Sangorski and Riviere, 1916

Price realised USD 44,100

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USD 20,000 – USD 30,000

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The Woodman and the Nightingale

Sangorski and Riviere, 1916

Price realised USD 44,100

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The Woodman and the Nightingale
Sangorski and Riviere, 1916
SANGORSKI, Alberto (1862-1932), calligrapher and illuminator. RIVIÈRE & SONS, binders. SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822). "The Woodman and the Nightingale. And To Night." London, [1916].

A superb manuscript and binding from the libraries of both Phoebe Boyle and Jerome Kern. Carved leather bindings by Rivière are uncommon and this one is exceptionally well-executed with two complete forest landscapes of beautiful dimensionality. The calligraphed certification leaf at the end reads: "This manuscript ... was designed, written out and illuminated by Alberto Sangorski for Messrs. R. Rivière and Son, Bookbinders and Booksellers by appointment to His Majesty King George V. London. This manuscript will not be duplicated. This manuscript was executed by me" and is signed by Sangorski.

Small quarto (218 x 145mm). Illuminated manuscript on vellum, 10 leaves, plus 2 blank vellum leaves. Title in red and gold with a full floral border and large initial, full-page frontispiece of the Woodman seated on a stile signed by the artist in monogram and dated 1916, with three-quarters floral border in colors and gold; text of the poem on pp. 5-19 incorporating three further miniatures, one full-page of the Spirit of Night monogrammed and dated 1916, rich floral borders and every stanza with an illuminated initial, many large and in several colors.

Full chestnut brown crushed morocco relievo binding by Rivière and Son, doublures of green moiré silk, gilt edges. The upper cover with inlaid black border gilt with acorn and dot pattern and oak leaf inlays surrounding a large central recessed arabesque panel, with black inlaid border, containing a village scene depicting a church, house, water mill and haystacks viewed through four trees in the foreground, the ground dotted with flowers, all in finely molded relief of colored leathers touched in paint. The lower cover similarly decorated with identically sized recessed panel containing another woodland scene (nearly replicating the frontispiece miniature), with trees, grasses, flowering bushes and a path across a wooden stile, beneath a blue sky, also in colored leathers touched in paint. Spine gilt in six compartments, gilt-lettered in two, a repeated inlaid floral and bordered gilt panel in the rest, board edges with double gilt fillets. Broad turn-ins repeating the oak leaf and acorn design with inlaid black borders, doublures and endleaves of green watered silk. Stamp-signed on upper turn-in by Riviere & Son. Full morocco silk-lined box, metal catches (cover of box detached). Provenance: Phoebe A.D. Boyle (her sale, Anderson Galleries, 20 November 1923, lot 305) - Jerome Kern, 1885-1945 (bookplate laid in; his sale, Anderson Galleries, 22 January 1929, lot 1101).

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