JOHANNES

An interesting sidelight into a neglected area of Joachim scholarship, the 'Joseph Joachim - biography and research' website containing no references at all to Macirone. Joachim's acquaintance with England (where his elder brother Henry settled) had begun while he was still a child, when his teacher Felix Mendelson (himself a prodigy) had brought him to the country, where his playing caused a sensation. 14 letters, in fair condition, on aged and worn paper. The combined letters total 34pp. in 8vo and 12mo, with Joseph Joachim's eleven letters consisting of 25pp. of this amount, of which 15pp.

In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, tipped in onto a grey paper mount. Engraved on 13 x 8 cm piece of wove paper, with no margin. The firm's shop was at the sign of Horace's head in the Strand, and the engraving depicts a lapidary carving off the head and shoulders of the poet, with laurel leaf above, in an oval frame, around which are 'carved' decorations (including lyre and grapes).

1p., small 4to. In fair condition, on lightly-aged and creased paper, with slight loss to one corner. Docketed by Clarabut at the head of the page: 'Re book of hours Christie lot 194 8.xii.58'. He thanks Clarabut for 'the solution of the bookplate', and asks him if he knows 'how & when that library was sold', as it would be 'interesting to note'. 'When at the Hague I'll see in my catalogue-list if I find anything on the name of Bateman.'

8vo: 224 pp. Errata on last page. Frontispiece and portrait of the author on p.65 by Lodge. In original brown calf binding, with red label with 'Kisses of Secundus' in gilt, on spine. A tight copy, with the flyleaves becoming detached, the frontispiece foxed and with a closed tear at the head of the hinge, and a 4mm ink stain spreading upwards along the leaves along the bottom edge. Elegantly printed, with a four-page preface by the unnamed translator, followed by a 32-page 'Essay on the Life and Writings of Secundus'.The poems are on the versos, with the translations on the facing rectos.

Paper dimensions roughly ten and a half inches by eleven and a half; print dimensions eight and a half inches by ten and a half. Aged and with three inch strip, roughly half an inch wide, torn away from surface of print in top left-hand corner. Depicts a crowded and rather grand hall, containing a long horseshoe-shaped table around which are crowded connoisseurs of both sexes contemplating engravings and illustrated books or engaged in discussion. Arti et Amicitiae is an Amsterdam society of artists and art lovers, founded in 1839.

Good clean image of a seventeenth-century engraving, from an earlier idealised portrait of the putative 'father of printing'. It is of irregular shape, the background having been carefully cut away. Neatly mounted on piece of beige paper, illustrated with a brown pseudo-frame with decorative book devices in the four corners. Half-length portrait of a bearded Gutenberg in fur-lined hat and coat, with composing stick in left hand and stylus in right. Dimensions roughly eight and a quarter inches by seven wide. Engraved beneath is 'P Stent Excudit: R Gaywood fecit'.