8 pp. 8vo (199 x 125 mm.), modern aubergine cloth, title on upper cover. Paris: Bezançon & Regnault-Delalande, 1813.

A scarce auction catalogue offering the contents of a bankrupt dealership, owned by “Blankenstein.” A chapter in a 1994 text on Franco-German relations during the French Revolution (cited below) mentions an Alexandre Guillaume Blankenstein, a converted Jew from Frankfurt, originally named Aron Levi Wetzlar, who opened a luxurious bookstore on the quai Malaquais around 1810, which then went under three years later. We know of two suites of prints published by Blankenstein. The title-page of this catalogue mentions that a judge has ordered this bankruptcy sale.

44 lots of paintings, drawings, prints, and engraved plates. Lot 35 consists of the 149 (of 179) original engraved plates used to print the famous suite known as the Cabinet Crozat (the Mariette edition of 1729-42). More

Printing in Hebrew. 23 pages. Small 4to, orig. blue boards, gilt border round sides, contrasting pink endpapers, a.e.g. Munich: C. Wolf, [1826].

The extremely rare printed program for the inauguration of the first public synagogue in Munich on 21 April 1826. The impressive neoclassical building on the Westenriederstrasse was designed and erected by Jean Baptiste Métivier for the small but important Munich community of court Jews and state suppliers founded in 1815. The project was supported by King Max I Joseph of Bavaria, and his successor Ludwig I attended the ceremony with his wife and members of the nobility.

Contemporary journals praised the festive character of the event. The inauguration speech was given by Hirsch Aub who became rabbi of the new synagogue through more than four decades. The director of the royal chapel and opera, Joseph Hartmann Stunz, and the royal intendant Johann Nepomuk von Poissl set prayers, psalms and a long hymn to music. The instrumental parts were executed by the King’s musicians. The ceremony ended with the Ha-noten teshu’a (a prayer for the welfare of the King and his family) and the evening prayers for Sabbath and Pesach. More

33 double-page & 181 full-page woodcuts, of which 122 are splendidly block-printed in color. 30 vols. Large 8vo, orig. yellow wrappers (wrappers wormed & repaired), Vols. 1-20 embossed with a wood-grain pattern, Vols. 21-30 use a different pattern, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. From the colophon in Vol. 30 (in trans.): “Woodblocks owned by the Kagoshima fiefdom and distributed by Aiya Kyubei & Iyoya Zenbei in Osaka,” Preface in Vol. I dated “1804.”

First edition of this great agricultural and botanical work which is wonderfully illustrated; it is an encyclopedic survey of all the agricultural products and practices of Japan. It is accompanied by a.... More