nights fairy tales illustrated with jewel-like images by Edmund Dulac.

HOUSMAN, Laurence; Edmund DULAC (ills.). Stories from the Arabian nights.
London, Hodder and Stoughton, November 1907. 4to. With 50 full-page coloured illustrations after drawings by Edmund Dulac, with descriptions on the flyleaves. Original publishers orange cloth with gilt title in gold on decorated spine and front cover. xvi, 133 pp. Full description

€ 300

Second enlarged edition of a numismatic-biographical work

HULSIUS, Levinus. Romanorum numismatum series. à C. Iulio Caesaro ad Rudolphum II. Add. est breviter ipsorum vita, aversa pars numismorum & eorundem explicatio.
Frankfurt, for the author, 1603. 8vo. With large allegorical engraving with portrait of Romulus on title-page, full-page allegorical armorial engraved plate on verso of title-page and 150 engravings of both sides of ancient coins in text. Contemporary red morocco, richly gold-tooled spine. [16], 305, [6], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Origin and development of earth, continental drift and radiometric dating

HUME, William Fraser. Terrestrial theories. A digest of various views as to the origin and development of the earth and their bearing on the geology of Egypt.
Cairo, Government Press, 1948. Large 8vo. With a chromolithographed folding geological map of the Atlantic Ocean, South America and Africa (loosely inserted in a pocket), 45 plates (some line drawings, maps, diagrams, etc.; some photographs probably reproduced by photogravure) and 37 figures in the text. Contemporary half cloth with original publisher's printed paper sides. XLIX, [1], 522, 160 pp. Full description

€ 500

Pamphlet advertising the independance of Hedjaz

[HUSSEIN BIN ALI, Sharif of Mecca and Frederick Stanley MAUDE]. The king of Hedjaz and Arab independence ... together with the proclamation issued at Baghdad by Lieut.- General Sir Stanley Maude, after the occupation of that city by the British forces.
London, Hayman, Christy and Lilly Ltd., 1917. 8vo. With a photographic portrait of Hussein bin Ali for frontispiece and a folding facsimile proclamation (38 x 28 cm). Original stapled wrappers with red lettering on front wrapper. 14, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,000

Second edition of a celebrated work on Persia

HYDE, Thomas. Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum religionis historia.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1760. 4to. With 21 engraved plates (5 folding) by Michael Burghers. Contemporary blind-tooled vellum. [40], 580 pp. Full description

€ 1,800

10 Mediaeval works on health, medicine, food and wine in a rare early edition, including notes by Ibn Sina

IBN SINA (AVICENNA), Maynus de MAYNIS, Arnaldus de VILLANOVA, [Roger BACON] et al. Regimen sanitatis Magnini Mediolanensis ... Insuper opusculu[m] De flebothomia editum ... Reginaldo de Villa Nova. Additur quoq[ue] Astronomia Hippocratis ... de variis egritudinibus et morbis. Item Secreta Hippogratis. Item Averrois De venenis. Ite[m] Quid pro quo apothecariorum ... Nicolaum ... Cum no[n]nullis insuper Avicenne: ...
[Lyon, Barthélemy Trot] (colophon: Lyon, printed by Jacques Myt, 6 February 1517). Small 4to (19 x 14 cm). With title-page in red and black with Trot's woodcut publisher's device, 12 decorated woodcut initials plus 3 repeats. 17th-century(?) calf, gold-tooled spine; rebacked with the original backstrip laid down. CI, [3] ll. Full description

€ 25,000

First edition of Mantino's Latin translation of book 1, part 4 of Ibn Sina's magnum opus The Canon of Medicine

IBN SINA (AVICENNA) (and Jacob MANTINO, translator). Avicennae quarta fen primi libri de universali ratione medendi: nunc primum. m. Iacob Mantini medici hebrei: opera Latinate donata.
(colophon:) Venice, Lucantonio Giunti, 8 April 1530. 8vo. With Giunti's printer's device on the title page (a Florentine lily with the L. A. initials). Later vellum with more recent end leaves. 60 ll. Full description

€ 8,500

A commentary on Ibn Sina

[IBN SINA (AVICENNA)]. ODDIS, Oddus de (Oddo degli ODDI). In primam totam fen primi libri canonis Avicenn[a]e dilucidissima & expectatissima expositio. Nunc primum in lucem edita, illustrata, & completa assiduo labore, & longo studio Marci Oddi medici eiusdem filii.
Venice, Paolo and Antonio Meietti, 1575. 4to. With woodcut device on title-page, a woodcut headpiece, 3 large and 17 smaller woodcut decorated initials, and a small woodcut decoration (plus 1 repeat). Contemporary limp vellum, with manuscript title on spine. [8], 499, [33] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

First and only edition of one of the earliest works on Persian grammar

IGNATIUS a Jesus (Carlo LEONELLI). Grammatica linguae Persicae. Auctore Patre Fratre Ignatio à Jesu Carmelita Discalceato missionario, & vicario residentiae Tripolis, & Montis Libani.
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1661. 4to. With a device on the title-page, 1 woodcut decorated initial, decorations built up from arabesque typographic ornaments and a 4-page letterpress table showing the Persian alphabet with the initial, medial, final and stand-alone forms of the letters. Modern ivory vellum in the style of the time, manuscript title on spine. [2], 60 pp. Full description

€ 8,500

"Confidential"

[INDIA – ARMY, GENERAL STAFF BRANCH]. Operations in Waziristan 1919-1920. Confidential. Compiled by the General Staff, Army Headquarters, India, 1921.
Calcutta, Superintendent of Government Printing, 1921. 8vo. With frontispiece, 31 plates, 7 maps (3 in pocket on inside of back board), and 8 panoramas, mostly folding.Contemporary half calf, green cloth sides, gold-stamped red spine labels. X, 187, [1] pp. Full description

€ 2,800

A rare pamphlet incriminating the Shah of Iran

[IRANIAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION NEW YORK]. WANTED. SHAH of IRAN by the Iranian people for the murders committed below (only after 1953).
New York, Iranian Student Association, [ca. 1974]. Folio. With 4 illustrations of the Shah.Pamphlet. Full description

€ 1,250

Extremely rare Syrian liturgical work by the Archbishop of Damascus, printed at the Dominican Press at Mosul

[LECTIONARY - SYRIAC]. [JOSEPH DAVID, Clemens]. Lectionarium Syriacum seu collectio orationum et lectionum quae in horis canonicis per totum anni decursum excepto jejunio quadragesimali ab ecclesiae Syriacae clero adhiberi solent.
Mosul, typis Fratrum Praedicatorum (= Dominican printing office), 1879. Folio. With a Latin title-page set in roman type and a Syriac title-page set in Syriac type, both within a red and blue ornamental frame. Preliminary leaves also set within a red ornamental frame. Text set in Syriac type and printed in black and red. With a few religious illustrations throughout the text. Contemporary half blue sheepskin, blue cloth sides, gold-tooled spine lettered (in Syriac) in gold, marbled endpapers. 648 pp. Full description

€ 12,500

Apothecary's recipes heavily relying on the "Arch-Galenist" Sylvius

JÜNGKEN, Johann Helfrich. Lexicon pharmaceuticum pro majori commoditate in duas partes divisum ubi prior haec continet magis ubique usualia notissimorum pharmacopoerum, utpote Augustanae Renovatae, Norimbergensis, Schröderi, Minsichti, &c. ut & alia hinc inde multum celebrata celeberrimorum authorum, Sylvii, Michaelis, Timaei, Wedelii aliorumque composita; pars altera, similia generosiora juxta Zvvelfferi, Hoffmanni, &c. animadversiones aut censuras adornata tradit composita, iis priori in parte positis, pro majori dilucidatione brevissimis surrogata studio.
Franfurt am Main, Johann Zieger (printed by: Johann Philipp Andreae, [Nuremberg]), 1694. 8vo. Contemporary vellum. [10], 328, 76 pp. Full description

€ 5,000

First edition in Arabic of the Samaritan book of Joshua

JUYNBOLL, Theodorus Willem Johannes. Chronicon Samaritanum, Arabice conscriptum cui titulus est liber Josuae. Ex unico codice Scaligeri nunc primum edidit, Latine vertit, annotatione instruxit, et dissertationem de codice, de chronico, et de quaestionibus, ...
Leiden, Samuel and Johannes Luchtmans, 1848. 4to. With a folding lithographed plate. Set in roman and italic types with the 55-page transcription in Arabic type and shorter passages in Hebrew, Samaritan and Syriac type. Modern half cloth, gold-tooled spine, marbled sides and decorated endpapers. XII, 369; [1], [1 blank], 55 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Very rare Dutch picaresque novel, with the female protagonist getting caught by pirates
and ending up in the household of an Arabic slave trader

[KERSTEMAN, Petrus Lievens]. De vermakelyke avanturesse, of de dienstmaagd van fortuin. Vervattende hare zonderlinge levensgevallen, ontelbare wederwaardigheden en rampen; zeltzame ontmoetingen, en koddige vryagien; deszelfs driejarige dienst als lakye, gevangenneming op de Moorsche kusten, en hare slavernye in Asia by de Arabieren.
Amsterdam, Steven van Esveldt, 1754. 8vo. With engraved frontispiece. Contemporary mottled half calf, gold-tooled spine, later endpapers. [4], 360 pp Full description

€ 3,500

A landmark of hadith scholarship: rare first English edition of a noted Sunni text, printed in Calcutta

KHATIB AL-TIBRIZI, Muhammad ibn ’Abd Allah (Arnold N. Matthews, trans.). Mishcàt-ul-Masábìh, or, A collection of the most authentic traditions, regarding the actions and sayings of Múhammed; exhibiting the origin of the manners and customs, the civil, religious and military policy of the Muslemàns.
Calcutta, T. Hubbard at the Hindoostanee Press. 1809-1810. 2 volumes. Small folio (23.5 x 31 cm). Contemporary sheepskin, flat spines with red morocco labels. [6], IX, [1], VI, 665, [1]; [2], VI, 817, [13] pp. Full description

€ 15,000

Best and only folio edition of an encyclopedic work of eccentric genius on magnetism

KIRCHER, Athanasius. Magnes sive de arte magnetica opus tripartitum quo universa magnetis natura, eiusque in omnibus scientiis & artibus usus, nova methodo explicatur: ...
Rome, Biagio Diversin and Zanobio Masotti (printed by Vitale Mascardi), 1654. Folio. With engraved frontispiece by F. Valentius, letterpress title-page printed in red and black with engraved double publisher's device, full-page engraved plate with the portrait of Emperor Ferdinand IV, 34 mostly full-page engraved illustrations, 215 woodcut illustrations and about 50 letterpress tables. Contemporary overlapping vellum. [32], 618, [28] pp. Full description

€ 17,500

Large map depicting the world's oil industry, including the Middle East and Egypt

KORYTKO, Stefan. General orientative map of the world's oil industry | Übersichtskarte der Welt- Naphtha-Industrie | Carte d'orientation de l'industrie de pétrole du monde | Mapa pogladowa swiatowego przemyslu naftowego.
Lviv, Stefan Korytko, 1925. Large folding chromolithographed map (map size 65.5 x 88 cm). Original publisher's printed paper wrappers. Full description

€ 6,500

On Ibn Khaldun's cultural history

KREMER, Alfred von. Ibn Chaldun und seine Culturgeschichte der Islamischen Reiche.
Vienna, Karl Gerold's son (back of title-page: Adolf Holzhausen), 1879. 8vo. With 4 leaves with Arabic text. Contemporary paper wrappers. 62, [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,750

The past and present of the oral traditions of Bedouin tribes in Arabia,
discussed by a renowned Dutch scholar of Arabian languages and cultures

KURPERSHOEK, Paul Marcel. Oral poetry & narratives from Central Arabia.
1. The poetry of ad-Dindân A Bedouin Bard in Southern Najd.
2. The story of a Desert Knight The legend of Sçwîh al-'Atâwi & Other 'Utaybah Heroes.
3. Bedouin poets of the Dawâsir Tribe Between Nomadism & Settlement in Southern Najd.
Leiden, New York, Köln, Brill, 1994-1999. 3 volumes. Large 8vo. With 2 portraits as frontispieces in vols. 1 and 2. 16 pages with illustrations and 2 maps at the end of vols. 2 and 3. Red cloth with title information in gold on front cover and spine of all 3 vols. All 3 vols. have a dust jacket. XVII, [5 368, [4]; XIV, [4], 512, [2]; XX, 506, [4] pp. Full description

€ 850

Guide for new employees of the Kuwait Oil Company arriving in Al Ahmadi

KUWAIT OIL COMPANY. Information for new engagements on joining the Kuwait Oil Company, Limited, Kuwait.
Al Ahmadi, Kuwait Oil Company, 18 June 1952. Small folio (33 x 20.5 cm). Duplicated typescript, printed on the rectos only in purple ink, probably with a spirit duplicator. Loose sheets, stapled together at the left top corner with holes punched in the left margin. [2], 22 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Photographic portrait of future King Saud of Saudi Arabia, with very high quality colouring turning it largely into a painting

[PHOTOGRAPH - HAND COLOURED]. LAFAYETTE STUDIO. [Crown Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia].
[London, 1935]. Matt silver print (ca. 28 x 36 cm), watercolour, pastel, gouache and oil paint. Mounted on paper in a passe-partout. Signed "Lafayette" in pencil on the mount. In a wooden frame (ca. 53 x 64 cm), under glass. Full description

€ 35,000

French account of the Siege of Candia (Heraklion) in first edition with engraved fortification plan

[LA FEUILLADE, François Aubusson de]. Journal de l'expedition de Monsieur de la Feuillade, pour le secours de Candie. Par un volontaire.
Lyon, Jean Thioly, 1669. 12mo. With woodcut printer's device on title-page, some woodcut initials and head-and tailpieces and 1 engraved folding plan of the fortification of Candia (20 x 28.5 cm). Contemporary calf, gold-tooled spine and sprinkled edges. [8], 198, [2] pp. Full description

€ 4,750

Arabic inscriptions in Granada

LAFUENTE Y ALCANTARA, Emilio. Inscripciones Arabes de Granada, precedidas de una reseña histórica y de la genealogía detallada de los reyes Alahmares.
Madrid, Imprenta Nacional, 1859 (issued 1860). 4to. With a folding family tree.
Near contemporary gold-tooled vellum with spine title, endpapers with a floral pattern. With the original publishers 1860 front wrapper bound in. XIII, [1], 15-242, [2] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Colour-printed emblematic polemics for and against war with the Ottoman Empire

[LA HAYE, Jean de]. Peristromata Turcica, sive dissertatio emblematica, praesentem Europae statum ingeniosis coloribus repraesentans.
With:
(2) [HARSDÖRFFER, Georg Philipp]. Germania deplorata, sive relatio, qua pragmatica momenta belli pacisque expenduntur.
(3) [MILAG, Martin]. Aulaea Romana, contra Peristromata Turcica expansa: sive dissertatio emblematica, concordiae Christianae omen repraesentans.
(4) [Anonymous French critic of Cardinal RICHELIEU]. Gallia deplorata, sive relatio, de luctuoso bello, quod rex Christianissimus contra vicinos populos molitur.
[Nürnberg, Wolfgang Endter] (ad 1 with a false colophon: Paris, Toussaint du Bray), [each title-page with a chronogram:] 1641 (ads 1-2, 4) & 1642 (ad 3). 4 editions published together in 1 volume. 4to. With 4 letterpress title-pages in red and black, each with the date in a chronogram, 2 engraved title-plates plus 12 full-page engraved emblematic illustrations, all on integral leaves, each with a small plate nested in a larger plate (7 in the Peristromata with a varying rectangular central plate in dark blue or black and the same outer plate of a Persian carpet in orange; 7 in the Gallia with a varying oval central plate and the same outer plate representing peace with the palm tree in a landscape device of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft and a border representing war with military attributes). Further with 5 woodcut head- and tailpieces (plus 8 repeats), 21 "woodcut" decorated initials (5 series, at least some actually metal castings made from woodcuts) plus 8 repeats, and cast vine-leaf ornaments, acorns and other fleurons. Set in roman and italic types with incidental Greek and Hebrew. Light brown calf (ca. 1820?) by Charles Murton (ca. 1795?-ca. 1860?) in London, with his stamp on the front paste-down, sewn on 5 cords, gold-tooled spine with black morocco label, gold thick-thin fillets on boards, gold-tooled board edges, blind-tooled turn-ins, curl-marbled endpapers (white, red, blue, yellow and blue-green in that order), and an orange silk ribbon marker. 46, [1], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank], 34; 64; 51, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 25,000

150 beautiful chromolithographs of 19th-century Tunis with ca. 100 proofs without letterpress text bound in

LALLEMAND, Charles. Tunis et ses environs.
Paris, Quantin, 1890. Large 4to (31 x 24 cm). With 150 detailed chromolithographs (most in the text; some on separate plates), with extra ca. 100 duplicates without text of the illustrations. Contemporary half morocco. 245 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

A leading French Armenologist studies Armenian and Arabic manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale

[AUTOGRAPH]. LANGLÈS, Louis Mathieu. [6 autograph letters, signed, mostly to Antoine-Jean de Saint-Martin].
[Paris], 7 April [1820?]-13 January 1824. 8vo & 4to. Signed autograph letters in brown ink on laid paper, the 1824 letter on a letterpress "Bibliothèque du Roi" letterhead with the royal arms. 7 letters, each written on 1 side of a single leaf. Full description

€ 3,500

The pre-Islamic coinage of the Arabs

LANGLOIS, Victor. Numismatique des Arabes avant l'islamisme.
Paris, C. Rollin and Druand; London, J. Curt (colophon and back of half-title: printed by Pommeret and Moreau, Paris), 1859. 4to. With 4 numbered engraved plates and 1 lithographed "bis" plate. Publisher's letterpress printed paper wrappers. XII, 158 pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Around the world in 1180 days, with 2 folding maps and 31 steel-engraved views

LAPLACE, Cyrille Pierre Théodore. Campagne de circumnavigation de la frégate l'Artémise, pendant les annéees 1837, 1838, 1839 et 1840, ... Tome premier[-sixième].
Paris, Arthus Bertrand, 1841-1854. 6 volumes. 8vo. With 2 large folding engraved maps and 31 steel-engraved views. With the maps coloured in outline or partly coloured, and with the routes indicated and coloured. Contemporary boards, covered with the publisher's original green printed paper. XXXIX, [1 blank], 343, [1 blank], [3], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank], 467, [1 blank], [3], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank], 548, [1], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank], 464, [3], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank], III, [1 blank], 542, [2]; [3], [1 blank], 400 pp. Full description

€ 22,500

Algeria and its notorious pirates

LAUGIER DE TASSY, Jacques Philippe. Beschryving van het koningryk en de stadt Algiers, met den tegenwoordigen staat dier regeeringe, landt- en zeemagt, inkomsten, staatswetten, werreltlyk recht en koophandel.
Including: Lyst der schepen, welke sedert den 24 december 1715, tot het einde des jaars 1724 door de Algiersche roovers van den staat der Vereenigde Nederlanden genomen zyn.
Amsterdam, Marten Schagen, 1725. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With engraved title-page, folding engraved map of Algeria, folding engraved view and a folding engraved bird's eye view of Algiers. Contemporary calf, richly gold-tooled spine, gold-tooled boards, gold-tooled board edges. [16], “300” [=298], [16] pp. Full description

€ 3,750

T. E. Lawrence's anonymous account of the Arab movement in the Great War

[LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward]. Harry PIRIE-GORDON (editor). A brief record of the advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under the command of General Sir Edmund H.H. Allenby. July 1917 to October 1918. Compiled from official sources and published by the Palestine News.
Cairo, Government Press and Survey of Egypt, 1919. Small folio (22.5 x 29.5 cm). With a frontispiece portrait of Allenby, mounted on cloth, and 56 coloured maps with explanatory texts on the facing pages. Contemporary half linen. [6], 113, [1] pp. Full description

€ 3,000

One of the earliest editions of an important and influential book of ca. 250 medicinal recipes:
unrecorded issue of an extremely rare pharmacological edition

LESPLEIGNEY, Thibault. De usu pharmaceutices in consarcinandis medicame[n]tis, Isagoge. ....
[Paris], Jean Ruel, 1543. 16mo (12 x 8 cm). Set in 3 sizes of roman type, the smallest including special pharmacological characters. Modern sheepskin parchment, gilt edges. 229, [11] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

96 letters from Dutch diplomats throughout Europe, 1715-1729

[LETTERS - DIPLOMATIC]. [Official contemporary copies of incoming diplomatic correspondence to the Dutch government in The Hague from Dutch ambassadors, envoys, diplomatic residents and others in Vienna, Graz, Schaffhausen, Turin, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Moscow, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dresden, Regensburg, Warsaw, Grodno, Maastricht, The Hague, Brussels and Ostend].
[The Hague], letters dated 26 January-17 December 1715 and 7 November 1725-22 November 1729. Folio (32.5 x 20.5 cm). 96 letters clearly written in dark brown ink on paper, 84 in Dutch and 12 in French, mostly in a Latin hand (the Dutch ones from 1715 in a semi-gothic hand). Loose leaves in a modern portfolio. [96] letters ([138] written pp. on [97] ll.). Full description

€ 8,500

Crucial, state of the art research into new ways of storing oil and gas underground
at the beginning of the 1980s

LINDBLOM, Ulf and Wissam S. AL-HASHIMI (editors). First Arab seminar on underground storage of oil and gas.
Stockholm, 1981. Large 8vo. With approximately 150 figures, illustrations, photographs, maps, graphs, formulas and tables in the text, and 24 pages of Arabic text including a separate title-page at the end of the work. Original publisher's green cloth. XIX, [5], 261, [3], 22, [2] pp. Full description

€ 650

Seminal guide to the East and West Indies, with 42 double-page and folding plates, including 6 maps, all engravings beautifully coloured by a contemporary hand

LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huyghen van. Histoire de la navigation ... aux Indes Orientales ... Avec annotations de B. Paludanus, ... Troixiesme edition augmentee.
Including:
LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huyghen van. Le grand routier de mer, ...
[LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huygen van]. Description de l'Amerique & des parties d'icelle, ...
Amsterdam, Evert Cloppenburg, 1638. Folio (32.5 x 21 cm). With 3 title-pages (2 from the same full-page engraving and 1 letterpress with an engraving of a ship in a cartouche with 4 inset city views), a nearly full-page engraved portrait of the author in a cartouche with 4 inset views, 42 engraved plates including 6 maps (31 double-page & 11 larger folding). All plates coloured by a contemporary hand. Near contemporary mottled calf, gold-tooled spine. [8], 206 pp.; [4], 181, [1 blank]; [1], [1 blank], “86” [= 80], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 275,000

Detailed observations of life in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and elsewhere in the Levant and Middle East ca. 1610

LITHGOW, William. Nineteen years travels through the most eminent places in the habitable world.
London, for John Wright & Thomas Passinger, 1682. 8vo. With a folding woodcut frontispiece and 6 folding woodcut plates and 1 woodcut in the text. 19th-century dark brown sheepskin, sewn on 3 recessed cords, brown spine label, Stormont on shell marbled endpapers. [8], 481, [7] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Shells from Turkey, Palestine and Syria, with 5 lithographed plates

LOCARD, Arnould. Malacologie des lacs de Tibériade, d'Antioche et d'Homs - Syrie.
[Lyon, ca. 1883]. Large 4to. With 5 tinted lithographed plates. Modern blue half morocco, gold-tooled spine. 194-293, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

A Swiss jurist’s account of Algeria

LOCHER, Friedrich. Nach den Oasen von Laghuat.
Bern, Haller, 1864. 8vo. With a tinted lithographed frontispiece showing the palace of the khalif in Laghouat and a folding lithographed map of the northern part of Algeria. Contemporary red half cloth. VIII, 208 pp. Full description

€ 800

Unique views of Cairo and Alexandria

LONGHI, Gioseffo. Gran Cairo.
With: (2) Alessandria.
Bologna, Longhi, 1670 [and 1670s]. 94.5 × 62 cm, 106.5 × 57.8 cm. Engraved views, each on 2 sheets joined; letterpress text pasted below with publisher's imprint. Both views matted, framed and glazed. Full description

€ 48,000

Arabic fables by “the greatest figure in the whole corpus of pre-Islamic myth and legend”, second edition, incorporating Erpenius’s manuscript revisions to his first edition

LUQMAN al-Hakim (notes by Thomas ERPENIUS). Fabulae et selecta quaedam Arabum adagia. Cum interpretatione latina & notis Thomae Erpenii.
Leiden, Joannes Maire (colophon: "excudebat" Willem Christiaens van der Boxe, "typis" Johannes Janssonius), 1636. 4to. With Maire's woodcut device on the title-page and Van der Boxe's woodcut device above the colophon. Early 19th-century boards covered with blue brocade paper. 60, [2] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Discovery of the Canary Islands in classical Greek and Roman, Arabic and Portuguese sources

MACEDO, Joaquim José da Costa de. Memoria em que se pertende provar que os Arabes não conhecerão as Canarias antes dos Portuguezes.
Lisbon, printing office of the Academia Real das Sciencias, 1844. Folio. With a woodcut Portuguese coat of arms on the title-page. Modern brown paper wrapper. [4], 232 pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Standard work on Hindu and Muslim law

MACNAGHTEN, William Hay (Girish Chandra TARKALANKAR, ed.). Principles of Hindu and Mahomedan law.
Calcutta, Sreenauth Banerjee and brothers (back of the title-page: printed by B.M. Sen, "Tomohur" Press, Serampore), 1873. 2 parts in 1 volume. Large 8vo. 20th-century half black morocco, black cloth sides, title and author in gold on spine, new endpapers. [6], LXIII, [1 blank], [10], 139, [1 blank]; [4], 88, XX pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Maffei's account of the East and West Indies

MAFFEI, Joan Petro. Historiarum Indicarum libri XVI. Selectarum, item, ex India epistolarum libri IV...
Antwerp, Martinus Nutius, 1605. 8vo. With woodcut device on title-page and woodcut initials. Contemporary vellum with faint manuscript title on spine and a small gilt-stamped rooster in the centre of the boards, remains of ties. [72], 478, [2 blank]; 401, [7] pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Italian friar captured by Ottoman pirates

MAGGIO, Francesco Maria. Vita, e morte del venerabil P. F. Alipio di S. Giuseppe Scalzo di S. Agostino Palermitano della congregazione d'Italia, in odio della confessione della S. Fede di Giesù Cristo, crudelissimamente ucciso da' Turchi di Barberia, nella città di Tripoli, a 17 di febbraio l'anno 1645 ...
Rome, Ignatio de' Lazzari, 1657. 4to. With 3 engraved plates. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [40], 24, [4], 25-234, [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

The wisdom of Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, received in an early incunable

MAGNI, Jacobus [Jacques Legrand]. Sophologium.
[Strasbourg, R-printer (Adolf Rusch), ca. 1468]. Folio (21 × 28.2 cm). With the text set in 35 lines, spaces for initials show tiny guide letters, rubricated throughout, with 3- and 5-line blue or red Lombardic initials. 18th-century gold-tooled red morocco, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. 217 (of 218) ff. (lacking the final blank).Roman type, Full description

€ 75,000

14th-century tales of travels in Turkey, the Middle East, Near East, India and the East Indies,
illustrated with about 60 woodblocks

MANDEVILLE, John [= Jehan d'OUTREMEUSE]. The voyages & travels of Sir John Mandevile, Knight, ... to the Holy Land, and to Hierusalem: as also to the lands of the Great Caan, and of Prestor John: to Inde, and divers other countries: ...
London, Richard Chiswell, Benjamin Walford, Matthew Wotton, George Conyers, 1696. 4to. With a woodcut ship on the title-page and about 60 woodcut illustrations in the text (mostly about 5.5 x 8 cm) plus about 10 repeats. Gold-tooled, red goatskin morocco by Robert Riviere in London (ca. 1875/80), one of England's best binders. [4], “139” [= 135], [5] pp. Full description

€ 22,500

A Christian Arabist discussing a planned archaeological expedition to Palestine

MANGER, Samuel Hendrik. Oratio inauguralis, de incremento philologiae sacrae ab idonea Arabiae atque Palaestinae exploratione sperando.
Franeker, Willem Coulon, 1762. Folio. With a woodcut coat of arms of the province of Friesland on the title-page. Modern boards. [4], 67, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

An Arabist advocating archaeological research of the Near East

MANGER, Samuel Hendrik. Oratio inauguralis, de incremento philologiae sacrae ab idonea Arabiae atque Palaestinae exploratione sperando.
Franeker, Willem Coulon, 1762. Folio. With the woodcut coat of arms of Friesland on the title-page. Mid-19th-century marbled wrappers. [4], 67, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Rare early edition of a classic commentary on ancient Arabic and Greek pharmacological works

[MANLIO, Giovanni Giacomo (Johannes Jacobus MANLIUS or MANLIIS)]. Luminare maius. Cinthius ut totum radiis illuminat orbem. Illuminat latebras sic medicina tuas.
(Colophon: Venice, Gregorio de Gregori, 8 January 1513). Folio (30.5 x 21 cm). With 13 woodcut decorated initials (6 series?) plus 8 repeats, 4-line typographic "Lombarbic" initials. Set in rotunda gothic types in 2 columns, with a preliminary note in roman type. With contemporary pen decorations in brown ink added to about half of the initials and occasional similar pen decorations in the margins, an occasional manuscript paragraph mark, some rubrications in brown ink and some initials coloured with a transparent ochre wash. Early 20th-century vellum. 77, [2], [1 blank] ll. Full description

€ 28,000

Commentary on ancient Arabic and Greek pharmacological works

MANLIO, Giovanni Giacomo (Johannes Jacobus MANLIUS or MANLIIS), Quirico de AUGUSTIS and Paulus de SUARDIS. Luminare maius quondam elaboratissimis, Joannis Jacobi Manlii Alexandrini, commentario, & Nicolai Mutoni Mediolanensis appendicibus, locuples nunc vero etiam luculentissima; Jani Matthaei Durastantis Sanctoiustani expositione locupletius adeo redditum; Connexa praeterea sunt, tam Lumen apothecariorum, quam Thesaurus aromatariorum, cum dilucidissimis, illud Quirici Augusti, hic Pauli Suardi; commentariolis. His demum accessere et copiosissimi quatuor indices, primus ac secundus, in Luminare, tertius in Lumen, ultimus in Thesaurum; ...
Venice, Lucantonio Giunta, 1566. Folio. Only preserving the front board in contemporary sheepskin parchment. [36], 172, [10], 173-213, [1 blank] ll. Full description

€ 12,500

Manuscript compilation of texts on Arabian horses

[MANUSCRIPT - HORSES - HAIR]. Chevaux. Observations sur les chevaux Arabes du désert. ... Cheveux.
[France, ca. 1794-ca. 1813]. Folio. Disbound. [10], [2 blank], [3], [1 blank], [4], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

a summary of Ibn Sina's famous Canon of Medicine">Illustrated manuscript of the Qanunceh, or "small canon":
a summary of Ibn Sina's famous Canon of Medicine

[MANUSCRIPT - IBN SINA (AVICENNA)]. [Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar AL-GAMINI and others]. [Qanunceh (= Small canon)].
[colophon: 1279 AH (= 1862 CE)]. (ca. 17.5 x 10.5 cm). Manuscript on paper, written in a cursive, Persian-Arabic script in 15 to 23 lines per page. With 1 leaf containing 8 hand coloured illustrations, with captions, of medical instruments (4 instruments on respectively the recto and verso of leaf 26). Contemporary brown calf, with blind-stamped decorations. [29] ll. Full description

€ 28,000

Important poem on the magical and medicinal qualities of precious stones

MARBODE (MARBODIUS) of Rennes. De gemmarum lapidumq[ue] pretiosorum formis, naturis, atq[ue] viribus eruditu[m] cu[m] primis opusculu[m], ... scholiis q[uo]q[ue] illustratu[m] p[er] Alardu[m] Aemstelredamu[m].
Cologne, Hero Alopecius [Fuchs], 1539. 8vo. With a woodcut illustration on the title-page, representing a Jewish priest behind a board with the names of 12 stones which represent the 12 tribes of Israel. 17th-century gold-tooled red morocco, richly gold-tooled spinel, gold-tooled fillets and small cornerpieces on both boards, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins. 124, [2] ll. Full description

€ 12,500

Unpublished French study of Islamic coins and medals,
with about 157 drawings and engravings, many in colour

[MARCEL, Jean-Joseph?]. [Islamic coins and medals].
[Paris?], [ca. 1791-ca. 1817?]. Mostly folio (31.5 x 21 cm). A manuscript compilation of loose leaves and bifolia, with about 104 drawings (some in ink; some in coloured gouaches, many including gold, silver and other metallic colours) and about 53 engravings (some black on white; some white on black) each drawing and engraving showing the obverse and reverse of an Islamic coin or medal (except for about 3 that show only one side). Most of the drawings and engravings are on slips attached to leaves with notes in Arabic and French.Loose leaves and bifolia. [ca. 150] ll. Full description

€ 28,000

Recommending a rising star for the chair of Arabic at Algiers

[AUTOGRAPH]. MARCEL, Jean-Joseph. [Autograph letter, signed, of recommendation for Louis Bresnier].
Paris, 9 September 1836. Folio (36 x 23 cm). Letter in brown ink on wove paper. [2] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Five ancient pharmacological, medical and botanical texts, well produced

MARCELLUS EMPIRICUS. De medicamentis Empiricis physicis ac rationalibus liber.
Basel, Froben, 1536. With a woodcut caduceus device on title-page and several woodcut initials. Set in roman types.
With: (2) [THORER, Alban]. [De re medica].
(Colophon: Basel, Andreas Cratander, 1528). With the first leaf of the main text in a 4-piece woodcut border (3 initalled I.F.), Cratander's woodcut device on the last otherwise blank leaf, showing Occasio, the goddess of chance, and dozens of charming woodcut initials. Set in roman types. 2 works in 1 volume. Small folio (30 x 22 cm). 20th-century half parchment. 252, [12]; 125, [1] ll. Full description

€ 25,000

A fundamental book on Egypt: the first illustrated catalogue of the first Egyptian Museum, with 40 original photographic prints

MARIETTE-BEY, Auguste. Album du musée du Boulaq comprenant quarante planches photographiées par MM. Delié et Béchard, avec un texte explicatif rédigé par Auguste Mariette-Bey.
Cairo, Mourès & Cie, 1872. Folio. With 40 original, albumen photographic prints (ca. 24.5 x 18 cm) on stiff paperboard mounted on hinges. Original publishers half brown morocco, blind stamped cloth over boards, with title and figures in gold, gilt edges. [3], [42] ll. plus 40 mounted photographic prints. Full description

€ 35,000

Antwerp celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorating the Battle of Lepanto (1571)

[MARITIME HISTORY]. Beschryving van de konstryke verciering en voortreffelyken toestel, ... ter gelegentheyd van het twee honderd-jaerig jubilé van de ... victorie, ... over een veel talryker Turksche vloot by Lepanten in 't jaer 1571. den 7. October, gemeenelijk genaemd, den zeeslag van Don Jean, van Oostenrijk, ... van den 6. tot den 13. October, van dit ... jubeljaer [chronogram 1771].
Antwerp, Pieter Johannes Parys, (approbation: 1771). 4to. With 3 engraved illustrations in the text. Lacking the integral frontispiece. 19th-century chemical-marbled glazed paper wrappers. 79, [1] pp., lacking frontispiece (pp. 1-2). Full description

€ 1,750

The best Malay dictionary, with detailed definitions and noting related Hindi words

MARSDEN, William. A dictionary of the Malayan language, in two parts, Malayan and English and English and Malayan.
London, printed for the author by Cox and Baylis, 1812. 4to. Set in roman and Arabic types with incidental Devanagari and italic. Modern blue cloth with a morocco spine label, retaining the nonpareil-marbled edges from the previous contemporary binding. [1], [1 blank], XV, [1], 589, [1], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,950

The best Malayan grammar, with 89 pages of Malay texts with translations

MARSDEN, William. A grammar of the Malayan language, with an introduction and praxis.
London, printed for the author by Cox and Baylis, sold by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, and by Black, Parry and Co., booksellers to the British East India Company, 1812. 4to. Set in roman and Arabic types with incidental italic. Modern dark green cloth. [1], [1 blank], L, [2], 225, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,500

The best 16th-century work on syphilis, by the translator of Avicenne's (Ibn Sina) biography

MASSA, Niccolò. Liber de morbo Gallico: noviter editus: in quo omnes modi possibiles sanandi ipsum: mira quadam & artificiosa doctrina continentur: ... Addita est epistola ad eximium Thomam Cademustum in qua quamplurima ad perfectionem operis totius, & multarum aliarum egritudinum curam leguntur.
(Colophon: Venice, Francesco Bindoni, Maffeo Pasini, May) 1536. 4to. With title in a woodcut architectural border showing 4 charming monsters, 6 sentries and a winged putto. 19th-century panel-stamped and blind-tooled parchment. 50, [1], 1 blank] ll. Full description

€ 7,500

Astrology, alchemy and mineralogy on the threshold of modern science

MAZZOTTA, Benedetto. De triplici philosophia naturali, astrologica, et minerali. In quibus differit cohaerenter de elementis, & variis mixtorum proprietatibus. ... Opus theol. philos. medicis, chymicis, & astrologis jucundum, ac simul utile.
Bologna, Giovanni Bapttista Ferroni, 1653. 4to. With an engraved heraldic and allegorical frontispiece drawn and engraved by Bartolomeo Coriolano with the arms of the dedicatee Hipolyto Cattaneo, a full-page engraving (with 7 figures) on an integral leaf, and 2 engraved illustrations and 2 woodcut diagrams in the text. Contemporary boards covered with a vellum leaf from a 16th-century(?) plain-chant manuscript antiphonary. Frontispiece plus [10], [2 blank], 148, “252” [= 272] pp. Full description

€ 19,500

About 135 lithographic paper cut-outs (not cut out) for a caravan to Mecca

[MECCA - PAPER CARAVAN CUT-OUTS]. Carawane nach Mecca.
Vienna, Matthias Trentsensky (printed by E. Sieger), ca. 1855. Oblong folio (25 x 40 cm). With 19 (of 24) numbered leaves containing about 135 lithographic pen-drawings, each drawing including a base so that one can cut them out, paste them on card stock, stand them up and arrange them in three-dimensional scenes. Loose leaves in a later paper folder. ll. 6-24 (of 24). Full description

€ 8,500

Catherine de' Medici and the Ottoman Sultan Murad III

[LETTER - SIGNED]. MEDICI, Catherine de'. [Letter to Jacques de Germigny in Constantinople (Istanbul)].
Chenonceaux, 2 September 1584. Folio (34 x 24 cm). Signed letter in French, in brown ink on paper, written in a clear gothic hand. Folded for sending and addressed on the outside, with a slot for a ribbon and traces of a red wax seal. [1], [3 blank (except for address)] pp. Full description

€ 12,500

The first Roman geography of the world, including the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf,
in the rare 1502 edition of its first accurate printed text

MELA, Pomponius. De situ orbis Hermolai Barbari fideliter emendatus.
[Venice], (colophon: printed by Albertino da Vercelli, 14 May 1502). Small 4to (20.5 x 15.5 cm). With printed guide letters left for manuscript initials (not filled in). Gold-tooled red half sheepskin (ca. 1820?). XXIIII ll. Full description

€ 6,500

Satire disguising the French elite as Arabs

MELON, Jean-François. Mahmoud le Gasnevide, histoire orientale. Fragment traduit de l'Arabe, avec des notes.
Rotterdam, Jean Hofhoudt, 1730. 8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, gold-tooled spine, boards, board edges and turn-ins, both boards with the gold-tooled coat of arms of Louis Marie Alexandre, Duc d'Aumont, gilt edges. [2], VI, 162, [4] pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Very rare important history on the recovery of Egypt from the French by Muhammad Ali Pasha

MENGIN, Felix. Geschiedenis van Egypte, onder de regering van Mohammed-Ali of verhaal der staatkundige en militaire gebeurtenissen, die plaats gehad hebben sedert het vertrek der Franschen tot in 1823.
Amsterdam, Johannes Christoffel van Kesteren, 1828. 2 volumes. 8vo. With 8 engraved plates and 2 engraved folding maps. Contemporary half sheepskin, marbled sides, red morocco spine label with title in gold. [2], XL, 462, [1], [1 blank]; [4], 515, [1] pp. Full description

€ 1,750

8 extremely rare sets of French Republican regulations for Egypt, promulgated by General "Abdallah" Menou, printed on the first printing press of the Arabic-speaking world

MENOU, Jacques-François ("Abdallah") de Boussay de. Copie de lordre du général en chef ... 5 Fructidor an 8 [= 23 August 1800] [and six more to] 16 Brumaire an 9 [= 7 November 1800].
Cairo, Imprimerie Nationale, [23 August - 7 November 1800]. Folio (22 x 31.5 cm). 8 sets of regulations issued in 10 weeks, printed in French and Arabic in two parallel columns, each set with 2 to 24 pages. Each with a drop title with a woodcut vignette (either of 2 different blocks) representing the French Republic personified as Marianne with the motto "Liberté Egalité". [24]; [16]; [2]; [3], [1 blank]; [4]; [10]; [6]; [2] pp. Full description

€ 28,000

Life (and death in Morocco) of King Sebastião I of Portugal (1554-1578)

MESA, Sebastian de. Jornada de Africa por el Rey Don Sebastian y union del reyno de Portugal a la corona de Castilla.
Barcelona, Pedro Lacavalleria, 1630. 4to. Each page framed with thin printed rules. Contemporary gold-tooled leather (blackened and flaking), each board with the helmed and mantled arms of the Mazarin family in the centre. [2], 169, [1] ll. Full description

€ 12,000

Field guide for officers during the Mesopotamian campaign (1914-1918), with a folding map

[MESOPOTAMIA]. [Indian Army General Staff]. For official use only. Field notes. Mesopotamia. General staff, India. February 1917.Including: Index to field notes, Mesopotamia, 1917.
Calcutta, Superintended government printing, 1917. Small 8vo. With 1 folding heliozincographed map of "Lower Mesopotamia", with some routes in red, and three folding letterpress tables. Original green cloth. [3], [1], 326(=325), [1]; [1], [1 blank], XX pp. Full description

€ 6,500

by the esteemed Arabic physician Masawaih al-Mardini">"The most popular compendium of drugs in medieval Europe"
by the esteemed Arabic physician Masawaih al-Mardini

MESUE the younger (MASAWAIH AL-MARDINI). Opera. De medicamentorum purgantium delectu, castigatione, & usu, libri duo ...
Venice, Lucantonio Giunta, 1581. 2 parts in 1 volume. Folio (23 x 34 cm). With 39 woodcut illustrations in the text. Near-contemporary vellum, black morocco spine label with title in gold. [8], 272; [6], 277, [1 blank], [12] ll. Full description

€ 8,500

A landmark in Arabic ophthalmology: an 11th-century cataract operation by one of the most important Arab oculists

'AMMAR IBN 'ALI AL-MAWSILI (Max MEYERHOF, translator). Las operaciones de catarata de 'Ammâr ibn 'Alî al-Mausilî. [= The cataract operations of ... = Les opérations de cataracte de ... = Die Staroperationen des ...]
El Masnou (Barcelona province), Laboratorios del Norte de España, 1937. Large 8vo. With the text printed in Spanish, English, French and German, each with its own title-page and each with some passages in Arabic (set in Arabic type). With 6 photographs of the original Arabic manuscript bound at the end of the book. The main text for each language opens with a coloured decorated initial, mounted on the first page. With the device of the Laboratorios del Norte de España at the end. Original publisher's printed wrappers. [2 blank], 110, [2 blank], [16], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Enormous panoramic Middle Eastern view with ruins, nearly 6 metres long

[VIEW - MIDDLE EAST]. [Mountainous landscape with Middle Eastern and classical Roman ruins, 6 shepherds with their flocks, several figures riding dromedaries and one riding a donkey, (date?) palms, lakes, etc.].
[Palestine?, ca. 1910?]. An enormous panoramic view drawn in coloured gouaches on a single, continuous roll of paper (70 x 583 cm), the drawing running to the edges of the paper. Full description

€ 35,000

A monthly promoting dialogue between Arabs and Jews

[MIDDLE EAST]. New outlook: Middle East monthly.
Tel Aviv, Tazpioth, 1957-1975. 18 instalments, plus 1 duplicate. 8vo. Original wrappers. Full description

€ 1,250

Middle East through North American eyes

MIDDLE EAST STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERCA. Middle East Studies Association Bulletin [8 issues].
New York, Middle East Studies Association of North America, 1973-1978. 8 volumes. Each volume ca. 100 pp. Full description

€ 650

Original watercolours of military men and related people 1757-1852 in the realms
of what was to become the Austro-Hungarian Empire

[MILITARY UNIFORMS]. [Military and quasi-military uniforms, portraits and scenes of battles, uprisings etc.].
[Austria or Saxony?, ca. 1870?]. Large folio album (39 x 30.5 cm). With 84 large watercolour drawings (28 x 16 cm to 25.5 x 36 cm) on wove paper, with captions in German and/or French, mounted on the (ca. 1962) album leaves, and with the coat of arms of Von Lindeman(n) of Sachsen-Anhalt (in coloured gouaches plus gold) mounted on the first page. Early 20th-century(?) half tanned sheepskin. [44] album ll. Full description

€ 35,000

Best edition of a standard work on Islam

MILLS, Charles. An history of Muhammedanism: comprising the life and character of the Arabian prophet, and succinct accounts of the empires founded by the Muhammedan arms: an inquiry into the theology, morality, laws, literature, and usages of the Muselmans, and a view of the present state and extent of the Muhammedan religion.
London, Printed for Black, Kingsbury, Parbury, and Allen, booksellers (back of title-page: printed by Cox and Baylis), 1818. 8vo. Contemporary red half sheepskin. [2], XXI, [1 blank], 484, [12 blank] pp. Full description

€ 750

Rare first editions of an Aleppo dialogue on medicinal barley infusions (1584/91)
and a surgical handbook (1612)

MINADOI, Giovanni Tommaso. Philodicus, sive Dialogus de ptisana, ...
Venice, "ad signum Leonis" [= heirs of Curzio Troiano Navò], 1591 [all but the prelims printed by Francesco Osanna, Mantua, 1584]. With title-page in an illustrated woodcut border (showing equipment for distilling, forging and other trades plus in a cartouche at the foot Navò's rampant lion device).
With: (2) PARMA, Ippolito. Introductionis ad chirurgiam libri duo. ...
Padova, Pietro Paolo Tozzi (printed by Lorenzo Pasquato), 1612. With Tozzi's(?) woodcut Minerva device on the title-page. 2 works in 1 volume. 4to. Half calf (French, ca. 1750), gold-tooled spine. [8], 124, [2 blank]; [8], 196 pp. Full description

€ 12,500

First edition, beautifully produced, of a very popular and influential book of secrets

MIZAULD, Antoine. Memorabilium, utiliu[m], ac jucundorum centuriae novem, in aphorismos arcanorum omnis generis locupletes, perpulchrè digestae.
Paris, Fédéric Morel, 1566. 8vo. With Morel's woodcut tree device on the title-page, 2 woodcut headpieces and 7 woodcut decorated initials (plus 3 repeats), the headpieces and initials in an unusually delicate design, finely executed. Set in italic types with the preliminaries in roman, and incidental Greek. 17th-century limp sheepskin parchment. [16], 136 pp. Full description

€ 2,250

A history of the British, Dutch and Portuguese colonial activities in the East Indies

MÖKERN, Philipp van. Ostindien, seine Geschichte, Cultur und seine Bewohner. Resultate eigener Forschungen und Beobachtungen an Ort und Stelle. Deutsche Original-Ausgabe.
Leipzig, Hermann Costenoble, 1857. 2 parts in 1 volume. 8vo. Contemporary half sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. XII, 395; [6], 327 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

First specimen of 2 Arabic printing types, by a great French punchcutter directed by France's leading orientalist

MOLÉ, Joseph. Épreuves de caractères Arabes, gravés et fondus par Molé Jeune, sous la direction de M. L. Langlès.
Paris, (back of title-page: Imprimerie d'Éverat), 1823. 4to. Modern boards. 14 ll. Full description

€ 12,500

The pinnacle of Coptic church architecture in Egypt:
the churches the Red and White Monastery near Sohag

MONNERET DE VILLARD, Ugo. Les couvents près de Sohâg (Deyr el-Abiad et Deyr el-Ahmar).
Milan, Tipografia Pontif. Arciv. S. Giuseppe, 1925-1926. 2 volumes. 4to. With 222 numbered illustrations on coated paper (photographic half-tone views, and architectural plans reproduced sometimes in line and sometimes in half-tone) bound at the end of each volume, and numerous small line illustrations printed with the text. Contemporary half green cloth, beige paper sides, grey endpapers. 135, [5] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

First complete edition of Cosmas's Christiana topographia describing his travels
in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf

MONTFAUCON, Bernard de (editor). Collectio nova patrum et scriptorum Graecorum, Eusebii Caesariensis, Athanasii, & Cosmae Aegyptii.
Paris, Claudius Rigaud, 1707. 2 volumes. Folio. With 4 engraved plates, and 3 woodcut illustrations in the text. Each volume with an engraved headpiece, the first incorporating the coat of arms of Pope Clement XI, and the second that of Jean-Paul Bignon. Contemporary calf, richly gold-tooled spine and binding edges. [14], XL, [1], [1 blank], 732, [26], [2 blank]; [16], LXVIII, 112, [2], I-XXIV, 113-593, [26], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 25,000

Ship's journal from Seychelles and Madagascar,
with numerous maps and earlier illustrated anatomical lecture notes

[MANUSCRIPT - SHIP'S JOURNAL]. MORSE, Edward George. A journal of remarks and observations as kept by E. G. M. . ..
[mostly on board the barque Sarah of London], April 1831-14 March 1833 (with additions to 1835). with an engraved view as frontispiece, 15 full-page, 1 nearly full-page and 1 smaller manuscript maps and coastal profiles, plus a small engraved view ("Tomb of Napoleon") mounted on 1 page.
Including: MORSE, Edward George. Lecture Book [notes on anatomical lectures by Joseph Constantine Carpue].
[London], November-December 1828. with a matching pair of engravings of a scull on and facing the title-page, and 27 pencil and/or ink anatomical drawings (including 2 full-page), some also with red. 4to (19.5×16.5 cm). Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [191] ll. Including paste-downs and about 55 blanks. Full description

€ 35,000

Loans by the UK for major infrastructure development in Jordan

MU'AMMAR, Sayid Ya'coub; B.L. STRACHAN. Exchange of notes concerning an interest-free development loan by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
London, Her Majestys Stationery Office, 1970. 4to. With the UK coat-of-arms on title-page. Text in English and Arabic in naskh type. Stapled. 8 pp. Full description

€ 450

For official use only: Royal Navy wartime handbook on Iraq and the Persian Gulf

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION. [MASON, Kenneth, a.o.]. Iraq and the Persian Gulf. September 1944. B.R. 524 (restricted) geographical handbook series for official use only.
[Oxford,] Naval Intelligence division, 1944. 8vo. With numerous diagrams, reproductions of photographs and (folding) maps, including a loose map in the pocket at the back. Publisher's green cloth. 682 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Navigating the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

[NAVIGATION - RED SEA]. Red Sea and Gulf of Aden pilot comprising the Suez canal, the gulfs of Suez and 'Aqaba, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, ...
Including: Supplement no. 1-1957 relating to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden pilot, tenth edition ...
London, published by the Hydrographic Department, Admiralty, 1955-1957. 8vo. With a folding map (printed on both sides), 2 coloured plates with diagrams (printed on both sides), 28 plates showing coastlines and occasionally a map (many printed on both sides), and many some illustrations in text. Original blue cloth; supplement with original printed paper wrappers. LI, [1 blank], 518, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,750

Eyewitness account of the horrors of the Napoleonic campaigns:
Germany, Poland, Moldavia & Turkey in aquatint

NEALE, Adam. Travels through some parts of Germany, Poland, Moldavia, and Turkey.
London, (back of title-page: printed by A. Straham), 1818. 4to. With 15 hand-coloured aquatints on 11 plates by I. Clark after drawings by author. 19th-century half morocco (Root bookbinders, London), richly gold-tooled spine. XIII, 295 pp. Full description

€ 1,950

1728 treaty between the Dutch Republic and the semi-autonomous state of Tripoli

[NETHERLANDS - STATES GENERAL - TREATY]. Tractaat tusschen haar hoog mog. de Heeren Staten Generaal der Vereenigde Nederlanden, en de regeeringe van Tripoli. Geslooten in het jaar 1728.
The Hague, Jacobus Scheltus II, 1729. 4to. Modern paper-covered boards. 8 pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Two Hellenistic hexametric poems on antidotes to poisons

NICANDER of Colophon. Theriaca.
Including:
NICANDER of Colophon. Alexipharmaca.
-In Nicander Theriaca scholia auctoris incerti, et vetusta et utilia. In eiusdem Alexipharmaca diversorum auctorum scholia.
Paris, Morelius, 1557. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. Each part with its own title-page, with a woodcut caduceus device on all three. Set in roman and Greek types. 17th-century(?) richly gold-tooled red morocco, gilt edges; subtly rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down. [8], “225”[=215], [1 blank]; “80”[=72] pp. Full description

€ 5,000

First German edition of the first independent gemological book by a British author

NICOLS, Thomas. Edelgestein-Büchlein, oder Beschreibung der Edelgesteine. Derer Gestalt, Kräffte und Tugenden, Eigenschafften, Preis und Werth. Samt bengefügten Warnungen für Betrug an alle diejenigen, so mit Edelsteinenen handeln und umbgehen ... Übersetzet und herausgegeben von Johann Langen.
Hamburg, Johann Naumans and Georg Wolff, 1675. 8vo. Contemporary vellum. [16], 249, [7] pp. Full description

€ 1,700

Second German edition of the first independent gemological book by a British author

NICOLS, Thomas. Beschreibung der Steine sowohl Edel als Gemeine. Darinnen derer Gestalt, Kräffte, Tugenden, Medicin, Eigenschafften, Preiss und Werth auf das Deutliches gezeiget wird. Samt beygesetzten Warnungen sich fuer derer Verfaelschung wohl zu hueten wegen seiner Fuertrefflichkeit.
Culmbach, for Nathanael Lumscher, by Friedrich Elias Dietzel, 1734. 8vo. Modern beige sheepskin. 16, 274, [14] pp. Full description

€ 900

A superb set of two lavishly illustrated descriptions of Arabia and the Middle East

NIEBUHR, Carsten. Beschryving van Arabie.
Amsterdam, Steven Jacobus Baalde; Utrecht, Johannes van Schoonhoven & comp. (colophon: printed by Johan Joseph Besseling, Utrecht), 1774. With engraved title-page and 25 engraved plates, including 7 folding showing 1 view of military exercises, 2 Kufic inscriptions (coloured by hand) and 4 maps. The unnumbered map of Yemen (plate size 58.5 x 39 cm) is coloured by hand in outline.
With: (2) NIEBUHR, Carsten. Reize naar Arabië en andere omliggende landen.
Amsterdam, Steven Jacobus Baalde; Utrecht, Johannes van Schoonhoven & comp. (colophons: printed by Johan Joseph Besseling, Utrecht), 1776-1780. With 2 engraved title-pages and 125 engraved plates (38 folding). 2 works in 3 volumes. Large 4to (28.5 x 22.5 cm). Contemporary sprinkled and polished half calf. Untrimmed. [6], XXXXI, [1], 408, [14]; [2], VIII, [6], 484, [2]; [16], 455, [1] pp. Full description

€ 10,000

Important contribution to the study of the Middle East

NIEBUHR, Carsten. Voyage en Arabie & en d'autres pays circonvoisins. Tome premier[- second]. Traduit de l'Allemand.
Amsterdam, Steven Jacobus Baalde; Utrecht, Barthelemy Wild (colophon: printed by Joh. Jos. Besseling, Utrecht, 1775), 1775-1780. 2 volumes. 4to. With 2 engraved integral title-pages, 124 engraved plates (many folding) and a folding map of Yemen (in partial colour). Contemporary gold-tooled calf. VIII, [6], 409, [1], [1 blank]; VI, [10], 389, [1] pp. Full description

€ 6,000

Early Western printing in Aden: Arab dictionary

NORBURY, Paul Fitzgerald. An abridged Arabic grammar with one hundred and fifty simple conversational scentences and a vocabulary of two thousand five hundred words.
Aden, printed at the Aden Special Prison Press, [1917]. Square 8vo. Printed in English and Arabic type. With a tipped-in paper slip on the title-page: "Since the issue of the first edition it has been possible to test this grammar in regard to its utility in Mesopotamia. The result has been to confirm the correctness of the claim made in para four of the preface". Original publisher's printed hard board covers with red cloth spine. IV, 68 pp. Full description

€ 850

Rare handbooks of the British naval intelligence division on Arabia, Palestine, and Syria

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION. Syria. April 1943.
With:
(2) IDEM. Palestine and Transjordan. December 1943.
(3) IDEM. Western Arabia and the Red Sea. June 1943.
Stationery Office, University Press Oxford, 1943-1946.
3 volumes. Many plates, tables and photographs. Each volume including separate fold-out maps, one in colour. Contemporary green cloth with the title in gold on the front boards and the spines. [2], XVI, 485, [1]; [2], XV, [1], 621, [1]; [2], XIX, [1], 659, [1] pp. Full description

€ 1,750

British India's foreign trade during the years 1874-1884

O'CONOR, James Edward. Review of the accounts of the trade and navigation of India for 1874-75, as compared with previous years.
Calcutta, Office of the superintendent of government printing, 1876.
With:
(2) Memorandum reviewing the accounts of the trade and navigation of British India for 1875-76. Dated the 24th February 1877.
[Calcutta?], Government central press, 1877.
(3) Review of the trade of British India for the official year 1876-77.Calcutta, 25 October1877.
(4) Review of the trade of British India with other countries, for the official year 1878-1879.
[Calcutta?], Government central press, 1879.
(5) Review of the maritime trade of British India with other countries for the official year 1879-80.Calcutta, office of the superintendent of government printing, 1880.
(6) Review of the maritime trade of British India with other countries for the official year 1880-81.Calcutta, office of the superintendent of government printing, 1881.
(7) Review of the maritime trade of British India with other countries for the official year 1881-82.Calcutta, office of the superintendent of government printing, 1882.
(8) Review of the accounts of the sea-borne foreign trade of British India for the official year ending 31st March 1883.Simla, Government central branch press, 1883.
(9) Review of the accounts of the sea-borne foreign trade of British India for the official year ending 31st March 1884.Simla, Government central branch press, 1884.
9 parts in 1 volume. Folio. Near contemporary red cloth. Full description

€ 6,500

The history of the Austro-Hungarian region from 1395-1612

OERTEL (ORTELIUS), Hieronymus. Chronologia oder historische Beschreibung aller Kriegsempörungen unnd Belägerungen der Stätt und Vestungen auch Scharmützeln und Schlachten so in Ober und Unter Ungern auch Siebenbürgen mit dem Turcken von Ao. 1395 biss auff gegenwertige Zeit denckhwürtig geschehen.
Nuremberg, Christoff Lochner for Johann Sibmacher, 1604.
With:
(2) OERTEL, Hieronymus. Continuatio des Hungerischen und Sibenbürgischen Kriegwesens vom 1. Januari anno 1603 bis auf jetziges 1604.
Nuremberg, Christoff Lochner for Johann Sibmacher, 1604. With engraved title in elaborately decorated border with cavalry, arms and armour, large engraved folding map (28×51 cm), 30 double-page engraved views, 26 full-page engraved portraits, woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces.
(3) OERTEL, Hieronymus. Viertter Thail des Hungerischen und Sibenbürgischen Kriegswesens, was sich seithero Anno 1604 bis auf Ao. 1607 inn der ausgestandnen Rebellion mit dem Türcken, Rebellen und ihrem Anhang . . . zugetragen . . .
[Nuremberg, ca. 1613]. With engraved title-page, and engraved portrait of the author signed "H.V."
(4) OERTEL, Hieronymus. Appendix partis quartae Chronologiae Ungaricae, das ist; warhafftige ausführliche historische Beschreibung: was gestallt der aller durchleuchtigist Fürst und Herr herr Matthias Ertz Herzog zu Oesterreich, etc. Montags den 19 Novembris anno 1608 . . . und zum Römischen Kayser erkäret worden (ist; 1612) . . .
Nuremberg, Wolffgang Endter for the heirs of the author, 1622. With engraved portrait of author on the back of the title-page, and a folding engraved plate showing cavalry. 4 volumes bound as 1. 4to. Contemporary vellum. [6], 581, [34], [10]; [2], 35, [1]; [12], 195, [12]; [2], 302, [7] pp. Full description

€ 17,500

Statistics on the world's oil production

[OIL]. IMPERIAL MINERAL RESOURCES BUREAU. The mineral industry of the British Empire and foreign countries. War period. Gypsum (1913-1919).
With:
(2) Strontium minerals (1913-1919).
(3) Molybdenum (1913-1919).
(4) Silver (1913-1919).
(5) Graphite (1913-1919).
(6) Petroleum and allied products. (1913-1919).
London, His Majesty's stationery office, 1923. 6 works in 1 volume. Contemporary red cloth, paper title-label on spine. IV, 31, [1 blank]; 12; 87, [1 blank]; 218; 57, [1 blank]; 296 pp. Full description

€ 375

Extensive article on the Middle East oil industry around 1948

[OIL - MIDDLE EAST]. The Petroleum Times. [drop-title]: Review of Middle East oil. A comprehensive illustrated review of all aspects of current developments based on a recent extended tour by Dr. C.T. Barber, ...
London, Brettenhem house, June 1948. 30 x 23.5 cm. With many reproductions of photographs, ground plans, maps, and cross-sections. Later cardboard binder. V-XXX, 115, XXXA-XLVI pp. Full description

€ 1,750

The only Portuguese manual on the typesetting of Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, for compositors of the royal printing office in Lisbon

OLIVEIRA, Custodio José de. Diagnosis typografica dos caracteres gregos, hebraicos, e arabigos, addiccionada com algumas notas sobre a divisão orthografica da linguage latina, e outras da Europa, ...
Lisbon, Impressão Regia, 1804. 4to. Text set in roman, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic type. With a small Portuguese woodcut coat of arms on the title-page and 4 engraved plates on 2 leaves bound at the end of the book. Later blue paper wrappers. 72, [14], VIII pp. plus [2] ll. with engravings. Full description

€ 4,850

Prospectus for the first professional journal for Islamic studies and the Middle East

[JOURNAL FOR ORIENTAL STUDIES - PROSPECTUS]. Mines de l'Orient, exploitées par une société d'amateurs.
Vienna, Antoine Schmid, 1809. Folio. Folded, strengthened with a decorated paper strip. 10 pp. Full description

€ 2,250

The learnedness of Middle Eastern rulers; forty dissertations

[ORIENTAL STUDIES IN SCANDINAVIA]. [A collection of 38 academic theses plus 2 duplicates].
Lund, Uppsala, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Turku, 1747-1854. 40 volumes. Mostly 4to. Full description

€ 18,000

Propaganda poster for the unity of Arab peoples and the nationalization of oil

[OSPAAAL]. MARTINEZ, Olivio. Unity of the Arab peoples - Nationalization of oil.
[Cuba, 1972]. Poster (ca. 52.5 x 32.5 cm) printed in black and red, with an image of four armed Arabian horsemen, with Arabic text above and below, and with the title in Spanish, French and English at the foot of the poster, together with the logo of the OSPAAAL. Full description

€ 1,500

Austrian commerce under Ottoman law

[OTTOMAN EMPIRE]. [Collection of treaty articles relating to commercial transactions of subjects of the Austrian state in the Ottoman Empire]. Avusturya devleti tebaasinin Memalik-i Osmaniyede ticaretlerine ait mevadd-i ahdiyye mecmuasidir.
Vienna, Dar tiba al-imberaturiyy (k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei), 1846. Large 8vo. Printed in black with red headings, within printed gilt rules. Illuminated head-piece and 'unwan printed in three colours and gilt, in imitation of manuscript illumination. Gilt tail-piece. Contemporary green morocco binding with fore-edge flap, covers giltstamped with an oriental design. All edges gilt. 88 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

The Ottoman-Mamluk war and the conquest of Mecca and Medina

[OTTOMAN-MAMLUK WAR]. Omnia que gesta sunt in Orie[n]te inter Sophi & Maximum Turcarum & Suldanum, & que[m]admodum dux Turcaru[m] caepit Alepum & Damascum & Hierusalem cum om[n]ibus circumiace[n]tibus oppidis, & quo[rum] maximus Turcaru[m] voluit audire una[m] missam apud sanctu[m] sepulchru[m] Iesu Christi.
[Basel, Pamphilus Gengenbach, 1518]. 4to. With woodcut illustration on title-page. 19th-century pink wrappers. [6], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 35,000

Illustrated first edition of the Dutch translation of "Der goldene Thron", intended for women & men

OTTO VAN PASSAU. Boeck des gulden throene of der xxiiij ouden.
Utrecht, "tC", (30 March) 1480. Folio. With 24 illustrations in text (ca. 9 x 6.2 cm), printed from 1 complete woodcut (plus 4 repeats) and 15 components assembled in different combinations, all rubricated and with architectural frames. Each of the 24 chapters begins with a large manuscript initial, 11 with two or more colours and others with interior white decoration. A smaller initial with penwork opens the book's first page and there are numerous further 1-line and 2-line initials. Woodcut printer's device at the end. Contemporary (Utrecht?) blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each board in a panel design; rebacked. [4], 197 ll. Full description

€ 185,000

"For Official Use Only."

PAGET, William Henry, MASON, A. H. & others (editors). Frontier and overseas expeditions from India. Compiled in the intelligence branch of the divisions of the chief of the staff army head quarters India. In six volumes. For official use only.
Simla, Government Monotype Press, 1907-1911. 8 volumes (6 plus 2 supplements). 8vo. With 43 maps and 8 plans.
Uniform contemporary half calf, green cloth sides, gold-stamped spine labels. Full description

€ 75,000

First work on pharmaceutical chemistry written in Spanish, with 5 engraved plates

PALACIOS, Felix. Palestra pharmaceutica, chymico-galenica, en la qual se trata de la eleccion de los simples, sus preparaciones chymicas, y galenicas, y de las mas selectas composiciones antiguas, y modernas, usuales, tanto en Madrid, como en toda Europa, descritas por los antiguos, y modernos, con las anotaciones necesarias, y mas nuevas, que hasta lo presente se han escrito, tocantes à su perfecta elaboracion, virtudes, y mejor aplicacion en los enfermos. Obra muy util, y necesaria para todos los profesores de la medicina, medicos, cirujanos, y en particular boticarios; muy anadida en esta tercera impression.
Madrid, heirs of Juan Garcia Infanzon, 1737. Folio. With the title-page in a border built up from cast fleurons, and 5 engraved plates.Contemporary sheepskin parchment; recased, with later endpapers. [12], 708, [28] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Detailed report on British-controlled Palestine and Transjordan

[PALESTINE]. UNITED KINGDOM COLONIAL OFFICE. Report by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the Year 1932 ... Colonial no. 82, 58-82.
London, His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1933. 4to in 16s. With two folding maps showing parts of the Palestine territory that had been surveyed in detail.Original publisher's printed wrappers. XII, 267 pp. Full description

€ 2,250

Pills, cheese and medical ethics in the 15th-century

PANTALEONE DI CONFIENZA (CONFLUENTIA). Pillularium omnibus medicis quam necessarium ... Summa lacticiniorum completa omnibus idonea.
Including: ZERBI, Gabriele. Cautele medicorum no[n] inutiles.
(Colophon: Lyon, Antoine Blanchard [and Laurent Hyllaire], 7 January 1525[=1526]). Small 4to (20 x 14 cm). Title-page with a 4-piece woodcut border (using material from Laurent Hylaire). Modern limp sheepskin parchment. XXXVIII, [2] ll. Full description

€ 8,500

Richly illustrated work on astronomy and the modernization of the Islamic calculation of time, together with a very rare appendix

PASHA, Ahmed Muhtar Riyaz ül-muhtar, mirat ül-mikat ve 'l-edvar.
Cairo, Bulaq Matbaasi, 1303-1313 AH [= 1885-1896 CE]. 3 volumes bound as 1 (plates, text, and appendix). Large 4to (29.5 x 21 cm). Text in Ottoman Turkish, set in a naskh Arabic type, most pages in a thin-thick-thin-rule frame. With a separate title-page and 36 full-page, numbered plates (including 1 double-page) on 36 leaves at the beginning of the book and 1 folding plate at the end. Later elaborately gold- and blind-tooled brown calf, each board with a blind ornamental frame with corner pieces and a gold centre piece. Spine with the title in gold Arabic lettering in the 2nd of 6 compartments, the other 5 with blind ornaments and gold fillets on the 5 raised bands, marbled endpapers, red ribbon marker. [10], 378, [1 blank]; 58 pp. Full description

€ 8,500

Practical handbook for Venetian merchants

PASI, Bartolomeo. Tariffa de i pesi, e misure corrispondenti dal Levante al Ponente: e da una terra, e luogo allaltro, quasi p[er] tutte le parti dil mondo: con la dichiaratione, e notificatione di tutte le robbe: che si tragono di uno paese per laltro ... Con la sua tavola copiosissima, e facilissima a trovare ogni cosa per ordine.
Venice, (colophon: Pietro di Nicolini da Sabbio), 1540. 8vo. With the title in an architectural woodcut border. 17th-century limp sheepskin parchment. [11], [1 blank] 200 ll. Full description

€ 12,000

On agriculture in the Middle East and the Levant

PAULSEN, Hermann Christian. Echte berichten van den akkerbouw der oostersche volkeren, ter opheldering van veele schriftuurplaatsen, ... uit de oostersche reisbeschryvingen vezamelt.
Leiden, Johannes le Mair, 1762. 8vo. With 4 engraved plates. Contemporary vellum. [66], 287, [15], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

4 editions (1528-1531) containing 6 works on pharmacology, herbal medicine and magical gems,
in blind-tooled pigskin (near Freiburg ca. 1570?)

PAULUS OF AEGINA (ed. by Otto BRUNFELS and Wilhelm KOPP). Pharmaca simplicia, Orthone Brunfelsio interprete.
Including: De ratione victus Gukielmo Copo Basiliensi interprete.
(Colophon: Strasbourg, Georg Ulricher, September 1531). With a finely executed woodcut on the title-page repeated on the verso of the otherwise blank last leaf.
With:
(2) VALLA, Giorgio. De simplicium natura liber unus.
Strasbourg, Heinrich Sybold, (colophon: August 1528). With the title in a woodcut architectural frame.
(3) ODO OF MEUNG (misattributed to Aemilius MACER). De herbarum virtutibus, cum Joannis Atrociani co[m]mentariis, ...
Including: STRABO, Walafrid. Hortulus vernantissimus.
Freiburg im Breisgau, (colophon: Johann Faber, 1530).
(4) MARBOD OF ANJOU (with notes and additions by Georg PICTORIUS). De lapidibus pretiosis encheridion, cum scholiis Pictorii Villingensis. Eiusdem Pictorii De lapide molari carmen.
[Freiburg im Breisgau], [Johan Faber], 1531. With a woodcut initial with pictorial decoration. Set in an Aldine-style italic.
4 editions containing 6 works, in 1 volume. 8vo (16.5 x 11 cm). Blind -tooled pigskin (Freibrug or vicinity? ca. 1570?) over tapered wooden boards, each board with fields edged by multiple fillets, the outer field containing a frame made from a large roll with allegorical female figures representing the four theological virtues. The front board with owner's initials "A W", and with 2 engraved brass fastenings. [12], 86, [1 blank], [1]; [104]; [4], 108; 55, [1] ll. Full description

€ 45,000

Pen and ink wash drawing of the harbour of the Ottoman port city Edremit

[OTTOMAN PORT]. [PEETERS, Johannes (Jan) (after)]. [Ladimistri nel' archipelago].
[The Netherlands(?), ca. 1720?]. Oblong folio (19.5 x 31.5 cm). Pen and blue-black ink-wash drawing on laid paper, showing the city of Edremit, its harbour and fortifications, with an Ottoman and a Dutch(?) ship, and a lighthouse, in a brown thick-thin-thin border, signed in the border below right, but difficult to read (I. P. Sto...?, I. P. Ste...?). Framed (37 x 49 cm). Full description

€ 2,750

Enlarged Plantin issue of a pioneering classic of botany, with about 307 excellent woodcuts

PENA, Pierre and Matthias de LOBEL. Nova stirpium adversaria.
Antwerp, Christoffel Plantin, 1576. Small folio, index large 4to (29 x 20 cm). Title-page with an elaborately decorated woodcut architectural frame and about 307 (of about 317) woodcut botanical illustrations. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [4], 471, [1 blank], 15, [1 blank], 24, [12 (of 16)] pp. Full description

€ 12,500

An exceptional series of 50 meticulously executed miniatures

[PERSIAN MINIATURES]. A series of miniatures showing Persian scribes.
Persia, mid-Qajar period, [soon after 1852]. Folio (32 x 21 cm). 50 watercolour miniatures on paper, ca. 9 x 14 cm, pasted on coloured paperboard within multiple-rule frames in gold and black ink, bound as a fan-fold book with cloth hinges. Near-contemporary black leather, stored in a blind-stamped black slipcase with a flap at the head. Full description

€ 75,000

First edition of the collected works of a seminal education reformer

PESTALOZZI, Johann Heinrich. Sämmtliche Schriften.
Stuttgart, Tübingen, J.G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, 1819-1826. 15 volumes. 8vo. With folding leaf of music in the first volume and mathematical figures on 5 folding engraved plates in volume 15. Contemporary half calf, gold-tooled spine. Ca. 400 pp. each vol. Full description

€ 4,950

Trade in Venetian cloth in early 18th-century Cairo

[AUTOGRAPH]. [PETEA(?)], Michiel. [Letter, signed, to Nicolò Caragiani in Venice concerning the trading conditions in Cairo for different woolen and silk fabrics].
Cairo, 22 October 1732. Manuscript letter in Italian, opening with a duplicate of an earlier letter, in a different hand, dated 26 September 1732, written in ink on one page of a bifolium originally folded 4 more times for sending (to 8.5 x 14 cm) with the address on one side and traces of a red wax on the other. Full description

€ 3,500

Western tourists in Israel shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967 captured by a Dutch photographer

[PHOTOGRAPHY - THIRD ARAB-ISRAELI WAR - ISRAEL] DONY, Bianca. [Album with photographs showing parts of Israeli captured territories including the Golan Heights, the West Bank, parts of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula].
Israel, 1967. Oblong album (ca. 20 x 26 cm); photographs in slightly varying sizes (ca. 18.5 x 24 cm). 44 silver gelatin photographs (including 2 duplicates and 1 other loosely inserted). Grey faux-leather photo album with a small white label on the front board: "42 x Israël 1967 23-24-25 Juli". 44 photographs in an album with 30 clear plastic inserts. Full description

€ 4,500

Only published edition of the original 1521 text of the navigation book of the great Ottoman admiral

PIRI REIS (Paul KAHLE, ed.). Bahrije. Das türkische Segelhandbuch für das Mittelländische Meer vom Jahre 1521.
Berlin and Leipzig, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1926-1927. 3 volumes. Large 8vo (26 x 18 cm). Volume 1 with 137 reproductions of manuscript pages of Ottoman Turkish text and maps and volume 2 with 4 plates. Publisher's original printed wrappers. [1], [1 blank], [2] pp. + 64 ll. + [4], [1 blank], [1] pp.; ll. 65-137; [1], [1 blank], XLVIII, 88 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Detailed studies of plague outbreaks in the Middle East

[PLAGUE]. Papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague; prepared from time to time by direction of the president to the local government board, with other papers. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1879. C.-2262.
London, George Edward Eyre & William Spottiswoode, 1879. Folio. With two folding lithographed maps, one centered on the Middle East and the other detailing the seats of the plague in Mesopotamia and south-west Persia.Original publishers blue printed paper wrappers. [2], 76 pp. Full description

€ 4,500

The second edition in English, by the greatest translator of the Elizabethan age

PLINIUS Secundus, Gaius (Pliny the Elder) The Historie of the World, commonly called the Naturall Historie.
London, Adam Islip, 1634. 2 parts in one volume. Folio (23.5 x 32 cm). Elaborate woodcut device on title-page; woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary calf, spine in six compartments, tooled and lettered in gilt. (58), 614, (42) pp. (12), 632, (86) pp. Full description

€ 15,000

Pliny's “Historia naturalis”, edited by Caesarius, friend of Erasmus

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Gaius. Naturalis historiae opus ...
(Colophon: Cologne, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1524.) Folio. With both title-page and part-title in a decorated woodcut border in four pieces. Calf (ca. 1700?), with gold-tooled spine; rebacked with original backstrip laid down. [16], 311, [60] ll. Full description

€ 22,500

Pliny's Natural history, annotated by the Italian scholar Hermolaus Barberus

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Gaius. Opus divinum, cui titulus historiae naturalis, multoqua[m] antehac unqua[m] prodiit in luce[m] castigatius, una cu[m] annotationibus Hermanolai Barbari ...
Paris, Jean Petit (colophon: Nicolaus Sauetier), 1526. 2 parts in 1 volume (bound in reverse order). Folio. With title-page to the main work (bound second) printed in red and black and title-page to the index (bound first), each in a four-piece woodcut border. Contemporary or near contemporary calf, with the boards richly blind-tooled in a panel design; rebacked with part of the original backstrip laid down. [188], [34], "CCCCCXXXVI" [= CCCCCXXXVIII] pp. Full description

€ 18,000

and of permanent scholarly value" (Toomer)">Pococke's celebrated edition of Abu'l-Faraj's Islamic history: "It is his greatest work,
and of permanent scholarly value" (Toomer)

POCOCKE, Edward. Specimen historiae arabum; ... Accessit historia veterum Arabum ex Abu'l Feda: cura Antonii I. Sylvestre De Sacy. Edidit Josephus White, ...
Oxford, Clarendon Press [= Oxford University Press], 1806. 4to. Title-page with engraved view of the Clarendon Building, aquatint author's portrait and 1 full-page etched plate. Contemporary boards. XV, [1 blank], 573, [3 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Pamphlet satirising Portuguese notables associated with the Persian wars

[PORTUGAL - PAMPHLET]. Noticia breve das novidades da Azia mandadas de Ali-Xarife da cidade de Babilonia; para Soliman morador na Corte de Constantinopla, e desta para a cidade de Sevilha a hum contratador de vidros.
(Colophon: Madrid, heirs of Juan Garcia Infanzon, 1742). 4to (20 x 14.5 cm). Disbound. 7, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Unusually favourable introduction to Islam and the Ottoman Empire

POSTEL, Guilliaume. De la republique des Turcs: & là ou l'occasion s'offrera, des meurs & loy de tous Muhamedistes, ...
Including:
-Histoire et consideration de l'origine, loy, et coustume des Tartares, Persiens, Arabes, Turcs, & tous autres Ismaelites ou Muhamediques, dits par nous Mahometains, ou Sarrazins.
-La tierce partie des orientales histoires, ou est exposee la condition, ... de l'empire Turquesque: ...
Poitiers, Enguilbert de Marnef, 1560. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With Marnef's printer's device on title-page (repeated on the 2 part-titles). Contemporary blind- and gold-tooled calf, restored and rebacked with a large part of the original backstrip laid-down, modern endpapers. [8], 127, [1 blank]; 57, [3 blank]; [8], 90 pp. Full description

€ 22,500

Magnificent de luxe issue, with 31 hand-coloured lithographs

PRISSE D'AVENNES, Achille Constant Théodore Émile. Oriental album. Characters, costumes, and modes of life, in the valley of the Nile.
London, James Madden, 1848. Imperial folio (52.5 x 37.5 cm). With an additional decorative title-page, separately chromolithographed in black, gold and 7 colours, tinted and hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece portrait of the dedicatee, and 30 tinted and hand-coloured lithographs. Numerous wood-engraved illustrations in the text. Modern half calf, richly gold-tooled spine. [6], 60 pp. Full description

€ 65,000

31 splendid coloured plates of life in the Nile Valley

PRISSE D'AVENNES, Achille Constant Théodore Émile. Oriental album. Characters, costumes, and modes of life, in the valley of the Nile.
London, James Madden (back of title-page: printed by John Wertheimer & Co.), 1851. Super Royal folio (33 x 45.5 cm). With 31 tinted and hand-coloured lithographed plates, including the frontispiece, and a black-and-white illustration on the title-page. Contemporary gold-tooled red half morocco. [5], [1 blank], 60 pp. plus plates. Full description

€ 15,000

On Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt, from the memoirs of an Austrian diplomat

PROKESCH, Anton, Ritter von Osten. Mehmed-Ali Vize-König von Aegypten. Aus meinem Tagebuche 1826-1841.
Vienna, Wilhelm Braummüller (colophon: Adolf Holzhausen), 1877. 8vo. Contemporary blind-blocked cloth. [4], 173, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 750

The First Anglo-Afghan War: an extraordinary snapshot of the North-West Frontier of British India
between 1840 en 1845.

[PUNJAB-BRITISH SECRETARIAT]. Press lists of old records in the Punjab Secretariat - Volume VII. - North-West Frontier Agency. Correspondence with Government, 1840-1845.
Lahore, printed by the superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1915. 1 volume bound as 2. Folio. With an addendum slip facing p. 197. Brown calf, with "Book 1" and "Book 2" in gold on the spines. [2?], 993 pp. Full description

€ 6,500

Dutch translation of the Quran and the life of Mohammed, with 6 engraved plates by Caspar Luyken

[QURAN]. Mahomets Alkoran, door de hr. Du Ryer uit d'Arabische in de Fransche taal gestelt; benevens een tweevoudige beschrijving van Mahomets leven; en een verhaal van des zelfs reis ten hemel, gelijk ook zyn samenspraak met de Jood Abdias.
Amsterdam, Timotheus ten Hoorn, 1696. 8vo. With an integral engraved title-page, and 6 engraved plates showing the Prophet Mohammed, engraved by Caspar Luyken. Contemporary vellum, manuscript title on spine. [12], 547, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Dutch translation of the Quran and the life of Mohammed, with 6 engraved plates by Caspar Luyken

[QURAN]. Mahomets Alkoran, door de hr. Du Ryer uit d'Arabische in de Fransche taal gestelt; benevens een tweevoudige beschyving van Mahomets leven; en een verhaal van des zelfs reis ten hemel, gelijk ook zyn samenspraak met de Jood Abdias.
Amsterdam, Timotheus ten Hoorn, 1698. 8vo. With an integral engraved title-page (dated 1696), engraved by J. Lamsvelt, and 6 engraved plates showing the Prophet Mohammed, engraved by Caspar Luyken. Contemporary blind-tooled vellum. [12], 547, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

From a famous private collection

[MANUSCRIPT - QURAN]. [A splendid illuminated Quran manuscript].
Iran, AH 1204 [= 1783 AD]. 8vo (15 x 9 cm) Illuminated Arabic manuscript on paper, 19 lines per page, written in a neat naskh script in black ink with diacritics in red, margins ruled in gold and colours. Gold discs or florets between verses, sura headings written in white in gold cartouches flanked by panels with alternating floral motifs in gold and various colours. Brown morocco with a flap and gold-tooled borders and central ornaments. 243 ll. plus 2 end-leaves. Full description

€ 18,000

Diplomatic treaty to calm down a dormant conflict between Yemen, Britain and Saudi Arabia

RAGHEB-BIN-RAFIQ, Muhammed & Bernard Rawdon REILLY. Treaty of friendship and mutual co-operation between His Majesty in respect of the United Kingdom and of India and the king of the Yemen (with exchange of notes).
London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1934. With a woodcut British Royal arms on the title-page.In a blue paper wrapper. 5, [1] pp. Full description

€ 950

First systematic treatise on occupational diseases

RAMAZZINI, Bernardo. De morbis artificum diatriba.
Modena, Antonius Capponus, 1700. 8vo. Modern calf, gold-tooled spine. VIII, 360 pp. Full description

€ 9,000

Manuscript chronicle of the Islamic World 635-1453

[RAMPOLDI, Giovanni Battista]. [Annali Musulmani].
[Tuscany?, ca. 1825]. 4to (20.5 x 14 cm). Manuscript in Italian, written in dark brown ink on (mostly) laid paper. Contemporary or near contemporary half maroon cloth. [531], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 8,500

Radical critique of European overseas expansion in 10 volumes. Extremely rare second Dutch edition

RAYNAL, Guillaume Thomas François. Wysgeerige en staatkundige geschiedenis van de bezittingen en den koophandel der Europeaanen, in de beide Indiën.
Amsterdam, Matthijs Schalekamp, 1792-1803. 10 volumes bound as 9. 8vo. With 2 different engraved author's portraits, 8 engraved plates (5 as frontispieces), 12 engraved folding maps and 23 letterpress folding tables. Contemporary half calf, gold-tooled spine. VI, [4], 469, [19]; [8], 533, [1 blank], 11, [1 blank]; [8], 508, [11], [1 blank]; [8], 427, [9], [2 blank]; [8], 365, [9]; [8], 426, [10]; [10], 501, [7]; [8], 458, [11], [1 blank]; [8], 339, [10], [1 blank]; [4], 432, [13], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

Author’s inscribed presentation copy

REINAUD, [Joseph Toussaint]. Description des monumens Musulmans du cabinet de M. le Duc de Blacas.
Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1828. 2 volumes. 8vo. With 10 engraved plates (2 folding). Contemporary half mottled calf, gold-tooled spines, marbled endpapers and edges. [4], XV, [1], 400; [4], 488 pp. Full description

€ 9,500

"Of particular influence on the practice of French pharmacy were the writings of Jean de Renou"

RENOU (RENODAEUS), Jean de. Institutionum pharmaceuticarum. Libri quinque quibus accedunt de materia medica. Libri tres. Omnibus succedit officina pharmaceutica, sive antidotarium ab eodem auctore commentariis illustratum.
Paris, Laurentius Archiatrus(?), 1608. 4to. 2 parts in 1 volume. With an engraved title-page and engraved author's portrait, both dated 1608 and engraved by Léonard Gaultier, engraved title-page to the second part by Jaspar Isaac, and numerous woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary calf, restored and rebacked, with part of the original backstrip laid down. 10, [18], 195, [1 blank], 257, [1 blank], [42], [2 blank], [24], 320, [24] pp. Full description

€ 3,750

With portraits of the most celebrated physicians, including Galen, Hippocrates (Boqrat)
and Masawaih al-Mardini (Mesue)

RENOU (RENODAEUS), Jean de. Les oeuvres pharmaceutiques du Sr. Iean de Renou ... augmentées d'un tiers en cette seconde edition par l'auteur; puis traduittes, embellies de plusieurs figures necessaires à la cognoissance de la medicine & pharmacie, & mises en lumiere par M. Louys de Serres.
Lyon, Antoine Chard (colophon: printed by Pierre Colombier), 1626. Folio. With letterpress title in red and black in a richly engraved border. Contemporary richly blind-, black- and gold-tooled calf; rebacked, with original backstrip laid down. [28], 467, [1 blank], [1], 468-762, [24, last 2 pages blank] pp. Full description

€ 12,000

275 photographic views and portraits, mostly made in Iraq 1928 to 1933

[PHOTOGRAPHS - IRAQ]. REYNISH, William. [Views, scenes, monuments, airplanes, military vehicles, British troops and local inhabitants].
[Iraq (plus Malta and Egypt), ca. 1928-1933]. Oblong albums (25 x 34.5 cm & 21.5 x 28.5 cm). Two albums containing about 275 silver halide photographic gelatin prints (6 x 8.5 cm to 16 x 21.5 cm) assembled and mostly taken by a British Royal Air Force pilot while stationed in Iraq and then briefly Malta, with a visit to Egypt. The photos mounted with paper corner-mounts in two contemporary cloth-covered albums, the larger with padded boards covered in alligator-skin patterned dark green cloth, with the photographs on both sides of 24 dark grey album leaves, each leaf with a glassine paper guard-leaf (embossed with a spider-web pattern) bound in before it; the smaller covered in black cloth with a grey-white bird in a cloud painted on the front board and the word "snaps", with the photographs on both sides of leaves 2-35 & 51-52 of 54 light brown album leaves. Full description

€ 8,500

The British Consul of Zanzibar and his strenuous attempts to put a stop
to the business of slavery in the Sultanate

RIGBY, Colonel Christopher Palmer; Lilian M. RUSSELL-RIGBY (ed.). General Rigby, Zanzibar and the slave trade with journals, dispatches, etc.
London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1935. 8vo. With a folding "Rough sketch-map to illustrate General Rigbys career in H.M. Service" (ca. 25 x 29 cm) and the half-page coat-of-arms of Rigby on p. [5]. Original publisher's blue cloth with a blind-stamped centrepiece on the front board and the title in gold on the spine, covered with the original blue publisher's paper wrappers, protected by a plastic wrapper. [10], 15-404, [4] pp. Full description

€ 475

Influential book on optics by a noted protégé and collegue of Peter Ramus,
based on the work of Ibn al-Haytham (AlHazen)

RISNER, Friedrich. Opticae libri quatuor ex voto Petri Rami novissimo Fridericum Risnerum per ejusdem in mathematicis adjutorem olim conscripti, ...
Kassel, Wilhelm Wessel (sold by Johann Berner in Frankfurt), 1615. 4to. With numerous optical, astronomical and mathematical woodcut diagrams in text, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces and initials, and headpieces built up from cast fleurons. 18th-century tan calf, gold-tooled double fillets, re-backed in sheepskin. [20], 259, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 19,500

Arabic grammar to replace Erpenius's, followed by a lexicon to Al-Tha'alibi

ROORDA, Taco. Grammatica Arabica, breviter in usum scholarum academicarum conscripta ... Adiuncta est brevis chrestomathia, edita et lexico explanata a P. Cool.
Leiden, Samuel and Johannes Luchtmans, 1835. 8vo. Text set in Roman and Arabic type. Contemporary quarter brown cloth, marbled paper sides, a paper label with the name of the author and the title printed in black on the spine. VIII, 298, [32] pp. Full description

€ 750

"The most perfect [pearls] are fished in the Persian Gulf"

[ROSNEL, Pierre de]. Le mercure indien, ou, Le tresor des Indes.
Paris, Robert Chevillon, 1667. Small 8vo. With an engraved coat of arms on the title-pages. Later vellum. [16], 64; [16], 176 pp. Full description

€ 5,000

Earth sciences of the Red Sea

ROSS, David A., and others. Red Sea research 1970-1975. Mineral resources bulletin 22.
Jeddah, Directorate General of Mineral Resources (colophon: printed by Dar Al Asfahani), 1977. 4to. With a portrait of His Majesty King Khaled Ibn 'Abd Al 'Aziz Al Sa'ud as frontispiece, 6 numbered maps on 5 loosely inserted folding leaves and numerous illustrations in text. Publisher's original green wrappers, decorated front. Ca. 300 pp. Full description

€ 300

A compendium for sailing the Indian Ocean, with three charts, second copy located

ROSSER, William Henry. Short notes on the winds, weather, & currents, together with general sailing directions and remarks on making passages; to accompany a chart of the Indian Ocean. With two[=three] illustrations.
London, James Imray and son, 1866. 8vo. With 3 folding lithographed charts (the first as frontispiece and the third possibly extra added). Modern brown cloth, spine with a long vertical leather title-label. [4], 64 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Complete set of articles from the first ten years of the Royal Asiatic Society

[ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY]. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
London, 1824-1834. 3 volumes in 8 parts. 4to. With 80 lithographed plates, including several folding plates and 2 chromolithographed plates, and some smaller illustrations in text. Contemporary blue and grey paper wrappers, kept in two modern half morocco boxes. Full description

€ 18,000

The war on drugs in Egypt: rare illustrated and highly detailed work on drug trafficking in Egypt in the 1930s

CENTRAL NARCOTICS INTELLIGENCE BUREAU - RUSSELL, Thomas Wentworth (or RUSSELL PASHA). Annual report for the year 1932.
Cairo, Government Press, 1933. Imperial 8vo (27 x 18.5 cm). With 14 rotogravure(?) plates, printed in sepia, 1 folding facsimile letter, 2 folding graphs, a plate with 6 pie charts and 1 illustration (also in red) showing schematically a smuggling box. Original publisher's pink paper wrappers, printed letterpress. XVII, [1 blank], 170 pp. (pp. VI and XVIII blank) Full description

€ 8,500

5 original glass lantern slides with the earliest photographs of Mecca and Medina

SADIQ BEY, Muhammad, Christiaan SNOUCK HURGRONJE and Al-Sayyid ‘Abd al-GHAFFÂR. [5 photographic lantern slides of Mecca and Medina (silver gelatin glass positives), taken in the years 1880 to 1889].
Stuttgart, Lichtbilderverlag Theodor Benzinger, [ca. 1910]. 5 glass positive lantern slides (8.5 x 10 cm), each with a black paper mask, paper tape around the edges, a letterpress slip at the foot giving the publisher's name and city, and a slip at the head with the manuscript title. Kept in a contemporary purpose-made wooden box with brass fittings, with the word "Mekka" on the top of the hinged lid. Full description

€ 35,000

First translation into English of stories from Sa'di's famous Gulistan

SA'DI SHIRAZI and Stephen SULIVAN (translator). Select fables from Gulistan, or the bed of roses. Translated from the original Persian of Sadi.
London, J. Ridley, 1774. 8vo. Modern half calf (period style), gold-tooled spine. V, [1 blank], 139, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,950

With a double-page plan and 34 tinted lithographed views of the fortified city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan

SALE, Sir Robert H. (and others). The defence of Jellalabad, ... drawn on stone by W.L. Walton.
London, Joseph Hogarth, Henry Graves & Co., and sold by Hullmandel & Walton, [1845/46]. 1mo (full-sheet leaves) (54 x 37 cm). With a lithographed frontispiece portrait of Sale by Thomas Fairl and after a painting by Scarlet Davis, a lithographed illustrated title-page, a lithographed dedication to Queen Victoria (reproducing Sales hand-written and signed dedication), a double-page "Plan of Jellalabad" (51.5 x 60 cm, lithographed by S. Leith in Edinburgh) and 34 tinted lithographic views of the city and its fortifications (in landscape format) on 22 leaves.
Gold-tooled red goatskin morocco, richly gold-tooled turn-ins, gold-tooled board edges, yellow endpapers, gilt edges. Lithographed frontispiece, title-page & dedication plus 5, [1 blank] pp. plus plates. Full description

€ 15,000

First and only edition of a detailed history of the Franciscan mission in Morocco, beautifully produced

SAN JUAN DEL PUERTO, Francisco de Jesús María de. Mission historial de Marruecos, en que se trata de los martirios, persecuciones, y trabajos, que han padecido los missionarios, y frutos que han cogido las missiones, que han cogido las missiones, que desde sus principios tuvo la Orden Seraphica en el Imperio de Marruecos, y continùa La Provincia de San Diego de Franciscos descalços de Andalucia en el mismo Imperio.
Sevilla, Francisco Garay, 1708. Folio. With engraved allegorical frontispiece by Joannes Carolus Allet in Rome after Pietro de Pietri, title printed in red and black in a border built up from cast fleurons, and woodcut tailpieces and initials. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment, leather thong ties. [44], 829, [19] pp. Full description

€ 12,500

"Wonderful reproductions of the best known carpets"

SARRE, Friedrich and Hermann TRENKWALD. Alt-orientalische Teppiche.
Vienna & Leipzig, Anton Schroll & Co. and Karl W. Hiersemann for the Österreichischen Museum für Kunst und Industrie, 1926-1928. 2 volumes bound as 4. Imperial folio (60.5 x 44 cm). With 120 collotype plates (67 colour and 53 black & white, 7 of the latter double-page) by Max Jaffé (1845-1939), and 14 wood-engraved full-page illustrations on the integral leaves. Later half calf with cloth sides. 21, [3], [29]; [31]; 43, [28]; [32] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

Portrait of John Sturges in Turkish costume

[DRAWING]. SAUNDERS, John. [John Sturges in Turkish costume with turban and gold-trimmed coat].
Peterborough, 1739. Pastel on paper, mounted on canvas (41 x 30.5 cm), stretched over (original?) wooden board. Full description

€ 12,500

Summary of ideas from the Qu'ran in French: bibliophile production on wove paper, published in Paris and Constantinople

SAVARY, Claude-Etienne. Morale de Mahomet; ou recueil des plus pures maximes du Coran.
Constantinople, [no publisher's name]; Paris, Lamy, 1784. 18mo in 2s. With a woodcut flower ornament on the title-page, a woodcut rococco headpiece, small decorated roman capitals used as initials, decorative rules. Brown goatskin morocco (ca. 1865?), gold-tooled spine in 6 compartments, chemical marbled sides, nonpareil marbled endpapers. [4], 91, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Savary’s literary letters on Egypt, in attractive contemporary binding

SAVARY, (Nicolas) Claude Étienne. Brieven over Egypte.
Amsterdam, Martinus de Bruyn, 1788-1789. 3 volumes. 8vo. With 4 numbered engraved folding plates, including maps of Egypt and northern Egypt, a plan of Alexandria, and a cross-section of the Great pyramid. Contemporary mottled calf, richly gold-tooled spines and binding edges. XVI, 446, [1], [1 blank]; XVI, 364, [2 blank], [1], [1 blank]; “XIV” [=XXIV], 390, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Comparing the calendars of the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Jews and others

SCALIGER, Joseph Justus. Opus de emendatione temporum: hac postrema ed., ex auctoris ipsius ms., emend., magnáque acces. auctius. Add. veterum Graecorum fragmenta selecta.
Including: Computus Arabicus ecclesiae Antiochenae.
Geneva, Pierre de la Rovière, 1629. Folio. With title-page printed in red and black and with woodcut printer's device and several woodcut initials. Set in roman and italic types with long passages set in Greek, Arabic and Hebrew and shorter passages in Syriac. The long passages in Samaritan and Ethiopic, printed from meticulous woodblocks. Contemporary blind-tooled vellum. [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [9], [1 blank], LII, [4], 784, [46], [2 blank], 59, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 8,500

Abridged version of Golius’s Lexicon

SCHEIDIUS, Jacob. Glossarium Arabico-Latinum manuale maximam partem en Lexico Goliano excerptum. Editio altera.
Leiden, Samuel and Johannes Luchtmans, 1787. 4to (26 x 21 cm). Text set in two columns, with Arabic characters throughout. Contemporary half calf, marbled sides. [6], 286 pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Pioneering work of Arabic bibliography

SCHNURRER, Christian Friedrich von. Bibliotheca Arabica.
Halle, I.C. Hendel, 1811. 8vo. Set in roman types, with occasional passages in Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac and Greek. Contemporary calf, gold-tooled spine. XXI, [3], 518, [515]-529, [1] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Rare manual on Galenic medicine

SCHÖNBORN, Samuel. Manuale medicinae practicae Galeno-chymicae accessere purgantia. Secundum humores peccantes disposita.
Strasbourg, Eberhard Zetzner, 1657. 12mo. With engraved title-page. Modern boards. [8], 328, [20], [4 blank] pp. Full description

€ 950

Six lithographs depicting people from the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and Athens

SCHÜTZERCRANTZ, Adolf Ulrik. Reseminnen från Orienten.
Stockholm, L.J. Hjerta, 1839. Folio. With 6 lithographed plates by Schützercrantz. Original publisher's printed paper wrappers mounted on a larger sheet serving as a folder. 4 pp. Full description

€ 8,500

First edition of “the first actual dispensatory”, with 271 numbered medicines

SCRIBONIUS LARGUS ( Jean RUEL ed.). De compositionibus medicamentorum liber unus, ...
(Colophon: Paris, Simon Du Bois, October 1528). Folio (29 x 20 cm). With Du Bois's woodcut tree and 2 birds device at the end with motto, about 40 woodcut decorated initials (7 series?) plus about 100 repeats. Set in roman types with some preliminaries in an Aldine-style italic (with upright capitals) and occasional words in Greek. Recent parchment. [9], [1 blank], 31, [5] ll. Full description

€ 12,500

History of Tamerlane's conquests, with 5 engraved maps

SHARAF AD-DIN ALI YAZDI. Histoire de Timur-Bec, connu sous le nom du grand Tamerlan, empereur des Mogols et Tartares.
Delft, Reinier Boitet, 1723. 4 volumes. 12mo. With an engraved portrait of Timur and 5 folding engraved maps. Contemporary mottled calf, gold-tooled spines. [1], [1 blank], [6], XXXIX, [23], 475, [1 blank]; [1], [1 blank], [6], 431, [1 blank]; [1], [1 blank], 421, [1 blank]; [1], [1 blank], [6], 303, [3 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,950

Stories by an editor of Alf layla wa-layla

SHIRWANI, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-. Nafhat al-Yaman fi-ma yazulu bi-dhikrihi al-shajan. [= Breezes from Yemen].
Calcutta, printed by Mawlawi Kabir Ud Din Ahmad at the Urdoo Guide Press, 1881. 8vo. Original publisher's pebble-grain lilac cloth. [2], 276, [2] pp. Full description

€ 1,800

Complete run for the year 1986

SHUR, Chaim. New Outlook Middle East Monthly [9 issues].
Tel Aviv, Tatzpiot Ltd (under auspices of Jewish-Arab Institute at Givat Haviva), 1986. 9 volumes. Original wrappers, staplebound. Various pagination. Full description

€ 275

Complete run for January 1984 - December 1985

SHUR, Chaim. New Outlook Middle East Monthly [15 issues].
Tel Aviv, Tatzpiot Ltd (under auspices of Jewish-Arab Institute at Givat Haviva), 1984-1985. Original wrappers, staplebound. Various pagination. Full description

€ 450

First edition of the Arabic Infancy Gospel, with text in Latin and Arabic

SIKE (SIECKE), Heinrich (editor). Evangelium infantiae. Vel liber apocryphus de infantia servatoris. Ex manuscripto edidit, ac latina versione & notis illustravit ...
Utrecht, François Halma, Willem vande Water, 1697. 8vo. With the main text in Arabic with a parallel Latin translation on the facing pages. Contemporary vellum. [22], 161, [7], 93, [1], [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Correspondence of the "lord of the naval and commercial conquest of Arabia, Persia and India"

SILVA, Luiz Augusto Rebello da (et al.). Corpo diplomatico Portuguez contendo os actos e relações politicas e diplomaticas de Portugal.
Lisbon, Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias / Imprensa Nacional, 1862-1959. 15 volumes (final volume in 2 parts). Small folio (22.5 x 28.5 cm). Uniformly bound in half tan sheepskin, decorated paper sides, gold-tooled spines, decorated endpapers, sprinkled edges. Some original publishers printed wrappers bound in. Full description

€ 18,500

The antiquities of Persia and on the history of the Arabs before Muhammad

SILVESTRE DE SACY, [Antoine Isaac]. Mémoires sur les antiquités de la Perse et sur lhistoire des Arabes avant Mahomet.
Paris, Eugène Duverger & Jean-Joseph Marcel, Imprimerie Impériale, [1808-1809]. Large 4to (22 x 27.5 cm). With 4 tables. Later red half morocco, marbled sides, title in gold on spine. [6], 47-58, 483-782 pp. Full description

€ 1,800

4 extremely rare series of engraved Turkish and European costume figures, drawn as models for Louis XIV's grandchildren

[SILVESTRE, Charles-François?]. l[']Art de bien dessiner a la plume nouvellement mis au jour pour l[']utilité de la jeunesse.
Including:
(2): [SILVESTRE, Charles François]. Diverses figures Turcs propre à dessiner a la plume.
(3): [SILVESTRE, Charles François]. Second livre de figures Turcs propre à déssiner à la plume.
(4): [SILVESTRE, Charles François?]. Diverses figures de caprice propre a dessigner a la plume.
[Paris?, ca. 1700?]. 4 parts in 1 volume. Oblong 16mo (13 x 16 cm). Each part with engraved title-page and each with 11 unnumbered engraved plates. Contemporary French sprinkled, gold-tooled calf. [12], [12], [12], [12] engr. ll. Full description

€ 28,500

Early history of the Arab people and the birth of Islam

SILVESTRE DE SACY, Antoine-Isaac, and others. Mémoires de littérature, tirés des registres de l'Academie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.... tome quarante-huitième.
Including: SILVESTRE DE SACY, Antoine Isaac. Mémoire sur divers événemens de l'histoire des Arabes avant Mahomet.
Paris, Imprimerie Impériale, 1808. 4to. Set in roman, italic, Greek and Arabic type. With a folding engraved plate of a Greek inscription and 5 letterpress tables. Contemporary half calf. [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], IV, 775 784 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Richly gold-tooled French morocco in the style of "Le Gascon": includes Elichman's Greek, Latin and Arabic Tabula Cebetis and Aurea carmina Pythagoræ

SIMPLICIUS of Cilicia. Commentarius in Enchiridion Epicteti, ex libris veteribus emendatus. Cum versione Hieronymi Wolfii, et Cl. Salmasii animadversionibus, et notis quibus Philosophia Stoica passim explicatur & illustratur.
Leiden, Johannes Maire, 1640. 4 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With three title-pages. Set in roman, Greek and Arabic types. Contemporary French pointillé binding in the style of "Le Gascon", richly gold-tooled in concentric panels on both covers, and in the six compartments of the spine, the second with the title. [20], 332, [12]; [1], [1 blank], 329, [23]; [34], 88, 15 pp. Full description

€ 9,750

Incunabular Arabian Nights: The Book of Sindbad in Western European disguise

[SINDBAD – SEVEN SAGES]. Historia septem sapientum Rome.
Cologne, Johann Koelhoff the Elder, of Lübeck, (before 6 November) 1490. 4to (200 x 128 mm), 34-37 lines, gothic type, rubricated in red. Illustrated with a large armorial woodcut printers device at the end and 23 full-page woodcuts, with two of the woodcuts repeated several times. Bound in contemporary blind-tooled full calf over wooden boards. Remains of clasps. Endpapers from a rubricated incunabular edition of the Biblia cum glossa ordinaria. [50] ff. [a–g6, H8]. Full description

€ 125,000

Nigerian pilgrims

[SLAVERY - SAUDI ARABIA]. The Anti-slavery reporter and aborigines' friend Series VI.
London, Anti-slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, 1961. Original pictorial wrappers. 65-88 pp. Full description

€ 450

Newly discovered shells from the Arabian Gulf, Taiwan, China and Japan, with a chromolithographed plate

SMITH, Edgar. Descriptions of five new shells from the Island of Formosa and the Persian Gulf, and notes upon a few known species.Including: BOCK, Carl. Descriptions of two new species of shells from China and Japan.
[London], 18 June 1878. With a chromolithographed plate depicting 14 shells. Modern paper wrappers. 727-732 pp. Full description

€ 850

Presentation copy of the rare 1st edition of an influential work on early Arabian kinship and marriage

SMITH, William Robertson. Kinship and marriage in early Arabia.
Cambridge, C.J. Clay and son, Cambridge University Press Warehouse, 1885. 8vo. Contemporary brown cloth, lettering in gold on the spine. xiv, 322, [2], 16 pp. Full description

€ 850

Very rare examination book for pharmacology students

SODRÉ, Antonio Martins (Antonio DOS MÁRTIRES). Collectaneo pharmaceutico divido em duas partes, nas quaes se acharáõ as melhores perguntas, e respostas, e algumas eleiçoens de simples, com suas explicaçoens ao texto de Mesue, tiradas dos melhores autores antigos, e modernos da arte pharmaceutica. Obra utilissima para se examinarem os novos professores da mesma arte.
Porto, Antonio Alves Ribeiro Guimaraens, 1768. 8vo. Contemporary mottled tanned sheepskin, sewn on 4 supports, gold-tooled spine. [32], 188, [4 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Dreams supposedly predicting the fall of the Ottoman Empire

[SPEER, Daniël]. Zwey nachdänkliche Traum-Gesichte, von dess Türcken Untergang. Zweifels ohn von göttlicher Direction. Herauss gelassen von mehrmals zugetroffen erfahrnem Designante Somniatore.
[Ulm, Matthäus Wagner], 1684. 4to. With engraved frontispiece, allegorically illustrating the Ottoman defeat in 1683. Modern wrappers. [2], "31" [= 29] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

The bombardment of Alexandria, a night-attack of jihadic troops in Sudan and a survey in the Far East and Australia

SPINKS, Walter. [Album of watercolours drawn aboard HMS Myrmidon].
On board HMS Myrmidon, [1884-]1886[-1887]. Oblong 4to (17.5 x 25 cm). With 25 watercolours (including 1 double-page) and 13 pencil drawings, most of them captioned in pencil. Contemporary half-sheepskin album. [32] ll. Full description

€ 12,500

The Hadhramaut in Southern Arabia through the eyes and camera lens of Freya Stark

STARK, Freya. Seen in the Hadhramaut.
London, John Murray, 1938. 4to. With the title-page in red and black, 1 map of the Hadhramaut titled: "Seen in the Hadhramaut", and 50 double sided plates. The plates are included in the pagination. Blue cloth with black lettering on front cover and spine. With dust jacket. XXIII, [1 blank], 199, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 650

14 photographic portraits of sheiks & tribesmen, by Lawrence of Arabia's Chief of Staff

STIRLING, Walter Francis. Arab Types.
Syria, [ca. 1918-ca. 1921]. Oblong album (18 x 26 cm). An album containing 14 black and white photographic portraits (mostly about 17 x 12 cm) plus a smaller print of one. Mounted in a ca. 1930 album of black paper leaves (boards covered with black cloth). 16 ll. (album). Full description

€ 45,000

Best edition of Strabo's "Geographika" including Casaubon's notes, with descriptions of the Arabian Peninsula

STRABO. Rerum geographicarum libri XVII.
Paris, typis Regiis [Fédéric Morel], 1620. 2 parts in 1 volume. Folio. With title-page printed in red and black with the engraved coat of arms of Louis XIII, and several woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary gold-tooled parchment, gilt edges. [12], 843, [112]; [4], 282, [8] pp. Full description

€ 8,500

On the recent political events in the Arabian Gulf

[SUPPORT COMMITTEE FOR THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT IN THE GULF]. The Gulf Solidarity. Volume 2. 1-2. Nov-Dec 1973. Accomplishments of the revolution. Who rules Oman today? Oil and our national battle. News from the Gulf.
San Francisco, CA, November-December 1973. 4to (21.5 x 18 cm). With 2 reproductions of photographs and 1 map. Original printed paper wrappers. 31, [1] pp. Full description

€ 1,800

On the influence of Great Britain and Iran in Oman

[SUPPORT COMMITTEE FOR THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT IN THE GULF]. The Gulf Solidarity. Iranian invasion - 1 year after. Volume 3: 2-1.
San Francisco, CA, spring 1975. 4to (28 x 21.5 cm). With an illustration on the wrappers and some reproductions of photographs and some maps in the text. Original printed paper wrappers. 16 pp. Full description

€ 1,800

Four articles on the date palm in the Middle East, northern Africa and America

SWINGLE, Walter Tennyson. The date palm and its culture. ... (Reprint from Yearbook of Department of Agriculture 1900).
[Washington, Government printing office, 1900]. With 9 plates with black and white photographic reproductions.
With:
(2) SWINGLE, Walter Tennyson. The date palm and its utilization in the southwestern states.Washington, Government printing office, 1904. With a wood engraved device of the United States department of agriculture on title-page, 21 (of 22) plates (including 2 chromolithographed maps) and 10 illustrations in text.
(3) FAIRCHILD, David Grandison. Persian Gulf dates and their introduction into America.Washington, Government printing office, 1903. With the same wood engraved device on title-page and 4 plates with reproductions of photographs.
(4) KEARNEY, Thomas Henry. Date varieties and date culture in Tunis.Washington, Government printing office, 1903. With the same wood engraved device on title-page and 10 plates with reproductions of photographs.
4 works in 1 volume. 8vo. Modern blue cloth, each work with its original printed paper wrappers bound in. I-V, [1 blank], 453-490; 155, [1 blank]; 32; 112 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Signed authors presentation copy of a detailed eye-witness account of Senegal ca. 1880,
not for sale: with 2 chromolithographed maps, 3 original albumen prints and 4 wood-engraved views
in a fine presentation binding by Lucien Magnin in Lyon

SZYMANSKI, Félix. Essai sur la guerre dans le Soudan.
Lyon, Imprimerie Mougin-Rusand, 1888. Large 8vo (24.5 x 16 cm). With 2 large folding chromolithographed maps (50 x 60 cm; map images 44 x 58 cm; scale 1: 1,000,000), 4 wood-engraved illustrations in the text and 3 original photographic albumen prints (10.5 x 13 cm) mounted on paperboard plates. Contemporary gold-tooled, black goatskin morocco (signed at the foot of the front turn-in by Lucien Magnin in Lyon), richly gold-tooled spine, richly gold-tooled turn-ins, double fillets on board edges, gilt edges. [4], 184 pp. Full description

€ 6,500

The chemistry of Hippocrates, in the Islamic tradition known as Boqrat

TACHENIUS, Otto. Hippocrates chimicus, qui novissimi viperini salis antiquissima fundamenta oftendit ...
Hannover, Thomas Heinrich Hauenstein, 1668. With a woodcut device on title-page and a woodcut endpiece on last page.
With: (2) TACHENIUS, Otto. Antiquissimae Hippocratiae medicinae clavis manuali experiential in naturae fontibus elaborate, quaper ignem& aquam inaudita method, occulta naturae, & artis, compendiosa operandi ratione manifesta fiunt, dilucidè aperiuntur. Seneca in epistola.
Frankfurt, Johann Peter Zubrod, 1669.2 works in 1 volume. 12mo. Contemporary vellum. [40], 270, [1]; 286, [2] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

31 Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali songs with music, printed and bound in Calcutta

TAGORE, Sourindro Mohun (Saurindra Mohana THAKURA). A few specimens of Indian songs.
Calcutta (Kolkata), published by the author, printed by I.C. Bose & Co. (The Stanhope Press), 1879. Royal 8vo (23.5 x 15 cm). Set in Devanagari (for Sanskrit and Hindi), Bengali (for Bengali) and roman types with incidental italic and textura gothic. The present copy has the dedication leaf for Lord Robert Bulwer-Lytton, Viceroy and Governor-General of India, printed in blue with an elaborate red border built up from typographic ornaments. Contemporary gold-tooled green sheepskin, made in Calcutta for the author, probably for presentation, each board with a decorative roll outer border, a thick-thin inner border with 4 large waterlily cornerpieces, the front board with the author's family crest and motto, the back board with an ornamental centrepiece, title in the 2nd of 5 fields on the spine, the others with decorations, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges. [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], 113, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Attractive view of the carpet trade

TARENGHI, Enrico. [Carpet sellers and a dromedary beside the Nile].
[Rome?, late 19th century?]. Watercolour on a large sheet of paper (image size: 74.5 x 52 cm), signed at the foot right: "E. Tarenghi". Contemporary (?) gilt wooden frame (89.5 x 66 cm), behind plastic. Full description

€ 18,000

On the Arabs living in the marshes of southern Iraq, with 110 photographs

THESIGER, Wilfred. The marsh Arabs.
London, Longmans, Green and co., 1964. 8vo (21.5 x 14 cm). With a frontispiece, 3 maps in text (including 1 double-page) and 32 plates with reproductions of 109 photographs. Green cloth with illustrated dustjacket. [13], [1 blank], 242 pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Medical work based on Pliny the Elder, Galen and Dioscorides, together with three other texts, from the library of the Russian tsars

[TORINUS (THORER), Albanus (ed).]. De re medica huic volumini insunt...
[Colophon: Basel, Andreas Cratander, 1528]. Folio. With woodcut printer's device on title-page, repeated on final page, 2 pages with 4-piece decorative woodcut borders and numerous woodcut decorated initials. 18th-century half calf, with marbled paper in a tree pattern on sides, gold-tooled spine with the coat of arms of the Russian Tsars. [12], 125, [1] ll. Full description

€ 25,000

Catalogue of Kufic coins from the Umayyad Caliphate up to the Marwanids

TORNBERG, Carl Johan. Numi Cufici regii numophylacii Holmiensis, quos omnes in terra Sueciae repertos.
Uppsala, Leffler and Sebell, 1848. 4to. With 14 lithographed plates. Contemporary blind-blocked cloth. [6], LXXXVIII, 315, [1] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Autograph copy by the author for his wife of his famous collection of erotic poems, translated from the Arabic

TOUSSAINT, Franz. Le jardin des caresses.
May and June 1936. 11.5 x 12 cm. Manuscript in French written by the author in blank ink a neat 20th-century hand in one column. Chapter divisions are made in the form of a calligraphic leaf, drawn in the same black ink as the text. Bound in contemporary richly gold-tooled arabesque beige morocco with a flap at the front-edge, covered with gold-tooled green morocco on the inside, purple and white head and end bands, gold and light blue endpapers. Stored in a professionally made beige morocco box (ca. 15 x 15 cm) with a gold-tooled three-line fillet frame on the boards, on the inside covered with light pink silk, title in gold on the spine. [3 blank], [141], [13 blank] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

French manuscript travel guide for Egypt

[TOUSTAIN-RICHEBOURG, Henri de]. [Manuscript travel guide to Egypt].
[France?, 1850s]. With 17 pages of text written with pen and ink in French and 4 pages of annotations in pencil. Unbound, pages later inexpertly sewn together. 30 ll. Full description

€ 1,950

Illustrated description of the Yoruba people, among the most heavily targeted by the Atlantic slave trade

[TUCKER, Charlotte Maria] and Theodorus Matthijs LOOMAN. Abbeokoeta; of de dageraad tusschen de keerkringen: eene schets van het ontstaan en den vooruitgang der zending in Yorriba. Uit het Engelsch naar den vijfden druk vertaald, en tot op den jongsten tijd bijgewerkt.
Amsterdam, H. Höveker (back of half-title: for the "Vereeniging ter bevordering van Christelijke lectuur"), 1860. 12mo. With chromolithographed frontispiece, 3 lithographed maps (2 double-page and 1 folding), 1 chromolithographed plate and 8 wood-engraved plates. Contemporary half cloth. [2], VIII, [2], 330, [5], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 800

Interesting look inside the palaces of the North African Moorish rulers

TULLY, [Richard]. Narrative of a ten years' residence at Tripoli in Africa: from the original correspondence in the possession of the family of the late Richard Tully, esq. the British consul. Comprising authentic memoirs and anecdotes of the reigning Bashaw, his family, and other persons of distinction; also, an account of the domestic manners of the Moors, Arabs, and Turks.
London, Henry Colburn, 1817. Large 4to. Engraved coloured frontispiece of Sidy Hassan, late Bey of Tripoli, folding engraved map (220 x 390 mm) of the regencies of Tripoli and Tunis, signed "Neele scuplt. Strand", 6 full-page plates of the Triumphal Arch of Tripoli, Arabs recreating in the desert, a Bedouin woman, officers of the Grand Seraglio, a guard of Tripoli, and an Egyptian puppet- shew, all engraved by Hoovell & Son and beautifully coloured by hand. Contemporary calf, spine with title lettered in gold, gilt fillet border on covers, marbled edges. XIII, [2], 376 pp. Full description

€ 2,250

The conflict between Europe and the Ottoman Empire for control of the Mediterranean

[ULLOA, Alfonso de]. La historia dell'impresa di Tripoli di Barbaria, fatta per ordine del Sereniss. Re Catolico, l'anno M.D.LX. Con le cose avenute a Christiani nell'Isola delle Zerbe. Nuovamente mandata in luce.
Venice, Francesco Rampazetto, 1566. 4to. 18th-century(?) sheepskin parchment. [7], [1 blank], 88, [4] ll. Full description

€ 7,500

Anglo-Turkish trade promoted

[URQUHART, David]. Turkey and its resources: its municipal organization and free trade; the state and prospects of English commerce in the East, the new administration of Greece, its revenue and national possessions.
London, Saunders and Otley (back of title-page: printed by Botson and Palmer), 1833. 8vo. With lithographed map as frontispiece. Contemporary boards. XV, [1], 328 pp. Full description

€ 5,000

How to defeat the Ottoman army

VALENTINI, Georg Wilhelm von. Précis des dernières guerres des Russes contre les Turcs...
Paris, Firmin Didot, Anseling & Pochard, Ponthieu, 1825. 8vo. With 5 irregularly numbered maps with battle and siege plans on 4 folding engraved plates and several diagrams in the text showing troop formations. Contemporary tan half calf, the spine alternating areas of blind-tooled tan and gold-tooled dark brown, one including the title, marbled sides, light gray endpapers, turquoise sprinkled edges. VI, [2], 240, [2] pp. Full description

€ 650

Egypt in 309 beautiful illustrations, many in colour

VALERIANI, Domenico and Girolamo SEGATO. Nuova illustrazione istorico-monumentale del basso e dell'alto Egitto.
Including: Atlante monumentale del basso e dell'alto Egitto.
Florence, Paolo Fumagalli, 1836-1837 (text) & 1837-1841 (plates). 2 text volumes (8vo) and 2 plates volumes (large folio). With engraved portrait of Segato as frontispiece in the first text volume and the plate volumes with 160 engraved and aquatint plates (7 double-page), including 51 tinted and/or coloured by a contemporary hand; many plates contain multiple illustrations, making 309 illustrations in total. Contemporary green (text vols.) and brown (plates vols.) half morocco. [2], 491, [1 blank], [4]; 788, [6] pp. text Full description

€ 18,000

Della Valle's travels in Persia and the Near East, "one of the finest works of travel literature" (Howgego)

VALLE, Pietro della. Vierde[-zeste en leste] deel der voortreffelyke reizen van de deurluchtige reisiger Pietro della Valle, Edelman van Romen, in veel voorname gewesten des werrelts, sedert het jaar 1615, gedaan: namelijk in Turkijen, Egipten, Palestina, Persien, Oostindien, en in verscheide andere lantschappen, daar in hij al t aanmerkingswaerdige, dat er is, naerstiglijk opgespeurt, en naaukeurig aangemerkt, en veel treffelijke dingen, tot noch toe onbekent, ten toon gestelt heeft.
Amsterdam, widow of Jan Hendriksz. Boom, Jan Rieuwertsz and Abraham Wolfgang, 1665. 3 (of 6) volumes bound as 1. 4to. With 3 title-pages, 13 full-page engraved plates (1 crudely hand-coloured).
Contemporary vellum, manuscript spine title, later endpapers. 187, [1 blank]; [4], 186, [2 blank]; [4], 185, [11] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Della Valle's travels in Persia and the Near East, "one of the finest works of travel literature" (Howgego)

VALLE, Pietro della. De volkome beschryving der voortreffelijke reizen van de deurluchtige reisiger Pietro della Valle, edelman van Romen, in veel voorname gewesten des werrelts, sedert het jaer 1615, tot in 't jaar 1626 gedaan ...
Amsterdam, Abraham Wolfgang, 1666 (each volume title: Abraham Wolfgang, widow of Jan Hendriks Boom, Jan Rieuwertsz., 1664-1665). 6 volumes bound as 1. 4to. With 25 engraved plates. 19th-century vellum. Full description

€ 12,500

Della Valle's travels in the Near East, Persia and Arabia: "one of the finest works of travel literature" (Howgego)

VALLE, Pietro della. Reiss-Beschreibung in unterschiedliche Theile der Welt, nemlich in Türckey, Egypten, Palestina, Persien, Ost-Indien, und andere weit entlegene Landschaften ...
Geneva, Johann Hermann Widerholds, 1674. 4 volumes bound as 1. Folio. With 31 engraved plates (1 folding), including frontispiece and portraits of the author and his wife, by Jean Jacques Thourneyser. Contemporary vellum. [20], 218, [12], [2 blank]; [4], 236, [12]; [4], 244, [13], [1 blank]; [6], 231, [17] pp. Full description

€ 15,000

First English edition of Varthema’s travels in the Middle East and beyond

[VARTHEMA, Ludovico di, Pietro Martire d’ANGHIERA and others]. The history of travayle in the West and East Indies, ...
London, Richard Jugge, 1577. Narrow 4to (19 x 13.5 cm). With a woodcut celestial map of the South Polar sky in the text. With 14 leaves in a 19th-century facsimile. Gold- and blind-tooled maroon morocco (ca. 1860?), in allusive style. In a modern clam-shell box. [10], 466, [6] ll. Full description

€ 120,000

Performing surgery and curing diseases in the East and West Indies, mostly based on Galen and Hippocrates (Boqrat)

VERBRUGGE, Johannes. Examen chirurgicum, oder vollkommene praxis chirurgico-medica in welcher nebst einer kurtzen, iedoch vollständigen anatomie alle chirurgicalische fundamenta ...
Dresden, Johann Christoph Zimmerman, 1704. 8vo. With title-page printed in red and black. Contemporary boards, spine covered with white paper. [16], 608, [32] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Vernay's poetry in French, Turkish, Persian and other languages: unrecorded Royal folio issues, planned for presentation to the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I and with extensive additions

VERNAY, Charles. Poésies nationales et religieuses Françaises, Italiennes, Turques et Persanes, 195 pièces orientales, leur traductions, et le texte Turc et Persan de 57 pièces ...
Paris, Albert Franck (on back of half-title: printed by Firmin Didot frères), 1860[-1861]. With a lithographed portrait of the author, 5 lithographed facsimiles of the author's autograph manuscripts and 4 of the letterpress pages printed in gold. Extra-illustrated with 3 lithographed and 4 engraved Royal folio illustration plates (including 2 portraits of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I).
With:
(2) VERNAY, Charles. Poésies Turques et Persanes (cent quarante et une pièces) ...
Paris, Albert Franck (below frame: lithographed by [Mathieu] Masson), "1858-1859" [= AH 1275]. With a letterpress wrapper-title in French, printed in gold, a lithographed Turkish and Persian wrapper-title (dated "1275" and "1858") and text in Turkish and Persian, lithographed from the autograph manuscript in Arabic script, all printed in gold, and a lithographed portrait of the author (the same as in ad 1).
(3) VERNAY, Charles. Nouvelles poésies Persanes et Turques ...
Paris, Albert Frank, July 1860 (colophon: lithographed by [Mathieu] Masson, r. de Valois 48, Paris). A large 4to bifolium, with a lithographic facsimile of a 4-page autograph manuscript in Arabic script, printed on blue paper.
(4-18) VERNAY, Charles. [Miscellaneous publications in various formats, some letterpress, others lithographed facsimiles of the author's autograph manuscripts in French, Turkish and Persian, and including a 1-leaf autograph manuscript in Persian].
Paris, Firmin Didot frères and others, 1851-1858.
18 publications in 1 volume. Royal folio (49.5 x 34.5 cm) with a few items in smaller formats. Contemporary diced, richly gold-tooled calf, each board with a double frame of rolls and stamps, a crescent moon and star inside each corner of the inner frame, blind-tooled turn-ins, green silk brocade endleaves. [2], 4, [1], [1 blank], 142, 4, 143-262, 263-266[bis], 263-266[ter], 263-476, [2], [1 blank], [1]; 112; [4] pp. plus the wrappers and numerous inserted items. Full description

€ 28,000

Striking aquatint of a Mamluk leader

VERNET, Antoine-Charles-Horace (Carle). Chef de Mamelucks.
Paris, Jazet and Bance & Aumont, [1821]. Aquatint print (image size: 48.5 x 39 cm, not including title and imprint; paper size: 55 x 45 cm), engraved by Jean Pierre Jazet after Vernet. Full description

€ 2,000

Pioneering work on Indian languages and society by an "unjustly forgotten" Indologist

VESDIN (VEZDIN), Filip (PAULINUS A SANCTO BARTHOLOMAEO). Viaggio alle Indie Orientali umiliato alla Santita di N. S. Papa Pio Sesto pontefice massimo ...
Rome, Antonio Fulgoni, 1796. 4to. With 12 engraved illustration plates (6 with 2 illustrations each to make 18 in total), engraved roundel portraits of Pope Pius VI (on the title-page) and the author (above the opening of the main text) and some small woodcut illustrations of "Indian hieroglyphs". Set in roman and italic types with occasional words in Greek, Arabic, East Syriac, Devanagari and more extensive texts in Malayalam, plus a Malabar song with a double staff made with built-up round-head music notes. 19th-century maroon half sheepskin. XX, 404 pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Early work of one of the greatest French mathematicians

VIÈTE, François. Principes de cosmographie, tirez d'un manuscrit de Viette, & traduits en François. Corrigées et augmentées.
Paris, Jean Behourt, 1647. 12mo. With 2 woodcut illustrations in the text (a geocentric universe and a simple geometric figure). Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [8], "72" [=172] pp. Full description

€ 11,500

"Arabia Petra" explored: account of an expedition (1865) through the Sinai, Petra in Jordan, and surrounding regions, with 48 plates and albumen prints

VISCONTI, Giammartino Arconati. Diario di un viaggio in Arabia Petrea (1865).Including: Atlante per servire al Diario di un viaggio in Arabia Petrea.
Torino, Vincenzo Bona, 1872. 2 volumes. Royal 4to (31 x 27 cm). With 2 title-pages printed in red and black, each with the author's wood-engraved decorated GAV-monogram and motto; vol. 1 with 2 folding lithographed maps (1 printed in black, brown and blue, with the route coloured by hand in red, of the Sinai Peninsula; the other in black and white, of the city of Petra); 40 mounted albumen prints after paintings by Emile Pierre Metzmacher (mainly 11.5 x 16 cm), individually mounted with letterpress captions on the mount; and 2 engraved plates; vol. 2 with 6 numbered engraved plates of molluscs and insects. The Diario in the original publisher's maroon cloth with the author's crowned monogram gold--blocked on the front board and spine. The Atlante in the original publisher's blue cloth, with the author's crowned monogram and the title gold-blocked on the front board. Both volumes with gilt edges, orange endpapers and with tissue guard leaves tipped in, protecting the albumen prints and engraved plates. 439; 46, [2 blank] pp. (vol. II, pp. 1-2 blank). Full description

€ 25,000

Charter of the Dutch East India Company

[VOC - CHARTER]. Octroy, by de hoog mog. heeren Staaten Generaal der Vereenigde Nederlanden verleend aan de Oostindische Compagnie. In dato den 20 maart 1602. mitsgaders reglement, limitatie, ampliatie en continuatien van het voorschreeve octroy, tot den jaare 1700 incluys. ... En nog prolongatie en publicatie voor den tyd van twintig jaaren, en sulks tot den jaare 1774 incluys.
The Hague, Jacobus Scheltus, 1748[-1755?]. 4to. Later half vellum. 51, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 950

Important history of the Umayyad Caliphate, printed in Calcutta

WELLHAUSEN, Julius (Margaret Graham WEIR, translator). The Arab kingdom and its fall.
Calcutta, University of Calcutta (printed by Bhupendra Lal Banerji), 1927. 8vo. Modern cloth. XV, [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], 592, [1] pp. Full description

€ 1,800

Portrait of a man in traditional Arab garb

WILLIAMS, E.M., R.A. [Portrait of a man in traditional Arab garb].
Tripoli, 1914. Oil on canvas (51 x 40.5 cm), with artist's name, place and date on the back. Full description

€ 6,500

Key official document for the history of the Muslim Witu Protectorate

[WITU PROTECTORATE]. Correspondence respecting the punitive expedition against Witu of November 1890. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. December 1890.
London, printed for Her Majesty's stationery office by Harrison and sons, St. Martin's lane, n.d. [presented 1890]. Large 4to. Sewn. [28] pp. Full description

€ 1,500

First edition of a great Arabic grammar, with both the original and the revised preface

WRIGHT, William. A grammar of the Arabic language, translated from the German of Caspari, and edited, with numerous additions and corrections, ... vol. I[-II].
London, Edinburgh, Williams and Norgate (back of title-page: printed by Friedrich Nies (Karl Berend Lorck), Leipzig), 1859. 8vo. Set in roman, italic and Arabic type. Contemporary half mottled, tanned sheepskin. XVI, 257, [1 blank]; VI, [1], [1 blank], XVI, 327, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Biographical dictionary of 254 Islamic scholars (11th-15th century), their writings and their academies, including a 22-page excerpt in Arabic from Ibn Qadi Shuhba’s biographical dictionary

WÜSTENFELD, Ferdinand and Ibn Qadi SHUHBA. Die Academien der Araber und ihre Lehrer. Nach Auszügen aus Ibn Schohba's Klassen der Schafeïten ...
Göttingen, Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht (colophon: printed by Friedrich Ernst Huth), 1837. 8vo. Publisher's original printed wrappers. VIII, 136; 22 pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Original painting made to be reproduced as picture postcard for the Egyptian tourist industry

[CAIRO]. WUTTKE, Carl. A souk in Cairo.
Cairo, 1902. Signed and inscribed "C. Wuttke. Cairo. 1902". Oil on canvas board (20 x 28 cm). Unframed. Full description

€ 9,500

Greek and Arabic physicians on pathology and therapeutics

IBN SARABIYUN, Yahya (SERAPIO the elder). Iani Damasceni Decapolitani summae inter Arabes autoritatis medici, Therapeutice methodi, hoc est, curandi artis Libri VII. partim Albano Torino Vitodurano paraphraste, partim Gerardo iatro Cremonensi metaphraste.
Basel, Heinrich Petri, (colophon: March 1543). Folio (20.5 x 29 cm). 17th century black vellum, made from an earlier liturgical music manuscript. [24], 491, [1] pp. Full description

€ 18,000

First edition of al-Zamakhshari’s collection of Arabic proverbs, in Arabic and Latin

ZAMAKHSHARI, Abu al-Quasim Mahmud ibn Umar (Hendrik Albert SCHULTENS, editor). [Al-Kalim al-nawabigh]. Anthologia sententiarum Arabicarum. Cum scholiis Zamachsjarii.
Leiden, Jean Le Mair (colophon: printed by Daniel van Damme), 1772. 4to. With the large engraved arms of Willem V, Prince of Orange, above the dedication.Vellum, manuscript spine title. [20], 171, [1] pp. Full description

€ 6,500


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Islamic Culture