Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-1959)

Starting price
£ 7 000
Auction dateClassic
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 470159
Lot 181 | Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-1959)
Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-1959)

The English Writing-Masters. 1931

HEAL, Sir Ambrose (1872-1959). The English Writing-Masters and their Copy-Books, 1570-1800. A biographical dictionary & a bibliography. With an introduction to the development of handwriting by Stanley Morison. London: [Cambridge University Press for the] First Edition Club, 1931.



The Major Abbey-Breslauer copy, specially bound for the former by Sydney M. Cockerell: a limited edition of 100 copies, this numbered XVII. The authoritative work on the subject. Its author, Sir Ambrose Heal, was the head of the celebrated London furniture shop, Heal's, and himself a furniture designer. He also wrote on tradesmen's cards, signboards of shops, London furniture makers and goldsmiths. H.M. Nixon & M. Kennedy, Modern British Bookbindings in the Collection of J.R. Abbey (London: Arts Council, 1965) no. 5.



Folio (318 x 220mm). Engraved frontispiece, 81 plates. Black morocco-backed vellum-covered boards, bound for J.R. Abbey by Sydney M. Cockerell, with decoration designed in 1965 by Joan Rix Tebbut, the upper cover decorated with a calligraphic design of gold-tooled fillets and pen-drawn lines on which is superimposed a semi-abstract shape of a cockerell in bold gilt fillets, filled with a semi of stars, the lower cover decorated with a matching design of gilt and pen-drawn fillets, the spine undecorated but boldly lettered in gilt, vellum turn-ins decorated with gilt dots, liners and endleaves of patterned 'Cockerell' paper, binder’s gilt stamp on rear turn-in, contained within a velvet-lined blue morocco-backed cloth box. Provenance: Major John R. Abbey (1894-1964; bookplate, sale Sotheby’s 19 October 1970, lot 2723, sold £180 to) — Bernard Breslauer (sale Christie’s NY, Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana, 27-28 June 2005, Lot 1550).

Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
09.12.2020 – 09.12.2020
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
Buyer Premium see on Website
Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

Related terms

× Create a Search Subscription