Property From The Collection of Robert S Pirie Volumes I & II: Books and Manuscripts

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Lot 849
  • 849

Whitney, Geoffrey

Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 USD
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Description

  • Whitney, Geoffrey
  • A Choice of Emblemes, and other Devises, for the mofte parte gathered out of sundrie writers, Englsihed and Moralized. Leyden: In the house of Christopher Plantyn by Francis Raphelengius, 1586
  • ink, paper, leather
4to (8 1/4 x 5 1/4 ins.; 210 x 162 mm). Two parts in one volume. Title-page with printer's devce and  woodcut border, full-page woodcut coat of arms of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester on verso, 248 woodcut emblems within type ornament border; gutter and upper margin of title restored,  corners restored to perhaps 12 leaves in the first part, the second part has holes in the blank fore-margins repaired from quires a3-f3 (affecting only a few letters of the occasional printed sidenote), final blank lacking.  Nineteenth century gilt-paneled red morocco by Pratt.

Provenance

W.A, White (1890 penciled ownership) — Harold Grenhill (bookplate) — Allerton C. Hickmott (penciled note).  acquisition: Seven Gables, 1974

Literature

STC 25438; ESTC 199129; Freeman, English Emblem Books 233; Hayward 21; Grolier, Langland to Wither 260.

Catalogue Note

First edition of the first English illustrated emblem book and the only work in English issued by the Plantin press. These illustrations had a great influence on English designs in the decorative arts, with the motifs adapted for furniture, tapestries and embroideries. While the poems are largely translations, Whitney penned 23 originals for this, a work "certainly known to Shakespeare" (Douce).

Scarce, only two copies in lesser condition have been at auction in recent decades