Aspreys (3 results)

20 pages, Landscape 4to Illustrated in colour bound in grey card covers, in the rear pocket 2 price lists on headed paper. Sidelock ejectors in case £27.500, magazine rifles £8.750 + tax. A finely produced catalogue. Hand written note initialed by Malcolm Lyell (director of Westley Richards) brief history of the company and noting the Guns are exact replicas of those made by Holland & Holland.

HARDCOVER. Condition: FINE. 2nd Impression. Berenson's monumental study and a landmark in modern art history, six years in the making, first published in 1903, revised and enlarged by him in 1938 and again in the late 1950s (though those later revisions were not published until 1961 after his death). This is the best edition, the 'Collectors' Edition' of the revised 1961 edition, printed in 1970 to a high standard on good quality paper and a 1st Edition thus. 3 volumes complete, all beautifully bound by royal jewellers and binders, Aspreys of Mayfair with their tiny gilt embossed name to the bottom edge of the front cover verso in each volume. Bound in marine green cloth covered boards with full green leather spines with raised bands and gilt embossed titles and ruling, gilt ruled large corner pieces, marbled end-papers and all page-block edges gilt. Volume 1: Text, 367pp. Vol 2: Catalogue, 388pp. Vol 3: Illustrations, approx 1010 plates on 360pp, with index . [CONDITION: A well preserved about FINE very clean and tight unmarked set. The spines are very slightly darkened, cover leather even less so. The end-paper outer margins are tanned but the contents are otherwise still very fresh, clean and bright. An excellent set of this groundbreaking work ] . . . NOTE: This item weighs over 3 kg (7 lbs) when packed for posting, shipping to some destinations outside the UK may cost more than the price shown. If so, orders made by card will not be processed until you have approved any such extra cost. . We always ship in STRONG PROTECTIVE CARD PARCELS.

First edition of this superb, priced mail-order catalogue showing the entire Asprey range - jewellery, watches, luggage, household silver, crockery and glassware, furniture, "smoking requisites", and much, much more. The dating is uncertain, but is surely pre-Second World War. The only copy that we have been able to trace institutionally is at the V & A, and is dated "1930-1939?" The presence of German-made binoculars would seem to militate against a date post-1939, and the styles presented certainly would seem to be consonant with the mid- to late-30s. The nature of Asprey's business, and their position in the market at the time was well summed up in the publication, British Commerce and Industry 1934: "Wider experience than these gentlemen possess, of business on the Bond Street standard and of connections with the lovers of fine creations in all countries, is not easily attainable. If the tradition to which they have succeeded is great and almost unique, the more exacting, in consequence, must be their task in maintaining it; especially as the character of society has changed within recent generations, and the wealth of Great Britain, as of other countries, is being constantly redistributed among all classes, thus introducing an ever-constant stream of new patrons to this historical House." With the engraved bookplate to the front pastedown of the Bibliothéque du Palais Abbatial de Royaumont, established as an arts and cultural centre by the Goüin family in 1938, but closed for the duration of the Second World War. Loosely inserted is Asprey's compliments slip, together with a card "begging" to announce that "since this Catalogue was published, the prices of various articles have been revised", and that "any variation will be notified immediately on receipt of order or on request." Quarto. Catalogue consisting of 250 plates, 43 of them coloured. Original japon-backed boards covered with wood-grain paper, titled in sepia to the spine and front board, marbled endpapers. Slight spotting to the spine, a very good copy.