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Albums and Sketchbooks | - 46 items found in your search |
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2 |
Album of Chinese Faces
Wraps Very Good
Seventy-nine Chinese faces, all delicately drawn and/or painted directly onto the leaves. The collection is rich in the variety, represently a superb cross-section of adult Chinese faces. While all the men and women are serious in their expression, their faces are suffused with character. Many have clearly had an arduous life. The faces also evince an ethnic diversity within the Chinese population -- the eye sets, the shape of noses, and other features, are considerably more varied than the stereotype in the West. N.d., circa mid to late nineteenth century. Oblong, 23 by 12.5 cm, 9 by 5 inches. Wear, spotting to the wraps. Two pinprick holes in leaves, not affecting the images ever, and not disconcerting.
Price:
3000.00 USD
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3 |
Album of Chinese Paper Cut-outs
Silk pasted onto boards, bound together with strin Fine
N.d., circa early to mid-twentieth century. 20 pp., with a paper cut-out on every page. On the recto is a cut-out with color fabric intricately cut to fill in the gaps and enliven the images of people. On the verso is the more classic silhouette or shadow image cut-out of buildings, trees, small human figures and animals. The images are diminuitive in size, only filling a small corner of the oblong pages, which measure 10.5 by 7 inches, or 27 by 18 cm, other than the first page in which two birds flank a pretty abstract centerpiece. The art, of course, is in part the miniaturization, which requires lapidary skill, and we revel in the beauty and cogency of the imagery reduced to so small a scale. The album also is really more than the sum of its parts and exercises a cumulative effect on its admirer. Clean throughout.
Price:
325.00 USD
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4 |
Album of Humorous Cut-Out Figures, Detailed with Penwork, And Some Movable
England Quarter Morocco Good
Highly unusual and original album of cut-out figures, loosely in the style of an Edward Lear. N.d., early 20th century. With 21 leaves. There are images of early cars and scooters, and a reference to Teddy's braces, which is probably referencing Theodore Roosevelt. Most of the figures, though, could easily be late Victorian as much as Edwardian. The juxtapositions on some of the leaves can be manic, and that is part of the fun, in addition to the figures with movable parts. The effect is that of collage. There is the occasional political reference, but there would seem to be no agenda other than the nihilism of humor and caricature. Rebacked with green morocco. A few leaves have apparently disappeared, based on the evidence of offsetting, but since there is no narrative, the loss, such as it might be, would otherwise not be noticed. A few of the cut-outs have become loose, and a few others have minor losses (a limb, and the like). Regardless, a wonderful piece of home made entertainment.
Price:
2000.00 USD
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5 |
Album of Origami and Chromolithographic Imagery, Angel on Cover
Wraps Very Good
N.d., circa 1880s. 16 pages, plus cover, with the artful combination of origami paper folding and chromolithographic die cuts to create pages of artfully arranged imagery, or combining the two media into a single pictorial image. While such albums were not that at all uncommon, this one is done with singular neatness and what would seem an intuitive aesthetic sense that results in ineffably delightful juxtapositions. A good amount of the paper work involves a weaving of two different colors of paper, and this can lend an abstract element to the picture created as well. Some of the imagery is religious in nature, with the first page featuring a three dimensional, or pop-up card, depicting an altar. Other than children, imagery includes clowns, cats, a butterfly, and fish and one photograph of a girl. The book is 8 by 6.5 inches in its dimensions. Inscribed on the front wrap is the name "Maria de Vos".
Price:
195.00 USD
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6 |
Album of Origami and Chromolithographic Imagery, Roses on Cover
Wraps Very Good
N.d., circa 1880s. 16 pages, plus cover, with the artful combination of origami paper folding and chromolithographic die cuts to create pages of artfully arranged imagery, or combining the two media into a single pictorial image. While such albums were not that at all uncommon, this one is done with singular neatness and what would seem an intuitive aesthetic sense that results in ineffably delightful juxtapositions. A good amount of the paper work involves a weaving of two different colors of paper, and this can lend an abstract element to the picture created as well. Some of the imagery is religious in nature, with a crucifx at the center of the first page, but most is quite secular and pretty, with many children populating the imagery. Images include one of Bismarck, a Japanese girl or young woman in a kimono. eighteenth century clad children, a martini glass, and one photograph of a girl. The book is 8 by 6.5 inches in its dimensions.
Price:
195.00 USD
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7 |
Album of Red Chinese Paper Cut-outs
Silk pasted onto boards, bound together with strin Fine
N.d., circa early twentieth century. 20 pp., with classic red paper cut-out on every page, almost all very intricate and capturing a picturesque aspect of Chinese life or imagery. The imagery never occupies more than half of the page, which measures 10 by 6.5 inches, 26 by 16 cm, but it is in the miniaturization that lies much of the art, and we can but marvel at the lapidary skill of the craftsman or artist responsible for the silhouettes created.
Price:
450.00 USD
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8 |
Album of Watercolor Illustrations from a World War Two P.O.W. Depicting P.O.W. Theater
Burgeret, Kenya 1943 Cloth Very Good
Highly unusual album of original art done by an Italian P.O.W. imprisoned in Africa during World War Two. In a mere twelve leaves the artist depicts the more frivolous, bearable aspect of being a P.O.W., with its drag shows, its food lines, its attempts at normalcy. Rendered with a light touch and great economy, the scenes evoke the musical South Pacific, and the artwork itself has the narrative drive of a Norman Rockwell work, perhaps surprising given that the artist was an Italian. So here we have several depictions of soldiers in drag and other costume. Burguret, where this work was done, was a P.O.W. camp located in Kenya. Although all the works are signed, it is impossible to read the signature. There is a note on the first leaf in which it appears an Italo Puglese is dedicating the album to a Lieutenant Blencome, who "With his generosity he has made my prison days a little more cheerful." The words that follow are illegible and thus undermine a clearcut identification of the parties. Nevertheless, the charm and skill of the drawings are undeniable, and as a contemporary account of life in the camp, whoever was responsible, invaluable. The album binding is heavily soiled. The staples binding the leaves are rusty, and two leaves are loose. Minor toning and soiling to the illustration pages. Oblong album, measuring 10 by 7 inches, 27 by 18 cm.
Price:
1750.00 USD
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9 |
Album of Watercolors and Color Pencil Drawings of Three Children and a Few Other Subjects
1882-1884, 1888-9, 1924-7 Cloth Good
A fabulous collection of a child's nearf-realistic renderings of three siblings, Carl, Hermann and Leslie, along with a few other fanciful illustration. Probably German, at least in part, and possibly English, based on the spelling of the name Hermann, although Leslie is an unlikely German name. Three pages in the back are made up of ledger like entries from the 1920s relating to the sale of postcards, and these entries are in German. One might conjecture that this latter use of the notebook was made by one of the two boys now a grown-up who reached for something that was just laying around for recordkeeping purposes, and thus this would tend to reinforce the German orgin of the book. Otherwise, the focal point of interest in the album should be the colored pencil and watercolored illustrations of the children posing or engaged in quiet activities and play. A favorite is bound to be of Hermann training a poodle who is erect, or perhaps one boy pulling the legs of another seated, uneasily, on a chair, or perhaps Carl sitting in from of a tall tower made from a Lego-like set of blocks. Other illustrations worth mention include that of two Indians and an elephant, a portrait of a gorilla, and a sketch of a tower ruin with an archway. There are twenty-two pages of completed, or mostly completed, images in color, in addition to a bunch of others partly executed or in pencil. The album binding is that of a notebook and it is quite scuffed. Some soiling throughout, with a few leaves of heavier foxing. Nonetheless, an extraordinary example of its kind, mostly, if not entirely, by one hand.
Price:
400.00 USD
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10 |
Black Forest Photo Album with An Unusual Relief Depicting Putti, One Blowing Bubbles, the Other, Playing Cymbals
Berner Oberland, Switzerland Very Good Plus
N.d., circa 1890. The front board is quite elaborate, with a beveled perimeter of a richly painted wood grain. Within is an oblong piece of walnut in the quintessential Black Forest, or in actuality, Swiss Brienzerware, style. By this is meant the delicate foliate relief vignettes which rest on lightly pitted wood. But this frames a light walnut oblong oval with the putti relief that bespeaks more eighteenth century rococo than standard Brienzerware, except that the stones and vegetation at the base are consistent with Brienzerware. The rear board of the album has a pyrographic bouquet such as was practiced by the Swiss carvers later in the nineteenth century. The album, now empty of photos, has 25 thick card leaves, and it is kept closed with a brass clasp. The spine is of brown morocco.
Price:
1250.00 USD
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11 |
Friendship Album with Exceptional Artwork
1897 - 1920s Cloth Very Good
This friendship album contains watercolors and ink drawings of outstanding quality. While there are entries as late as the 1920s, the majority of entries are dated 1897 and 1898 and overwhelmingly the entries are from the early years. A fair amount of entries were done on the continent, and specifically in Switzerland and Germany. In all probability the album was kept by an Antoinette Lunn, whose entry is the first and unaccompanied by verse, although one can not be entirely sure of this. Unquestionably this album was kept by an affluent young woman, probably English, with the means to travel abroad and conversant in German. Among the many wonderful and varied images are a palette set amid a mantle in an arts and crafts aesthetic juxtaposition, an abbey ruin, flowers and a cameo of a girl and infant on piggyback, a portrait of a young woman, the Lion of Lucerne, sledding in Switzerland, landscapes, the Castle of Chinon, a steeple, a sailboat on a lake, Joan of Arc, a lad of the 18th century, a Chinese vase, cats peering into a fishbowl, English soldiers, etc. The cloth cover has considerable wear and scuff marks. The endpapers are split by the hinges. The binding has some shakiness. There is soiling scattered throughout.
Price:
500.00 USD
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12 |
German Autograph Album
Dated on case 1806 but entries include ones that are from a later date. With twelve color vignettes, all done by hand. Housed in elaborate red morocco box and casing. Depicted in the illustrations are two waterfront scenes, what looks like a monastery, a hunt trophy still life, two floral wreaths, a castle ruin, what looks like a bell-shaped mausoleum, an urn trophy, a pair of pleasure pavilions, a still life of a map and assorted papers. The text leaves are generally written in an antiquated cursive now difficult to decipher. The box and casing are worn, with rubbing and the bottom pushed in from the lid, but the set remains quite handsome nonetheless.
Price:
850.00 USD
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13 |
German Autograph Album from the 1850s and 1860s
The top leaf has an embroidered decoration over a moire silk fabric and sewn in are the initials L. A., or so it appears. Entries dated throughout the 1850s into the 1860s. Illustrations include that of a maiden with a straw hat, a rock in the landscape, a still life of letters, a lake landscape, a mountain landscape, a seraph, a bouquet on paper with raised decoration. Several of the text leaves feature writing that can only be read with a mirror. The loose slips of paper are housed in a lovely contemporary cartonnage box. The decoration on the front board of the box is rubbed. Still overall a handsome box. The artwork within is of various quality levels, with the best being very fine indeed.
Price:
495.00 USD
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14 |
Miniature Album with Penwork Church on Cover
Wood Boards and Leather Spine Very Good
N.d., circa 1850. The penwork impression on the front cover is of St. Andrews Church in Burnham, Somerset. This sets the tone, with 20 engraved picturesque views of Britain following, some in oval, others rectangular, with legends on the facing versos. These include Glastonbury Church, St. Donat's Castle, Carnovan Castle, Tematon Castle, Pont Aberglaslyn, the Summit of Snowden, etc. The diminuitive album is a mere 2.5 by 1.5 inches (6.5 by 4 cm). This is a lovely Victorian souvenir and pocket-sized viewbook, and quite special for the genre. The wood boards and red leather spine, plus clasp, remain attractive.
Price:
300.00 USD
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15 |
Mother-of-Pearl, Paper Mache Album
N.d., the boards are circa mid-nineteenth century, while the endpapers and blank leaves within are new and fresh. The front board has a magnificent bouquet centerpiece, with a slender gilt border near the perimeter of the boards. The rear board is simply plain black. Rebacked, the album has a beautiful Japanese-style endpaper which while not strictly-speaking of the same period as the decorative boards, complements them spectacularly. The boards have typical minute craquelature, and there are a few very minor spots of surface loss along the edges. Immaculate within.
Price:
900.00 USD
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16 |
Scrapbook of Travels to the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy in 1888
1888 Quarter Calf Very Good Minus
An idiosyncratic, albeit not uncommon sort of scrapbook, from a Grand Tour undertaken by the American, C. H. Butler, in 1888. Mr. Butler was from Washington, and he endeavored to save and paste into this album many of the ephemeral tidbits that were part and parcel of travel in those days, from tickets, to ocean steamer menus. Throughout the album are postcards or their precursors, mostly then not photographs but detailed illustrations that often may have been derived from photos. Also pasted into the album are a good number of photos that were probably purchased at the sights, along with other paper souvenirs. Mr. Butler also collected leaves and some other physical objects from the various locations. What may hold the greatest interest are his hand-written notes that serve as captioned descriptions here and there. Probably the most space is given over to the visit to Berlin, and for this we can be grateful, as this is the one place visited that was virtually completely destroyed during the Second World War and so the album truly conjures up a lost world. The pages can be brittle, and thus there is some chipping along the edges. The spine has been rebacked with calf.
Price:
250.00 USD
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17 |
Talismanic Flowers
1880 Half Morocco Very Good
With 14 pages of chromolithographic die-cuts. Twelve of these pages are of flowers representing each of the months, the thirteenth is of an elaborate bouquet, and the final leaf is an assortment of nine die-cuts of flowers and children such as one might find in a more common Victorian album. Each of the monthly floral die-cut leaves is accompanied by poetry entitled "The Legend of" whatever the particular flower is as well as a four-line stanza dedicated to the same month. The thirteenth leaf comes with a long poem called "Nature' Cathedral". Separate from all this are nine leaves of newspaper clippings and poetry. This latter part was done in the 1930s and 40s and thus a good half-century after the principal part of the album. We can date the die-cut portion to 1880, if not a little earlier, by an inscription dated 1880 on the FFEP. This section is an outstanding example of its genre -- the compiler had an overarching conception which was executed neatly and elegantly. The morocco is heavily rubbed, with a section on the spine pierced, revealing the underlying signature gatherings. The interior is generally clean, with some yellowing from the glue used and ordinary age toning. 11 by 9".
Price:
400.00 USD
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18 |
Watercolor Album of European Views
N.d., 1905-1932. 43 leaves, with 86 watercolors of different views from England, France, Italy, the Lowlands, Switzerland, all done by a very accomplished hand during the first third of the 20th century. The views of both panoramic and close-up, natural scenery and architectural, with bridges, castles, cottages aplenty. The artist was concerned with capturing the beautiful and rendering it so -- this was not the effort of a modernist cynic wallowing in irony, the sordid, the underside of things -- and so there is a dream-like quality to the art. That all was done by one artist contributes to the satisfying cohesion of the album. The images might not individually be particular original in their treatment, but that doesn't negate the sensual, sensate appeal of them, and the effort that each image represented speaks to a level of appreciation for sights that is impossible to achieve in our era of commodified tourism. This kind of album is an affirmation of the rewards to be garnered on the Grand Tour of Yore. The pictures are not signed other than a handful with the initials "KP" and dated from 1905 to 1932. There can be no question that they are all by the same hand, and that KP probably had it in mind to create a cohesive album like this. The album itself is strictly utilitarian in its design, with screws used to bind the leaves together, and the boards covered with an office log leatherette which is now rubbed and worn. The leaves are of a near card stiffness, though, which is well-suited for the mounting of the watercolors thereon. The oblong album measures 26 by 21 cm, 10 by 8.5 inches, and the watercolors are of varying size but typically cover a little more than half the surface.
Price:
2600.00 USD
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19 |
[Album] European Tour Circa 1890s
Half Leather Very Good
N.d, circa 1890s. Assembled probably during an European Grand Tour that took the compiler to England, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and back to England. Posted on each page is one or two items, generally photos that were sold like postcards would later be and about the same size as the typical postcard or larger. There are 32 card leaves, or 64 pages, of these images. Rebacked in green morocco.
Price:
240.00 USD
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20 |
[Autograph Album] Featuring Entries by Rosalind Russell, Linda Darnell, Pat O'Brien, etc.
N.d., circa 1940s. Autographs include those of Linda Darnell, Rosalind Russell, Charlotte Greenwood and Pat O'Brien. The autograph of Rosalind Russell includes a pen illustration of the actress's back and her face, both crudely yet appealingly done. The sketches were probably by the album keeper, not Ms. Russell, although the latter is a possibility. More obscure nowadays but famous at the time were Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce, who played the couple Ethel and Albert Arbuckle on a long-running radio, then television, show, "The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert", and both signed the album with both their real names and the name of their characters. Rounding out the album are several fashion illustrations of gowns done with watercolors. The album is of modest size, measuring 6 by 4.5 inches. A few of the items are loose within, while others entries were applied directly to the leaves.
Price:
225.00 USD
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