First Impressions. Bibliography: Collecting the Book as Object.
Catalogus variorum insignium et rariorum librorum, pia memoria, D. Guilhelmi van der Meer …
Willem Vander Meer, d. 1594. Delft: Bruyn H. Schinckel, 1609.
Although the library of the well-to-do Dutch attorney Willem Vander Meer (d. 1594) includes some rare and interesting books, its importance as a collection is eclipsed by the importance of this printed record of the 1609 sale, one of the very earliest book auction catalogues. Book auctions were a relatively recent Dutch innovation, and the earliest sale to be accompanied by a printed catalogue had been held just a decade before, in 1599. The catalogue of the 1609 Vander Meer sale complements extensive and significant holdings at the Club of printed book auction catalogues from England, France, and other countries, dating from the seventeenth century to the present day, and providing uniquely valuable data on private collecting and the book trade in early modern Europe.
Purchased at auction in 2010 with the generous support of the Bernard H. Breslauer Foundation.
Bibliotheca Hookiana, sive, Catalogus diversorum librorum: viz., mathematic., philologicor., philosophic., hist. natural., medicorum, navigat. … per Edoardum Millington.
Robert Hooke, 1635-1703. [London]: R. Smith [et al.], [1703].
The library of the famous English scientist, architect, and polymath Robert Hooke (1635-1703) has been called the first really modern scientific book collection, and the printed catalogue of his library, sold April 29, 1703, is critical to our understanding of Hooke not just as a book collector, but as a revolutionary figure in the history of science and medicine. It was an extraordinary library for its time: quite large, at 3,000 volumes, and devoted mostly to science and medicine—some of respectable age and rarity—at a time when the libraries of most educated men ran heavily to standard contemporary works on law, philosophy, and religion.
The sale drew attention from Hooke's contemporaries for the high proportion of books containing Hooke's own annotations (including the author's copy of his famous Micrographia); and the library as a whole, as recorded in this extremely rare catalogue, gives a "vivid illustration of one of the most brilliant minds England has ever produced.”–H.A. Feisenberger, “Introduction,” Sales Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, Vol. 11., Scientists (1975), pp. 4-7.
Purchased in 2011, subsidized by the generous contributions of sixteen Grolier Club members.
Dispositio hierogliphica biblioth[e]cae archi-coenobii. B.M. de Firmitate ad Graonam...
L’Abbaye de la Ferté-sur Grosne. [Chalon-sur-Saône, France, between 1729 and 1736].
La Ferté Abbey was an important Cistercian monastery located in eastern France. In 1702, the abbot Claude Petit commissioned a new library building, richly adorned with sculpted woodwork vignettes representing the subject areas of the library. After the abbey was destroyed in the French Revolution, many of the books and woodworks made their way to the municipal library at Chalon-sur-Saône.
This manuscript describes the subject arrangement of Petit’s library with detailed drawings of the woodwork vignettes. Thanks to a recent partnership with the Bibliothèque municipale de Chalon-sur-Saône, we have been able to match the drawings with surviving pieces of the woodwork incorporated into the library’s reading room.
Purchased in 2015 with Grolier Club Library Harper Funds.
Karl Heinrich, Graf von Hoym, 1694-1736
Inventaire et description de tous les biens meubles, livres, tableaux ... et autres effets de la succession dudit deffunt Seigneur Comte de Hoym.
Karl Heinrich, Graf von Hoym, 1694-1736. [Paris, 1738].
The Count d’Hoym was one of the most important book and art collectors of the time. Born in Saxony, he spent much of his life in France, where he served as envoy to the Court of Versailles. He committed suicide in a Saxon prison in 1736 while being held on trumped-up charges of treason.
This posthumous manuscript inventory documents the books, art, and furnishings in the Count’s Parisian residence. In addition to listing his books in some detail, the inventory describes the supply of leather skins he kept in stock for his bindings, a practice generally attributed only to bookbinders. The very rare and highly prized maroquin bleu, as listed on this page, was used for the binding of this volume.
Purchased in 2012 with Grolier Club Library Harper Funds.
The Life of Charles Henry Count Hoym, Ambassador from Saxony-Poland to France and Eminent French Bibliophile, 1694-1736.
Baron Jérôme Pichon, 1812-1896. New York: The Grolier Club, 1899.
In the first few decades of its existence, the Grolier Club regularly printed a very small number—usually no more than three—of the copies in a particular edition on vellum. The process of printing on prepared animal skin was difficult and expensive, but the result was luxurious in the extreme, achieving visual and tactile effects impossible to duplicate in standard printing on paper; and the auction of these very special copies at the Club's Annual Meeting regularly brought substantial sums for the Grolier's publication fund.
A very few of these exceedingly rare “unicorns” have made their way back to the Club, and this one nicely complements the spectacular Hoym manuscript inventory acquired by the Club in 2012. We don’t know which early Grolier Club member acquired this vellum copy at auction in the year 1900, but whoever he was, he commissioned the Club Bindery in 1905 to dress the volume in full crushed morocco, with the Club device in gilt on the covers.
Gustav Planer. (German, 1818-1873).
Ch. Henry Comte de Hoym, 1872. Engraving, 13½ x 10½ in (platemark).
Engraving of the Count d’Hoym after the 1716 painting by French artist Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743).
Catalogue des livres qui composent la bibliothèque de Madame Elisabeth de France, soeur du roy …
Élisabeth, Princess of France, 1764-1794. Versailles, 1783.
This elegant manuscript catalogue documents the library of Madame Élisabeth, the pious sister of King Louis XVI and victim of the French Revolution. At the start of the upheaval in 1789, she fled to her estate in Montreuil near Versailles, taking her books with her. Upon her death, they were confiscated by Revolutionary officials, and many now reside at the Arsenal Library in Paris.
The handsome straight-grained crimson morocco binding, stamped with the gilt arms of Madame Élisabeth, signals the high status of the owner.
Purchased in 2005 at the Breslauer sale with Grolier Club Library Harper Funds, generously supported by Grolier Club member donations.
Records of the Imperial Libraries under Napoléon Bonaparte.
1805-1811.
This extraordinary collection of manuscripts offers a unique and nearly comprehensive summary of Napoléon's activities as a book collector, as well as a fascinating insight into the mechanics of running an important part of the imperial household during the period. The 300 items in the collection include inventories and shelf lists (many priced) of books in the various satellite libraries of Napoléon in St. Cloud, Fontainebleau, Malmaison, etc.; invoices and correspondence concerning the purchase of books, binding of books by Bozerian, Martin, Bizouard, and others; letters of agreement and other official documents relating to A.-A. Barbier's role in administering the libraries; and statements of expenditure relating to the physical upkeep of these libraries, including lighting and heating, shipping of books between Paris and the satellite libraries, and building repairs.
Purchased in 2008 with the generous support of the Florence Gould Foundation.
Description bibliographique d'une très-belle collection de livres, rares et curieux, provenant de la bibliothèque de Melle. la Comtesse d'Yve.
Anne-Thérèse-Philippine, Comtesse d’Yve, 1738-1814. 2 vols. Bruxelles: Auguste Wahlen, 1819-1820.
The Comtesse d’Yve was a Belgian aristocrat known for her political activism and participation in the Brabant Revolution of 1789-1790. She was also a formidable collector of early printed books, as demonstrated by this posthumous sale catalogue of her library. Lot 6 describes her superb copy of the Gutenberg Bible in its original fifteenth-century binding, now owned by Eton College. Although the Comtesse was not the first woman to own the Gutenberg Bible, she was the first to acquire a copy as a bibliophilic pursuit.
Purchased in 2005 at the Breslauer sale with Grolier Club Library Harper Funds, generously supported by Grolier Club member donations.