(AUCTION CATALOGUE: HARLEY, Edward, Earl of Oxford).

A Catalogue of the Collection of Italian, Flemish and French Books of Prints of the Rt. Hon. Edward Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, Deceas'd. Consisting of the Eminent Works of Raphael, M. Angelo...Titian...Rubin, Rembrant...Le Clerc...Being all Bound up in Morocco, Gilt and Letter'd in a most elegant Manner...As also his Lordship's Most Curious and Valuable Collection of Antient Missals, Decretals, Breviaries, with great Choice of the finest Editions of the Classicks &c. all printed on Vellum

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…which will be sold by Mr. Cock,…on Monday the 17th of this instant February, 1745-6, and the Nineteen following Evenings… 1 p.l., 80 pp. 8vo, stitched as issued, uncut. [London]: 1746. Upon Edward Harley’s death in 1741, his widow was left to deal with his and his father’s enormous collections. She inherited 7639 manuscripts, 14,236 charters, and more than 50,000 books, not to mention art and coins. She sold the books in 1743 to the bookseller Osborne for 13,000 pounds, considerably less than they had cost to bind. As De Ricci pointed out, “Osborne seems to have experienced great difficulties in disposing of such a vast accumulation of books: for nearly twenty years his catalogues…are full of Harleian books” (p. 37). He must indeed have been financially distressed to re-offer, under Lord Oxford’s name, onto the London auction market books and volumes of prints which he had offered only one to three years earlier in Vols. I, II & V of his great Bibliotheca Harleiana. To mention only a few books printed on vellum: lots 502, 570, 1005, 1083, 1759, and 1763 had been lots 5105, 5034, 1788, 5416, 1599, and 1586 in Vol. I of the Bibliotheca Harleiana, and the books of prints had previously been offered in Volumes II & V. A very fine copy in original state. ESTC locates only three copies in the U.K. and one copy in the U.S. Preserved in a red half-morocco case.

• USD 8,500.00 > autres monnaies
• Commande nro.: HillBibl-2079

• libraire: Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, Inc. (USA)