Rare books from Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Oil on card, signed and titled centre right W. Dobell / Study / for Portrait, 38 x 30 cm, finely framed in period style. After several formative years spent in London, the mid-career Dobell returned to Sydney in 1938, just prior to the war. The next few years saw him produce some of his finest and most memorable portraits; The Cypriot (1940), The Strapper (1941), The Billy Boy (1943), and Portrait of a boy (for which this is the study) being recognised as innovative and insightful examples. His Archibald Prize entry the same year, Portrait of an artist (Joshua Smith) would see Dobell's fortunes change, his exaggerated stylisation of Smith's portrait deemed a grotesquery of portraiture. Today, Dobell is regarded as one of Australia's greatest portrait painters, his rejected prize entry instantly recognisable as of of the most distinctive images in Australian art. Having appeared at auction on at least two occasions, Study for Portrait and its related work Portrait of a Boy have suffered from… Read More

in which the coast of North-West America has been carefully examined and accurately surveyed. Undertaken by his Majesty's command principally with a view to ascertain the existence of any navigable communication between the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans; and performed in the year 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, in the Discovery sloop of war, and armed tender Chatham, under the command of Captain George Vancouver. In three volumes. London : printed for G.G. & J. Robinson and J. Edwards, London, 1798. Three volumes, quarto, and one atlas folio. Half crushed morocco over marbled papered boards, flat panelled spines lettered in gilt with gilt ornaments, marbled endpapers, vol. I: pp. [xii]; xxix; [blank]; [ii; Advertisement from the Editor]; 432; 7 engraved plates, vol II: pp. [viii]; 504; 5 engraved plates (including one chart), vol III: pp. [viii]; 505; (3 - errata), 6 engraved plates; atlas folio contains 10 folding charts and 6 profile coastline views, mounted on stubs. A fine set.… Read More

An early eighteenth century Spanish Graduale Romanum, or Roman Gradual (the second of two volumes), with thick wooden boards and iron fittings, containing music and text for the proprium missal (proper of the mass), including a Peruvian credo and with an index to both volumes at the end arranged mostly alphabetically under five headings for the introits, graduals, tracts, alleluias, offertories and communions. Such choir books were produced at this large scale so that they could be set on a lectern and the entire choir could gather around them to sing. Their style changed little from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. The combination of a mass for the Franciscan Copertino and the Peruvian credo may suggest that the choir book came from Spanish Franciscans, even though there are also masses for Jesuits and a Portuguese credo.  [Spain? : circa 1700, with additions to at least 1767]. An extremely large manuscript choir book (75.5 x 57.5 x 15.5 cm) in black and red ink on… Read More

Sydney : Printed by Robert Howe, Government Printer, 1821. Volume 1, Number 1, May 1 1821, to Volume 1, Number 8, December 1, 1821 (i.e. the first eight issues). Octavo (190 x 125 mm), contemporary half calf over pink papered boards (heavily rubbed, with some surface loss), spine with contrasting red morocco title label lettered in gilt (expertly rebacked); i-8 (title leaf with early ownership signature, Preface and Index), 1-256 pp; edges with light spotting, contents clean and in good condition throughout, with the exception of pages 94-95 which have tearing and paper restoration (with a small amount of resultant text loss); a near fine complete run of the first year's issues in a contemporary binding, with the specially printed title leaf and other preliminaries bound in; housed in a custom cloth and leather slipcase. A historically significant bound volume containing the first eight issues (May to December 1821) of Australia's first periodical, The Australian Magazine. This shortlived… Read More

A rare pair of antique English Hepplewhite mahogany bookcases, circa 1780, each measuring 198cm high, 57cm wide, 36cm deep, of unusual slim proportions with flame mahogany drawer fronts, cockbeading and astragal glazed doors with adjustable shelving. Provenance : Windsor Antiques, Melbourne, with original purchase receipt dated 1963  

with an account of the establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island; compiled from authentic papers, which have been obtained from the several departments, to which are added, the journals of Lieuts. Shortland, Watts, Ball, & Capt. Marshall; with an account of their new discoveries. London : John Stockdale, 1789. Quarto, contemporary full tree calf, edges ruled in gilt, spine ruled in gilt with contrasting gilt-lettered morocco title label, professionally recased and endpapers replaced, letterpress book label of Ayscough Hawksworth to front pastedown, edges stained yellow, frontispiece portrait; engraved title (in the first state with Webber's name to the medallion, foxed, with small inscription of owner's initials); pp 6 (early owner's inscription to dedication leaf), [errata]; [blank], viii, [8 - list of subscribers], [3 - list of plates; blank], x, 298, lxxiv, 54 engraved plates & charts (31 hand coloured as called for), a few expert reinforcements along the folds, bound with… Read More

1. An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of his present Majesty for making discoveries in the southern hemisphere, and successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq; by John Hawkesworth, Ll.D. in three volumes. Illustrated with cuts, and a great variety of charts and maps relative to countries now first discovered, or hitherto but imperfectly known. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773. First edition. Three volumes, quarto, late nineteenth century quarter straight-grained Morocco over papered boards by Morrell, his binder's stamp to first leaf, spines in compartments lettered in gilt with gilt lines, unusual gilt-tooled corner pieces to the upper and lower boards, a few scuffs and pale foxing to the boards, top edge gilt, others uncut, vol. I pp. [xii]; xxxvi; 676 (the numbering… Read More

Watercolour and ink on paper, 398 x 287 mm (entire sheet); contemporary inscription in ink to verso: 80. Vue du grand torrent et d'une forêt / Hâvre Carteret; the artist's own re-worked section (80 x 110 mm, irregular) carefully pasted on at lower left; short closed tear at right edge; extremely well preserved. A very early depiction of French explorers in the virgin equatorial landscape of Island Melanesia, painted by Louis-Auguste de Sainson, the official voyage artist on Dumont d'Urville's famous 1826-29 expedition in the Astrolabe.   From a historical perspective, this painting is of great significance as a rare example of early nineteenth-century Pacific voyage art. More specifically, its rarity is underlined by the fact that there are no finished watercolours by de Sainson held in public collections in either Australia or New Zealand. Despite the best efforts of David Scott Mitchell, Sir William Dixson and Rex Nan Kivell - the latter of whom 'at one stage spent 35 years tracking down a… Read More

de la necesidad de abandonarlas o mantenerlas con fuerzas respetables: de los inconvenientes de lo primero, y ventajas de lo segundo; de lo que pueden producir a la Real Hacienda, de la navegación, extensión, y utilidad de su Comercio: con reflexiones que convencen la utilidad de formar una Compañía vajo Real Protección ... ... Manila, 10 February 1765. Small folio (280 x 210 mm), modern limp vellum; manuscript in ink in a neat late eighteenth-century hand, being a fair copy of a mid eighteenth-century document; ff [1], 125; front fly leaf with later pencilled notes erased; contents clean and fresh, in fine condition; housed in an elaborate half crushed morocco and cloth protective box, morocco title pieces with gilt lettering and ornament to front and spine. Vindel states (in his Catálogo of 1896, p. 94) that the printing of this memorial by Francisco Leandro de Viana was forbidden by the Council of the Indies; hence it was not published in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The present… Read More

Illustrated with twenty-six plates. London : J. H. Bohte, 1822 [but 1826 or later]. Folio, 366 x 262 mm, original publisher's binding of half straight-grained red morocco, gilt-lettered to spine 'Lewin's Birds', expertly re-backed and re-cornered, original grey papered boards, engraved paper title label to front panel, a few light stains, armorial bookplate to front pastedown, front free-endpaper creased and with tissue repairs, etched frontispiece, title page, a further 25 etched plates with original hand-colouring on paper watermarked Whatman 1826, the earlier states of plates 3 and 19-26 [without the plate nos.], small browning to verso of margin of final plate, accompanying letterpress text, some offsetting to text (as always), housed in a modern red cloth box. A fine example, in original condition, of one of the rarest illustrated works of Australian natural history. The naturalist and natural history artist John William Lewin had arrived in New South Wales in 1800, and under the patronage… Read More

[London] : Printed by J. Davis : Published by J. Sowerby, 1794. Nine engravings with original hand colour, each approximately 230 x 160 mm (plate lines), on J. Whatman watermarked paper, 303 x 242 mm (sheet), titled and imprinted in the image (imprint erased from one as issued), small stab holes from the string binding (as issued), a couple of faint spots of foxing, but a uniformly fine collection. Exquisite artworks from the very rare first book on the zoology of Australia. Shaw's Zoology was originally issued in parts in 1793 alongside James Edward Smith's Botany to form a joint publication Zoology and Botany of New Holland. After a few issues the collaborators parted ways and finished their series independently, Smith naming his work A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland, and Shaw his Zoology of New Holland. Each work had a new title page. Illustrations in both were done by the talented natural history engraver James Sowerby (1757-1822). Both publications are rare, but Shaw's Zoology… Read More

Stockton : Joshua Reeve, December 16, 1774. Manuscript, 3½ pages, [2] sheets, foolscap (260 x 230 mm), written in ink in a uniform, copperplate cursive; old folds (now fragile, one expertly repaired), each sheet with a few small perforations (not affecting legibility), some roughening to the edges and scattered spotting; signed at the foot Joshua Reeve scrpt. Stockton, Decemr. 16 1774. A very early copy of an important, informative letter by James Cook, which contains Cook's impressions of the indigenous people of New Holland. The letter is addressed to John Walker of Whitby, Cook's former master. As an apprentice, Cook had learned all he knew about ships and the sea on Walker's vessels and in his house in Whitby, and Cook corresponded with Walker throughout his career. The present letter reports on Cook's exploration of the Pacific during his first voyage in search of the Southern Continent in 1768-71. The copy was made for Walker by Joshua Reeve, of the neighbouring town of Stockton, while Cook… Read More

Made for the Zoological society of London, from animals in their vivarium, in the Regent's park. Edited, with notes, by Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A., F.L.S., &c. &c., Secretary to the Society. London : Henry Graves and Company, Printsellers to Her Majesty, 1861 [actually 1856] - 67. Two volumes, folio, 584 x 435 mm, drop-side clamshell boxes (a little worn and scuffed), half crushed morocco over pebbled cloth, ruled and lettered in gilt with gilt-lettered title labels, ribbon ties; pastedowns with the bookplate of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven; both volumes with hand-coloured lithographed title-page, letterpress title-page, list of subscribers, and list of plates; in total 100 fine hand-coloured lithographed plates by Joseph Smit after Joseph Wolf, all with gilt-lettered captions and single letterpress text sheet accompanying each, with most of the 'temporary letterpress' sheets for the second series also present; occasional light foxing to the margins, overall a clean and fine set.… Read More

A Sammelband of fifty-four individual issues of newspapers published in Hong Kong between 1845 and 1854, comprising twenty issues of the Overland Register, and Price Current and thirty-four issues of The Hongkong Register; together with two issues of newspapers published in India in 1852 and 1853. Large folio (510 x 340 mm), custom modern binding of black cloth over boards with gilt-lettered morocco title piece to front. OVERLAND REGISTER, AND PRICE CURRENT Victoria, Hong Kong : Edited, printed and published by John Cairns, at the Hongkong Register Office, 1845. Overland Register, and Price Current. No. 2, 30 September 1845. Folio (420 x 260 mm), pp. 9-12; fine. Victoria, Hong Kong : Edited, printed and published by John Cairns, at the Hongkong Register Office, 1845. Supplement to the Overland Register, and Price Current. 30 September 1845. Folio (420 x 260 mm), pp. [2] (second blank); fine. Victoria, Hong Kong : Edited, printed and published by John Cairns, at the Hongkong Register Office,… Read More

[Brisbane : Printed for the author by T. P. Pugh, 1866-1868]. Folio (375 x 270 mm), bound in two volumes, recent half calf over marbled papered boards, spines in compartments with gilt lettering, edges stained red; as usual without the printed title and preface (which were not printed until 1874-75), and the last six plates (which were published as the twenty-first part in 1870); unpaginated; 120 plates in original state and richly coloured (lithographs by Henry Green Eaton, coloured by Diggles) each facing a letterpress leaf with description. Occasional light toning and markings, a couple of letterpress leaves with paper adhesion, a couple of short marginal stains, but overall an unusually clean and fine set. One of the most important Australian ornithological publications of the nineteenth century, and the first substantial work on natural history published on a commercial scale in Australia. English-born naturalist, artist and musician Sylvester Diggles arrrived in Sydney at the end of… Read More