In the original dark green morocco binding by W.H. Smith & Son (probably Douglas Cockerell himself) and with red initials designed by Eric Gill, it was again one of 20 vellum copies.
Job lots of French bindings from another source produced a number of the day’s higher bids – one lot of unspecified size selling for £1650 rather than the £100-150 suggested – but rather more indentifiable are the three lots that follow.
A scarce 1726 first edition (bearing the Bettesworth imprint) of The Gentleman Angler..., lacking the second page of advertisements and bound in 19th century half calf gilt with fish and shell ornaments to the spine, was sold at £800, while bid to £850 was A Formulary of that part of ye Solemnity which is performd in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter Westminster at the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Anne. Dated April 23, 1702, this manuscript would appear to be a manual used by one of those officiating at the service. It was bound in contemporary gilt stamped red calf.
The upper board and several pages were loose on an 1817 first of Henry Ellis’ Journal of the Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, but the portrait, three maps (foxed) and seven coloured aquatints took the bidding to £420.
Pictured right: though it seems probable that C.J. Visscher never saw London, his four-sheet panorama of c.1600, measuring 171/2in x 7ft 1in (45cm x 2.17m), is one of the best known early views of the city. The framed and glazed coloured copy that sold for £1800 (Cline) at Bloomsbury was probably a mid-19th century issue. Sold at £800 to the same buyer was a 51/4in x 18ft (13.5cm x 5.53m) long Grand Panorama of London and the River Thames, a continuous strip panorama on a wooden spool issued c.1850 by Bondy Azulay, a prolific producer and seller of peepshows and perspective views, who at this time occupied three booths at the Thames Tunnel.
Dreweatt Neate, Newbury, October 10
Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent
Ashendene Dante and More
The Ashendene Dantes that sold for £7000 as part of the book section of this general antiques sale at Dreweatt Neate on 10 October were formerly in the library of Sir Frederick Handley Page, founder of the aeronautical firm, and sold at £3500 was his copy of the 1906 Ashendene edition of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.
