MUSEUM

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Autograph Signature ('Henry Ellis'), of Sir Henry Ellis, Principal Librarian, the British Museum, on part of letter to James C. Webster.

Author: 
Sir Henry Ellis (1777-1869), Principal Librarian, the British Museum [James C. Webster, Secretary, Athenaeum Club, London]
Publication details: 
No place or date.
£23.00
Autograph Signature ('Henry Ellis'),  of Sir Henry Ellis, Principal Librarian

On rectangle cut from letter, 3.5 x 11 cm. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with neat vertical crease at one edge (away from signature) and minor traces of previous mounting on reverse. Reads '<...> to his Admission. | Believe me very faithfully Yours, | Henry Ellis', with reverse reading '<...> now with my Successor, Antonio Panizzi Esq | James C. Webster Esq'. From Webster's autograph collection.

[price list of specimen preparations] Museum Specimens. E. Purves & Co., Museum Specimen and Osteological Preparators. Price List. Eldon Lane, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Laboratories: - 2, Rockcliffe Gardens, Whitley Bay, Northumberland. [With letter.]

Author: 
E. Purves & Co., Museum Specimen and Osteological Preparators, Eldon Lane, Newcastle-on-Tyne [trade catalogues; taxidermy]
Publication details: 
Price list: Eldon Lane, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Laboratories: - 2, Rockcliffe Gardens, Whitley Bay, Northumberland. [T. Binns, Printer, Whitley Bay.] Letter dated 1923.
£125.00
Price list of specimen preparations]

Price list: 12mo, 8 pp. Stapled. Very good, on lightly-aged paper with slight rusting from staple. Photograph of specimen in jar on reverse, captioned 'CARTILAGINOUS. SKELETON OF DOGFISH.' Headings include: 'Specimens mounted to order', 'Osteological Preparation', 'Cartilaginous Preparation', 'Glass preserving jars' and 'Living and Preserved Material'. Letter: 4to, 1 p. Stamped date 16 January 1923. On firm's letterhead, with list of wares from 'Museum Specimens in jars' to 'Taxidermy' in the margin. Circular, containing additions to the list.

Autograph Letter Signed (Chas. C. Rafn.') from the Danish antiquary Charles Christian Rafn to the Principal Librarian at the British Museum, Sir Henry Ellis.

Author: 
Professor Charles Christian Rafn (1795-1864), secretary of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen [Sir Henry Ellis (1777-1869), Principal Librarian, British Museum, 1827-56]
Publication details: 
Copenhagen; 24 October 1850.
£165.00
Professor Charles Christian Rafn, ALS

8vo, 3 pp. Bifolium. The letter, on both sides of the first leaf, runs to thirty-seven lines, with nine lines in Icelandic (in another hand?) on the recto of the second page. Fair, on aged paper, and laid down onto a mount by the reverse of the second leaf. The mount is captioned in a contemporary hand. The first part of the letter refers to a facsimile which Ellis has 'caused to be executed and transmitted hither'. Rafn has already received this 'from Mr. Worsaae'. It contains 'an extract possessing interest for us of Ottar's and Ulfstein's account of travels in the North'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('S. Lane-Poole') to Miss Hollingworth.

Author: 
Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), British orientalist and archaeologist, Professor of Arabic Studies, Dublin University
Publication details: 
16 June 1896; 3 Newnham Road, Bedford.
£38.00

12mo, 2 pp. 20 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with slight creasing to corners. He is glad to have the autographs she has sent him. He is sending '28 of my duplicates'. His wife is 'very fairly well, but the heat tries her a good deal'. He himself enjoys the heat. 'The temperature here in the sun to-day was only 110 degrees - just the same as it was in the shade in Cairo when I was there last June!'

Autograph Letter Signed to his sister 'Dearest Mai'.

Author: 
Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), British orientalist and archaeologist, Professor of Arabic Studies, Dublin University
Publication details: 
8 October 1895; on letterhead of 3 Newnham Road, Bedford.
£45.00

12mo, 1 p. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with thin strip of stub from mount adhering to an edge. He is enclosing, for his sister's friend, a 'baker's dozen' of autographs, 'all holographs except one envelope'. He refers to a list of the items on the reverse (not present), before concluding 'The letters of Frances Lady Waldegrave & Louisa Marchioness of Waterford are characteristic'.

Autograph Note Signed ('R. Garnett') to 'Poole'.

Author: 
Richard Garnett (1835-1906), Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum, 1890-1899 [Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), British orientalist and archaeologist]
Publication details: 
6 February [no year]. On embossed British Museum letterhead.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper with remains of stub from mounting adhering to one edge. Reads 'We shall be very glad to accord Miss Rosamund hospitality on Saturday'. From a small archive of Lane-Poole material.

Autograph Letter Signed ('A. C Lyall') to Lane-Poole.

Author: 
Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (1835-1911), Indian civil servant, poet and historian [Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), British orientalist and archaeologist,]
Publication details: 
Undated; Flitwick, Swift Hill (on cancelled letterhead of 16 Queen's Gate, London S.W.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Nine lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, with a neat cut (not affecting text) neatly repaired on reverse. The Registrar at the India Office has informed Lyall that Lane-Poole's name is 'on the list of those to whom the India Archaeological Reports are sent'.

Collection of nine items (eight printed and one in manuscript) relating to Cambridge University, six of them giving examination results, two of University accounts, and the last a lithographic plan of a visit by a dignitary to the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Author: 
Cambridge University, 1861 to 1865 [Fitzwilliam Museum; William Done Bushell]
Publication details: 
[Cambridge.] Eight of the items dated between 1861 and 1865; the other undated.
£450.00

The collection assembled by William Done Bushell (see Item Nine), later a senior master at Harrow School. All nine items clear and complete. On aged paper, discoloured by the glue used in mounting. The first eight are printed, and the last is in manuscript. ITEM ONE: 'Classical Tripos. | 1861.' 4to, 1 p. Names the examiners, and those of the students (with colleges), under columns for the first, second and third classes. ITEM TWO: Headed 'List of Honors at the Bachelor of Arts' Commencement, January 26, 1861.' 4to, 1 p.

Autograph Note in the third person, with signature ('Harry G Seeley | Assistant to Professor Sedgwick'), to Kerrison Harvey, containing a humourous flight of fancy regarding dinosaurs.

Author: 
Harry G. Seeley [Harry Govier Seeley] (1839-1909), a British paleontologist [Edward Kerrison Harvey (1826-1906) of Montague House, South Lowestoft and Grey Friars, Norwich]
Publication details: 
24 February 1869. On letterhead of St John's College, Cambridge.
£85.00

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Fair, on lightly-aged paper with thin horizontal strip of discoloration caused by glue from mount on blank reverse of second leaf.

Autograph Letter Signed to Colnaghi, thanking him for an engraving by Easton of his father.

Author: 
James Edward FitzGerald (1819-1886), Assistant Secretary, The British Museum, and later a New Zealand politician [Dominic Colnaghi (1790-1879); Paul Colnaghi (1751-1833); Reginald Easton]
Publication details: 
12 August 1848; British Museum.
£38.00

Folio, 1 page. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with an edge of the blank reverse bearing a small strip of the grey mount. A formal letter, attractively presented. He is 'directed by the Trustees of the British Museum, in the absence of the Secretary', to convey their thanks for the 'obliging Present to the Museum Collection of Prints, of a Portrait of the late Paul Colnaghi Esqr. Engraved by R Easton, proof'. Interestingly, the National Portrait Gallery does not possess any portrait of Paul Colnaghi.

Printed Receipt, completed in manuscript and signed, for five works by Williamson legally deposited in the Library of the British Museum.

Author: 
Department of Printed Books, British Museum, London [George Charles Williamson (1858-1942), writer on art and historian of Guildford; George Bell & Sons]
Publication details: 
6 October 1904; Department of Printed Books, British Museum, London.
£25.00

On one side of piece of paper 23.5 x 16 cm. With perforated edge. Good, on aged paper, with traces with strip of glue from previous mount on reverse. Printed in copperplate. The deposited works are 'Notes on the Maces, Insignia of Office, and Town Plate of the Town of Guildford', 'Progress of Catholic Work', 'Token Pamphlet', 'Guildford Shakespeare' and 'County Town'. Ostensibly signed by the 'Keeper', but the signature is not decipherable (''). In his obituary in The Times, 6 July 1942, Williamson was praised as 'a highly industrious and versatile writer on art'.

The Royal Society. Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., O.M., D.C.L., President. Conversazione. June 19th, 1903.

Author: 
[Sir William Huggins, President of the Royal Society; Conversazione, 1903]
Publication details: 
[1903.] Burlington House. [Harrison & Sons, Printers in Ordinary to His Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.]
£75.00

8vo, 24 pp. Stitched as issued. Well printed on good laid paper. Creased and aged. A programme, describing, often in detail, the forty-six exhibits, in the various rooms, from 'Photographs illustrative of the Coronation Naval Review, 1902' by Dr W. J. S. Lockyer, to 'Examples illustrating the Scientific and Educational Applications of the Bioscope.' Exhibitors include Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, Rutherford and Soddy ('The condensation of the radio-active emanations of radium and thorium by liquid air.') and the Solar Physics Observatory, South Kensington.

Some Correspondence on the Subject of the Grant of £1,800, made to the National School of the Hamlet of Highgate, by the Committee of Privy Council for Education.

Author: 
[Highgate National School] [John Holmes, of the British Museum; Nathaniel Basevi; Robert Lingen; Harry Chester; Lewis Vulliamy; William Ford]
Publication details: 
Privately printed [1853?]. [Printed by Cox (Brothers) and Wyman, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields.]
£85.00

8vo: 30 pp. on sixteen leaves (including final blank). Unbound and stitched as issued. Text clear and complete. A scarce item (the only copies on COPAC at the British Library, Lambeth Palace and the Guildhall). On aged, worn and damp-stained paper, with chipping to extremities. Regarding the ' "rumours" alleged against' Ford and Chester ('in reality a definite statement made by a gentleman on the authority of Mr.

Autograph Letter Signed to Wheatley.

Author: 
Edwin Norris (1795-1872), linguist and Assyriologist [Henry Benjamin Wheatley (1838-1917), bibliographer, editor and London topographer; Frederick James Furnivall]
Publication details: 
17 August 1865. Brompton.
£35.00

12mo, 2 pp. Thirteen lines of text. Good. The letter possibly relates to Furnivall's Early English Text Society, founded in 1865. He is enclosing a Post Office Order for a guinea, but, as he 'said to Mr Furnivall last year', he does not consider himself a subscriber, 'wishing to reserve the right of withdrawal in case of finding it inconvenient to pay, which will certainly be the case when I give up my official position'. Nevertheless asks Wheatley to remind him 'when the time comes for collection'.

Typed Letter Signed ('R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford') to Miss Robin Place.

Author: 
R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford [Rupert Leo Scott Bruce-Mitford] (1914-1994), archaeologist and art historian [T. D. Kendrick [Sir Thomas Downing Kendrick]; the British Museum]
Publication details: 
14 October 1947; on letterhead of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, British Museum, London.
£28.00

4to: 1 p. 22 lines. Text clear and entire on lightly aged and creased paper, with one 1.5 cm closed tear (not affecting text). Congratulating Place on her 'Assistant Principalship'. He considers she was 'very wise to take the opportunity'. He has discussed 'the house-key question with the Keeper [T. D. Kendrick]', who regards Saturday afternoons 'as a sacred time reserved for peaceful work, undisturbed by ones colleagues'. Consequently 'it would be rather difficult to accommodate you as a helper on Saturdays and after your week's work at the ministry'.

Printed circular (in the form of a facsimile of a handwritten letter) invitation to the 'Ceremony of laying the Foundation Stone [of the 'New Library and Museum' at the Guildhall]'.

Author: 
William Sedgwick Saunders [Guildhall Library; Corporation of London; the City]
Publication details: 
17 October 1870; Guildhall.
£55.00

4to: 1 p. Facsimile of a handwritten letter. With small embossed circular letterhead, in red and gilt, with crest enclosed by the words 'Bibliotheca civitatis Londoniarum'. Somewhat grubby bifolium, but with text clear and entire, reading 'The Committee appointed by the Corporation of London to carry out the works in connexion with their new Library and Museum having fixed Thursday, the 27th. Instant for the ceremony of laying the Foundation Stone of the buildings, it will afford them much pleasure to be favored with your company on the occasion, at Guildhall at 2. o'clock. p.m.

Autograph Letter Signed to Dr [Albert] Gunther.

Author: 
Arthur Donaldson Smith
Publication details: 
24 January 1895; Barre.
£150.00

American physician and explorer of Africa (1866-1939). The recipient (1830-1914) was Keeper of the Zoological Department at the British Museum, 1875-95, and Vice-President of the Royal Society, 1875-6. Two pages, 12mo. Very good, on slightly discoloured paper with a little light spotting. Traces of previous mount adhering to one edge. He is sending some 'spirit-specimens' from his collection and has written to Sir William Flower 'as to the disposition of the entire collection'.

Two Autograph Letters Signed ('Edwd. Jesse' and 'Edward Jesse') to [Edward] Walford.

Author: 
Edward Jesse (1780-1868), English naturalist and author [Edward Walford (1823-1897)]
Publication details: 
13 October 1863, 16 Belgrave Place; 30 July 1867, Brighton.
£85.00

Letter One (12mo, 2 pp; good, with glue from previous mounting to reverse of blank second leaf of bifolium): Jesse hears 'that there has been a violent attack made on my lectures to the Brighton Fishermen in "the Field" of last Saturday'. He 'published these lectures in the hopes that they might be useful to many people'. He 'gave the Copyright to Mr. Booth the publisher & never recovered one farthing profit for them'. 'They were written for an ignorant club of men without any pretension'.

Autograph Letter Signed to unnamed male correspondent [probably William Upcott].

Author: 
John Gough Nichols (1806-1873), printer and antiquary [William Upcott (1779-1845), antiquary and autograph collector]
Publication details: 
30/05/29
£85.00

12mo, 3 pp. Very good. Nichols regrets not seeing the recipient 'again before I left the Institution on Tuesday, to thank you for your kind attention' [Upcott was sub-librarian at the London Institution]. He is sending him a proof (presumably of an article in the Gentleman's Magazine), 'that you may see what I have said about your Album, and also what about modern collectors, and make any emendation you think fit in either place'. Discussion of 'the earliest Album in the Museum', about the date of which the recipient has been misled by a misprint.

Autograph Letter Signed ('J. Forshall') to Bishop Coleridge.

Author: 
Josiah Forshall (1795-1863), Keeper of Manuscripts and Secretary of the British Museum [William Hart Coleridge (1789-1849), bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands]
Publication details: 
B[ritish]. M[useum]. Oct: 2. 1848.'
£35.00

12mo: 2 pp. 11 lines of text. The Bishop's note has reached him 'just as I am about to set out for Cambridge to spend the week there'. When he returns he will 'search for any papers we may have relative to Dr. Walker'. He will let him 'know the result of my enquiries'.

Typed Letter Signed ('E. Ashworth Underwood') to 'The Editor, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.2.'

Author: 
Edgar Ashworth Underwood (1899-1980), Director, The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum
Publication details: 
8 June 1949; on letterhead of The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, 28, Portman Square, London, W.1.
£56.00

4to: 1 p. Very good. 18 lines. Concerns a 'lecture by Dr. D. A. Allan' (Douglas Alexander Allan, writer of several works on museums and exhibitions). 'It is very regrettable that Dr. Allan made the statements which he did without confirmation. They were completely erroneous and on the day following he called here and expressed his regrets at the incident. He has now full particulars in skeleton form regarding the activities of this Museum'.

Autograph Signature ('C. R. Cockerell') on fragment of letter to 'J. P. Knight Esqe.'

Author: 
Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863), English architect and antiquary
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£18.00

Paper dimensions roughly 6.5 x 12 cm. Good, with one dogeared corner. Recto reads '<...> has been lost - unless indeed your's meant to suggest a version of that explanation. I hope the enclosed will be found correct'. Verso reads '<...> Truly [with cropped 'T'] yours | [signed] C. R. Cockerell | J. P. Knight Esqe.'

Five Autograph Letters Signed ('Godfrey Turner') to [Edward] Draper.

Author: 
Godfrey Wordsworth Turner (1825-1891), English art critic and journalist, connected with the 'Daily Telegraph'
Publication details: 
1865-1887; various locations (see below).
£120.00

All five items good, on lightly aged paper. All five bifoliums, bearing traces of previous grey paper mount on the verso of the second leaf. LETTER ONE (one page, 12mo, 30 May 1865): He is 'very poorly', with a 'bad bilious attack which has threatened to turn into jaundice'. 'Yesterday I met Mr Herbert in Regent Street. We talked for a few minutes at cross purposes, my thoughts running on his journalistic prospects and projects, while he was thinking and speaking about his election at the Savage Club.

Lithographic caricature of Panizzi by 'Ape' ['Men of the Day. No 77'], with letterpress.

Author: 
Ape' [Carlo Pellegrini (1838-89)], Victorian caricaturist; Sir Anthony Panizzi (1797-1879), Chief Librarian at the British Museum
Publication details: 
[London]: published in 'Vanity Fair', 17 January 1874.
£80.00

Paper dimensions roughly fifteen inches by ten and a half wide; print dimensions twelve inches by seven and a quarter wide. Good clear image with border a little dusty and aged. Full-length image of a dour Panizzi standing at a desk holding a book. Page of letterpress on separate leaf of same dimensions, containing spirited account ['he sought refuge in Switzerland, but he was expelled discreditably from that country, [...] Keeper of the Printed Books [...] the man in all Europe most competent to fill it.

Autograph Letter Signed ('W. Rhys Roberts') to Sir Frederick George Kenyon (1863-1952), Director of the British Museum.

Author: 
William Rhys Roberts (1858-1929), Professor of Classics at Leeds University, and associate of J. R. R. Tolkien
Publication details: 
28 January 1918; on letterhead of the University, Leeds.
£85.00

Three pages, octavo. Very good on lightly aged paper. Kenyon's paper was 'much enjoyed' when read on Saturday, and there was 'a good attendance'. '[T]he pleasantries were not missed': '1. the confusion of the inexhaustible emender; 2. the thrift of the canny Odysseus in his role of wooer; 3. Burne Jones's Law.' 'At the end some interesting questiosn were asked', for example, 'why second-rate Greek annalists shd. seemingly have been preferred to Herodotus & Thucydides'.

Some account of Lombard Street, its early goldsmiths, and the signs of their houses.

Author: 
F[rederick]. G[eorge]. Hilton Price (1842-1909), F.S.A. [Goldsmiths]
Publication details: 
The Institute of Bankers. MAY, 1886. J. HERBERT TRITTON, Esq., President, in the Chair'. [...] [To be read before the Bankers' Institute, Wednesday, April 21st, 1886.]'
£56.00

Unbound stitched octavo, thirty-six pages, with foldout plan (eight inches by sixteen and a half wide), in red and black, of 'Lombard Street and Adjacent Localities [...] by Henry Hodge March 1886', accompanied by list of eighty-six premises. Text clear and complete on aged and spotted paper (the first leaf particularly so).

Deutsch Tanagra. Porzellan-Figuren des Achtzehnten Jahrhunderts gesammelt von Georg Hirth.

Author: 
Georg Hirth [auction catalogue]
Publication details: 
Munchen & Leipzig, G. Hirth's Kunstverlag. 1898.
£225.00

Quarto. Pages [xvi] + 159 + [1]. Wraps lacking. Bound in worn and frayed black cloth. Loose, and on discoloured paper, with some leaves strengthened or repaired. A particular feature of the volume is that each of the more than eight hundred lots is neatly priced in manuscript, with many of the purchasers' names given. Ownership stamp of Newman & Newman Antiques, Beauchamp Place, London, on front free endpaper.

Autograph Letter Signed 'To Mr Cooper'.

Author: 
Sir Henry Cole
Publication details: 
19/02/35
£150.00

English civil servant (1808-82), postal reformer, and archivist. Instrumental in the creation of the Victorian and Albert Museum and prominent in organizing the Great Exhibition. Two pages, octavo. Good, but on discoloured, foxed paper. An important letter, showing the chaos out of which the Public Record Office was formed.

Six Autograph Letters Signed, to [G. E.] Mercer[, Deputy Secretary,] and [J.] Samson[, Assistant Secretary,] of the Royal Society of Arts. Together with manuscript syllabus of a course of lectures.

Author: 
Sir John Newenham Summerson
Publication details: 
1958 to 1965; the first four on letterhead of Sir John Soane's Museum, the last two on letterhead 1 Eton Villas, NW3.
£150.00

Architectural historian (1904-92) and curator of Sir John Soane's Museum, 1945-84. Seven leaves, all very good, though some lightly creased and all with staple holes in top left-hand corner. The first three letters to Mercer and the last three to Samson. Three letters docketed. ITEM ONE (two pages, 12mo, 7 August 1958): He is 'much attracted' by the Society's invitation 'to give three Cantor lectures on Country Houses', 'especially as I understand the text of the lectures would be published'. There is however 'one rather grave difficulty.

Three Autograph Letters Signed and two Typed Letters Signed to Sir Henry Trueman Wood (named one letter) and G. K. Menzies (one letter), Secretaries, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Sir Aston Webb
Publication details: 
1917 to 1919; on letterheads '19, QUEEN ANNES GATE, | WESTMINSTER, | LONDON, S.W.'
£180.00

British architect (1849-1930), noted for his work on Buckingham Palace, Admiralty Arch, the Victoria & Albert Museum, etc. All five items very good, though dusty. Two docketed and all five bearing R.S.A. stamp. ITEM ONE (one page, quarto, 5 January 1917): 'I have had the possibility of a paper on Charing Cross Bridge before me since you mentioned it. The matter is coming up in Parliament next Session & I think it would be extremely difficult for me to read such a paper just as a Parliamentary discussion or Committee is coming on. I feel sure you will see my position in the matter.

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