The cover illustration to our latest catalogue – an image emblematic of the times? – is ‘The Blizzard’, one of seven vintage photographs by Frank Hurley from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 we have for sale. Other important photographic items are the Royal Photographic Society’s 1932 portfolio, Pictures from the Tyng Collection, containing six fine photogravures, including ‘Bewegungs Studie (Study of Movement)’ by Rudolf Koppitz; and Richards’ New South Wales in 1881 (1882), containing 24 high-quality autotypes produced in Australia (and very rare thus).

Private press and art books are well-represented: among them are The Lithographs of Chagall (five volumes, 1960-1984), complete with all 28 original lithographs as called for; Delteil’s 1923 volume of catalogues raisonné of etchings and lithographs of Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir, containing an original etching by each artist; Flaubert’s Hérodias, one of only 226 copies printed at the Eragny Press of Lucien and Esther Pissarro, with their illustrations; and a superb exemplar from the Ashendene Press, Ecclesiasticus (1932, one of 328 copies).

There are plenty of other items, selected as ever for being interesting, unusual, quirky, or in some cases, just plain expensive.

Keep well!

Our latest catalogue contains a number of items that are genuine rarities as well as landmark publications. These include Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1784, fifth edition, two volumes), Ernst Haeckel’s Die Radiolarien (1862, complete with the atlas of 35 lithographs), Iacovleff’s Dessins et Peintures d'Asie (1934), and Magra’s Journal of a Voyage round the World (1771), the first published account of Cook's first voyage to the Pacific, which appeared some two years before the official account.

One extraordinary offering is a group of 1840 SA land grants for five adjoining 80-acre country sections purchased by Captain George Frederick Dashwood (the area, near Meadows, is still referred to as ‘Dashwood’s Gully’). All five documents are signed by Governor George Gawler and his private secretary, Alfred Miller Mundy, the pioneering overlander to the colony with Joseph Hawdon. There are also items signed by DH Lawrence, Roger Moore (as 007), Pelé, Sidney Nolan, Barbara Hanrahan, and David Gulpilil, among many others. Rare Adelaide cast iron foundry catalogues include one – possibly unique - from 1878, consisting of six original albumen paper photographs.

There are numerous books on French graphic art and the occult; these come from two extensive private collections. As we work our way through them, we will regularly upload newly-processed items to specific galleries on our website dedicated to these subjects. Keep an eye on them!

Highlights of our latest catalogue include eight lithographs from the very rare ‘Wasmuth’ portfolios of studies and executed buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright (Berlin, 1910); The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn by Henry Kingsley (three volumes, 1859, first edition); nearly 300 nineteenth-century portrait photographs of the Western District pioneering Hawkins and Robertson families; Lesueur’s ‘Plan de la Ville de Sydney … 1802’; a signed copy of Skertchly’s The Story of the Noble Opal (1908); Butler’s Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914-1918 (three volumes, 1938-1943), and a signed copy of his The Digger. A Study in Democracy (1945).

These are padded out with singular signed items, rare photographs, unusual printed ephemera, and interesting and important books (including some new releases). If nothing else, you’ll probably enjoy reading about them …

Season’s greetings, and best wishes for the new year from all of us here at Treloar’s.