The rewards of bookshop browsing...watercolours by William Blake that were sold by a Glasgow bookshop for £50 each and subsequently dispersed by Sotheby’s for over $6m will be shown in a Tate exhibition this autumn.
Painted in 1805 to illustrate Robert Blair’s poem The Grave, they include the finest of the set, Death of the Strong Wicked Man (1813), which is to be lent by the Louvre in Paris. Altogether eight of the 19 watercolours for the poem...
"Against the odds, and just in time for Australia Day, Matthew Flinders has been found.
The body of the famous British explorer who helped name, and was the first to circumnavigate, Australia was thought lost when the cemetery he was buried in 205 years ago became a public park behind London's Euston station."
[SMH, Nick Miller Europe Correspondent]
For the full fascinating story click website link above.
Hordern House was fortunate to have the opportunity to research and write the catalogue for the important collection of French voyage art recently auctioned by Deutscher and Hackett (Melbourne, 28 November). This in-depth cataloguing added another important dimension to the critically important story of early Australian art.
The 1800-1804 voyage of Nicholas Baudin in the ships Géographe and Naturaliste carried on board an impressive array of artists and savants, none more important than Nicholas-Martin Petit...
A rare find by Hordern House, the scholarship of eminent bibliographer David Forbes and the remarkable Manoa Heritage Centre in Hawaii have combined to re-unite two halves of an original Arago panorama for the first time in almost 200 years. The panorama is an exceptional, early and important view of Maui made by the official artist on the Uranie expedition under Louis de Freycinet. An account of this serendipitous repatriation by the Manoa Research Centre...
Hordern House has joined more than 275 booksellers from 24 different countries are removing their book inventory from the Amazon subsidiary Abebooks.com in support of their colleagues in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, and South Korea, who are banned from the site effective November 30. Abebooks is the world’s largest online marketplace devoted exclusively to books. Amazon acquired the company ten years ago this month.
In an official statement to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), Udo Göllmann...
Our March themed list encompasses over 200 years of seagoing: from Hoste's classic of naval strategy sumptuously bound for Christian VII of Denmark; through to works on naval architecture, the principles of rigging (including Admiral Carnegie's copy of David Steel's Elements and practice of seamanship), nautical astronomy, the chronometer and nautical medicine; including an early French notice of Captain Cook's findings on diet and scurvy, a finely bound set of Freind's History of Physick (Freind maintained scurvy was unknown...
Hordern House is delighted to offer a shortlist of classic Voyage accounts selected from two significant private collections. Over the next year we will be offering themed lists from these wonderful collections. The shortlist may be downloaded here. This is a linked pdf, so please click on any page for more information and images or search at hordern.com. As well, we have uploaded our new online list: Thirteen broadsides 1780 to 1886--please click here. Previous on-line lists may...
Hordern House is pleased to be exhibiting at ANZAAB's pop-up fair in support of UNESCO's World Book & Copyright Day held each year on 23rd April. Join us from 11:00 am-4:00 pm in the Gallery Room at the State Library of New South Wales. The Library will also be alive with Shakespeare 400 celebrations as the 23rd April marks the 400th annivesary of his life.
read more about UNESCO WORLD BOOK & COPYRIGHT DAY & SHAKESPEARE 400
...recently spotted guarding a nest! The joys of spring in Sydney. The preposterous glory of the sulphur-crested cockatoo fascinated early artists both amateur and professional. Compare this with an image from a remarkable compendium dating from the 1830s in our Website link.
Don’t miss this stunning free exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales that showcases some of the world’s finest book art, graphics, photography and illustration. From London’s acclaimed Victoria and Albert Museum, Inspiration by Design celebrates 150 years of collecting by the National Art Library. Immerse yourself in the book beautiful, from historic illustrated manuscripts and rare artists’ books to modern graphic design and fashion photography.
read more about Inspiration by design: Word and Image from the V&A
As Venus and Jupiter scamper across our night skies we mark the appointment of Charles Rumker as Australia's first government astronomer in July 1826 with this, his remarkably rare star atlas inscribed for Royal presentation to Ernest Augustus I, fifth son of George III
