Nicolas Rauch SA (Geneva)

Two parts in one volume (27 cm), I: 381 (3) pp., folding colour frontispiece, colour vignette tipped to title-page, 10 leaves of black & white plates (pls.1-10), text illustrations. 575 lots. List of Estimates and Price list tipped in. II: 91 (5) pp., 20 black & white plates, text illustrations. 523 lots. List of estimates tipped in. Morocco-backed boards, a collector’s binding (original wrappers bound in). - The early printed books from the library of Silvain S. Brunschwig, a Swiss lawyer practising in New York (his English and American literature had been sold in New York by Parke-Bernet, 9 April 1951). “It was only in about 1946 that Dr Brunschwig seriously turned his attention to this earlier period and quite 90 percent of the lots had been bought between that year and 1953” (The Times Literary Supplement, 10 June 1955, p.324). This was however a propitious time for the collector, and Brunschwig bought extensively in the Dyson Perrins and Landau sales in London, the Kreisler and Wilmerding sales in New York, and from the dispersal of the Liechtenstein library. The second auction sale offered illustrated books of later dates, including a good series of emblem books, commencing with the 1531 Alciati, and mostly pretty copies. The catalogues are excellent, with numerous reproductions, and much care taken to trace the provenance of the books. Edition limited to “Mille exemplaires numérotés de 1 à 1000. Cinquante exemplaires sur Fabriano, numérotés de I à L” (colophon, part I). ¶ Copy 89 of 1000 (part I); no limitation notice in part II. Part I partly priced in pencil. Excellent set in a collector’s binding. No Price list for Auction 12.