Stalker, John

Estimate

5,000 - 6,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

A Treatise of Japaning and Varnishing, Being a Compleat Discovery of Those Arts. With the Best Way of Making All Sorts of Varnish for Japan, Wood, Prints, Plate, or Pictures. The Method of Guilding, Burnishing, and Lackering, With the Art of Guilding, Seperating, and Refining Metals, and the Most Curious Way of Painting on Glass, Or Otherwise. Also Rules for Counterfeiting Tortoise-Shell, and Marble, and for Staining or Dying Wood, Ivory, &c. Together With Above an Hundred Distinct Patterns for Japan-Work, for Tables, Stands, Frames, Cabinets, Boxes, &c. Curiously Engraven on 24 Large Copper-Plates. Oxford: Printed for, and Sold by the Author, 1688
paper, ink, leather

Folio (14 3/4 x 9 in.; 375 x 229 mm). Title within double-ruled border, 24 engraved plates; marginal discoloration to preliminary leaves and foxing to quire X, short tear to upper inner margin of F2, large pale stain on plate 14. Modern calf antique; spine faded to a golden brown.

Literature

Wing S5187C; ESTC R15354 (but this copy with significant differences in the title)

Catalogue Note

First edition, the earliest model book for decorative furniture and "smalls" introduced a comprehensive account of lacquering techniques of the period to Western craftsmen and subsequently to their clientele, thus changing the face of European interior decoration. The treatise contains a suite of twenty-four plates by an anonymous artist, engraved with over sixty designs of flowers, birds, animals, insects, and landscapes in the oriental manner. Copies are frequently incomplete owing to the author's suggestion to remove the patterns for use as transfers. Consequently, the book is rare when found complete, such as is the case with the present copy.