ITALY

Engraved bookplate headed 'LA FELICITA' DELLE LETTERE'.

Author: 
Antonio Visentini (Venice, 1688-1782), Italian (Venetian) engraver
Publication details: 
Without date or place, but with 'Ant. Visentini Inu. Del. et Sculpsit.' at foot.
£180.00

Dimensions of plate roughly four and a half inches by six and a half wide. Dimensions of paper roughly five inches by seven wide. Clear image on stained, grubby laid paper. Shows mythological figure with helmet and shield holding up a book, within a monumental border with coins, ivy, statuary, etc. This bookplate has been found in conjunction with another reading "Ex Libris Alexandri Torrigiani Med. Doct. Coll. Parmensis", and this may provide a clue to the provenance.

Autograph Note Signed (F Matania) to unnamed correspondent.

Author: 
Chevalier Fortunino Matania (1881-1963), Italian artist
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£78.00

One page, quarto. On lightly creased, aged paper with a few closed tears. Rust marks from paperclip at head. Reads 'Il triangolo della perfezione arte scienza ad amore | [signed] F Matania'.

Engraving, with portrait of the artist, of Carracci's funeral memorial.

Author: 
Annibale Carracci (1560-1609)
Publication details: 
[Circa 1690?]
£86.00

Dimensions of print roughly ten inches by six and a half wide. Mounted on a slightly larger piece of laid paper. Rubbed, worn and heavily aged, with small wormhole at foot. Ornate tomb with sphinxes, ivy, masks, palette, laurel wreath, etc. Central head and shoulders image of Carracci, above caption 'ANNIBALI CARRACCIO BONON. AETATIS SVAE ANN.XLIX Romae MDCXLVI'. 'A. Del.' in bottom left-hand corner. This is NOT the engraving by Pietro Aquila, after Carlo Maratta, in Aquila's 'Galeriae Farnesianae Icones' (1674).

Autograph Card Signed ('Lamb') to Ian Treg. Jenkyn, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.

Author: 
Lynton Harold Lamb (1907-1977), British painter, book illustrator and designer
Publication details: 
[Venice; 1970].
£85.00

Postcard with painting of Rialto Bridge by Canaletto. Postmarked 1970. Ruckled with damp but entirely legible. An amusing communication, beginning 'Thought I would let you know that we were not involved in the great tornado that sunk a voporetto [sic] on Lirica 4, and that the Hotel alla Fava is still very comfortable.' Refers to the Lambs' 'self-contained eyrie' and 'the weak fast coffee which tastes of mud; but clearly and obviously isn't'.

Autograph Letter Signed to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Thomas James Mathias
Publication details: 
74 Monte | d'Iddio | Pizzofalcone | 10 May 1831.'
£45.00

Mathias (c.1754-1835), F.R.S., F.S.A., was librarian at Buckingham House and editor of Thomas Gray, &c. One page, 12mo. In good condition, although attached to sheet of larger paper by four wafers, all of which show through the paper. He asks his correspondent to accept 'a copy of a new edition of a little volume lately printed in Naples, entitled "Poesie Liriche, con l'Aggiunta di Saffo, Dramma lirico [...]'. Signed 'T. J. Mathias'. The work, by Mathias himself, went through various editions between 1810 and 1825.

Autograph Letter Signed to [?] Slade (perhaps Frederic William Slade (1801-63), son of Sir John Slade).

Author: 
Count Guglielmo Di Ludolf
Publication details: 
Gloucester Place | December 5th. 1831'.
£150.00

Neapolitan Minister in London (died 1839). 2 pages, 16mo. In good condition, although creased and grubby. Crabbed handwriting. Formal letter, written in the third person. States that he received from Slade, in 1826, 'Two hundred and odd Pounds sterling as part of Prize money for the capture of in 1806, allowed to the Crews of Two Sicilian gallys the Vespa, the , and a gun Boat No. 12. who acted in conjunction with the British forces'. Complains that 'Mr. Slade did not send to C.

Autograph Letter Signed to Sir Charles Stuart (later Baron Stuart de Rothesay), Ambassador to Paris.

Author: 
William Richard Hamilton, Minister at Naples.
Publication details: 
20 July 1824; Naples.
£120.00

For Hamilton (1777-1859), Treasurer of the Royal Institution and one of the Trustees of the British Museum, see Boase's 'Modern English Biography'. He was secretary to Lord Elgin in Constantinople, recovered the Rosetta Stone from the French and aided in collecting and removing the Elgin Marbles from Athens. 3 pages, 16mo. Creased but in good condition. Begins by saying that a few years ago Stuart introduced Charles Rothschild to him, 'but it was probably at the request of his brother, as he has now asked me to introduce him to you'.

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