W e are delighted to present the November edition of our twice-yearly sale of beautifully illustrated works of natural history, maps, atlases, topographical photographs and fine colour-plate books.
Leading the sale is the Alwan collection: a monumental group of 5,000 photographs of Palestine, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa ranging from the 1860s to the early 1900s.
Other photographic highlights include a set of Snouck Hurgronje’s two photobooks on Mecca and Medina, an album of early photographs of China from the 1860s, an album of Foochow (Fuzhou) from c. 1890, and a splendid series of 13 portfolios of photographs collected around 1890 of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Java, India, Siam, Ceylon, Aden, and North America. The sale also includes a rare copy of the Photographic Album for the year 1857, illustrated with salted paper and albumen print photographs by pioneering Photographic Club members, including Francis Bedford, Roger Fenton, John Dillwyn Llewelyn, Oscar Rejlander, and Benjamin Turner, and a significant collection of over 1,000 photographs of Palestine, Jerusalem and the Holy Land including a rare stereo viewer and stereoscopic views by Bonfils, Bassan and Frith.
Fine illustrated books include a rare hand-coloured copy of Davidov’s views in Greece and Ionian Islands (St Petersburg, 1839), a finely bound set of the monumental Description de l’ Égytpe, and a 3-volume set of William Pyne’s Royal Residences bound in red morocco. The sale also includes a set of 50 nineteenth-century watercolours of Egypt, Palestine, Turkey and Greece and a very large framed watercolour view of the Summer Palace in Beijing which was once owned by the traveller Robert Byron.
Cartographic highlights include atlases by Visscher, Pitt, Zatta and Coronelli, Blaeu’s Novum Italiae theatrum and individual maps by Ortelius, P.A.F. Tardieu and Seutter.
Natural history highlights include a collection of finely illustrated and bound ornithological books by Peter Scott and an attractive work by Sclater and Thomas.
![View 1 of Lot 21: Japan—Felice Beato | Album of 50 photographs of Japanese portraits and views. [Yokohama, circa. 1868]](https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c3f29cc/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1452x2000+0+0/resize/273x376!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Fea%2Fe9%2Fc612df7e4344a15619967c3d79d1%2Fl21405-by6xg-4-t1.jpg)
![View 1 of Lot 3: China—Tung Hing | Photographic Views of Foochow and Vicinity, [c. 1890; including images from the 1870s]](https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5e5ad7a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1371+0+0/resize/330x226!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Fb0%2F25%2F31890a0d4e188089d7441a1c154b%2Fl21405-c2spk-1-t1.jpg)
![View 1 of Lot 6: China, Beijing | A very large watercolour of the Summer Palace, Beijing, [Qing dynasty]](https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f959ce6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1038+0+0/resize/330x171!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Fa0%2F1e%2Fa428ee7b4b8bb9f45dd95d5270fb%2Fl21405-c29jc-02-t2-01.jpg)
![View 1 of Lot 54: Egypt—Felix Bonfils | Eleven mammoth photographs of Egypt. [circa. 1880]](https://sothebys-com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6a5b0ca/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1544+0+0/resize/330x255!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Ff3%2F2c%2F78df3ce54ecb96b64f911a8f4746%2Fl21405-bwyr4-1.jpg)
