Highlights
Here is a small selection of the highlights offered in 2026 by our exhibitors for you to browse and whet your appetite. These highlights are only a small offering of what will be available at the fair.
Our exhibitors will be uploading more highlights regularly up to the opening of the fair.
If you are interested in a highlight, contact the respective exhibitor directly. Prices are in Australian dollars inclusive of GST.
Hilda Rix Nicholas: The Pack, 1921
$11000
Hilda Rix Nicholas (1884 - 1961) had returned to Australia in 1918, and then, in October 1919 left Melbourne for Sydney to settle in Mosman, In 1921 she painted A Man One the finest paintings of the Great War, it was the distillation of the grief that the war inflicted on this gallant and talented artist.
Richard Travers, To Paint a War, page 177, the medium for this work is pastel on tinted paper
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Victoria (Queen) & Lord Palmerston. APPROBATION FOR APPOINTMENT OF MR HENRY KENDALE AS CONSUL FOR PERU
$5000
signed by Queen Victoria, and Lord Palmerston: dated 16th August 1841 (5th Year of Reign), together with seal. Folio sheet, folded to four pages, two folds reinforced. *Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1837 until her death in 1901. Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, known as Lord Palmerston, (1784–1865),British Anglo-Irish politician, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to his death in 1865.
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The Chinese original drawings which served as model for Amiot’s Vie de Confucius
$395000
[Amiot, Joseph-Marie] [Vie de Confucius] [Anonymous Chinese artist]. Album of 107 brush drawings, collected by Amiot in China and partly used as models for the copperplate illustrations of his “Vie de Confucius” of 1785, . S.a. [ca. 1780]. [China].
The original, long-lost Chinese drawings last seen by Cordier, the visual source for one of the most influential Enlightenment biographies of Confucius.
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Gwyn, Nell: Cunningham (Peter) THE STORY OF NELL GWYN:
$2500
and the sayings of Charles the Second. Handsomely bound in later navy morocco; Bradbury & Evans, London, 1852. First edition, extra-illustrated. *With printed additional half-titles and calligraphic additional title pages, one with an illuminated initial in red & gilt. The numerous additional plates are portraits of Nell Gwyn, Charles II and contemporaries, including Oliver Cromwell, Prince Rupert, John Evelyn, and other Royal Mistresses such as Mrs. Jordan and Mary Anne Clarke. A few the portraits are captioned by hand.
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Beautifully illustrated first accurate monograph on the larynx, heavily influenced by Galen
$45000
CASSERIO, Giulio (Julius CASSERIUS). De vocis auditusq[ue] organis historia anatomica singulari fide methodo ac industria concinnata tractatibus duobus explicata ...
(Colophons: Ferrara, Victorius Baldinus, 1601 & "1600" [= 1601]). 2 parts in 1 volume. Royal folio (40.5 x 27.5 cm). With an engraved title page with the title in a large oval scrollwork cartouche surrounded by and incorporating dozens of skeletons and skulls of people and animals, 2 full-page engraved portraits (of the dedicatee Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, and the author) and 34 full-page anatomical engravings.
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Wiener Werkstaette - Andersen, Hans Christian: Zwölf mit der Post. Ein Neujahrsmärchen
$580
Including 12 colour illustrations based on originals by Professor Berthold Löffler and a calendar for the year 1920. Wien, Kunstverlag Anton Schroll & Co. G. m. b. H. [1919]. 11 x 9,3 cm. 28 pages (title page, dedication page, calendar and text) as well as 12 plates with colour lithographs, attractive colour-illustrated endpapers (moons and stars), orig. boards with colour illustration.
Heller/Vienna 292; Cotsen 429. - First edition in this form. Cover and endpapers redesigned; now with an additio
Madman’s Island.
$11000
Ion Idriess' very first book, set in far North Queensland, signed by the author, in its original dustjacket. Of the 2200 copies printed in 1927, only 300 were sold, the rest presumably pulped. A legendary rarity in Australian literature.
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Chart of the N. and W. Parts of Bass
$6750
Rare and important, early c.19th hand coloured engraved chart of Bass Strait and the Victorian Coast by Lieutenant James Grant who was given command of the Lady Nelson with the instructions to sail her to Sydney
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Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, performed between the years 1818 and 1822
$10500
Association copy of Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia by Phillip Parker King.
Both volumes bear identical ink presentation inscriptions to the front free endpaper: “John Lethbridge King / from his affect[ionate] father / Phillip Gidley King / 1892.”
John Lethbridge King was the son of Philip Gidley King (1817–1904), grandson of Phillip Parker King (1791–1856), and great-grandson of Captain Philip Gidley King (1758–1808), Governor of New South Wales.
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1936 Australian Olympic Souvenir (Berlin)
$5000
"Hearty Good Wishes from Australian Olympic Team 1936".
Signed by all Australian Participants + Managers (40 signatures). Includes 6 Officials, 12 Rowers + Coach, 6 Athletes (incl., Jack Metcalfe - Bronze Medallist), 6 Swimmers, 3 Boxers, 3 Wrestlers, 3 Cyclists (incl., Dunc Gray - Gold Medalist at 1932 Olympics).
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WODEHOUSE, P.G.: Tales of St Austin's
$8000
London, Adam & Charles Black, 1903 (first edition, first issue).
Octavo, [xii], 282, [2] (advertisements) pages plus 12 plates by T.M.R. Whitwell, R. Noel Pocock, and E.F. Skinner (the frontispiece with a tissue-guard).
An exceptional copy of Wodehouse's third book, a collection of 16 public school tales, here in its first-issue binding: an uncommonly bright example of a book notoriously susceptible to fading.
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The Anglo-Israelite
$1200
The Anglo-Israelite.
Monthly Journal, Volume III (March 1882 - February 1883, 240 Pages + Index), Volume IV (March 1883 - February 1884, 244 Pages), Volume V (March 1884 - February 1885, 240 Pages).
Printed G & J Black, Edward St Brisbane.
Rebound in cloth with new end-papers.
A one page note from previous owner written in pencil.
Very good to excellent condition.
Unlisted in Trove.
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Planisphère mobile
$3500
Paris : chez Bachelier, 1847. This rare scientific instrument is a portable, adjustable star chart that displays exactly which stars and constellations are visible in the sky at any given date and time, and which can be used without any prerequisite mathematical knowledge. It was designed by Ginot Desroys (or Des-Rois), a female scientific instrument maker and author of a number of works on astronomy and geography.
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GOULD, Elizabeth. Original watercolour of a gyrfalcon. 1829.
$115000
“Avian perfection”. A superbly executed study by the ornithological artist Elizabeth Gould, predating any of her published work. Gould’s watercolours are rarely seen on the market. Watercolour, ink, and pencil drawing on wove paper (650 × 480 mm), signed in the image.
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The Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser. Vols I – II, 1803-1805.
$325000
The earliest work printed in Australia that a collector can acquire, printed on the printing press which arrived on the First Fleet. The origins of printing and journalism in Australia : the most significant collection of early issues of Australia's first newspaper in private ownership.
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"CASUARIUS AUSTRALIS"; Original watercolour by William Hogg, 1856.
$3800
"CASUARIUS AUSTRALIS"
Artist: WILLIAM HOGG
Technique: WATERCOLOUR
Original watercolour by British artist William Hogg depicting two Australian cassowaries, female (above) and male (below).
Very fine hand.
NOTE:
Original watercolour on thick wove paper.
Signed: "W. Hogg. 1856" lower left.
SIZE: 345mm(H) x 260mm(L)
CONDITION:
In excellent condition.
A tear (20mm) lower margin near letter "A" of "Australis" in the title.
Mounted on an old passpartout.
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NAXI. Manuscripts written in the Dongba pictographic script.
$28500
Examples of the only pictographic script still in active use, though now critically endangered. Dongba belongs to the Naxi people of north-western Yunnan, China, but knowledge of the pictograms and their complex meaning is confined to the community’s shamans. The language was entered into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2003. Six manuscripts (each c. 95 x 300 mm), totalling 54 leaves sewn between sets of contemporary covers.
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Unrecorded issue of important 1590 edition of Dutch "deux aes" Bible in a magnificent contemporary panel-stamped binding with engraved silver furnishings
$80000
[BIBLE - DUTCH]. Biblia. Dat is, de gantsche H. Schrift, grondelick ende trouwelick verduytschet.
Delft, Bruyn Harmansz. Schinckel (colophon: printed by Aelbrecht Heyndricksz.), 1590. 4 parts in 1 volume. 4to (23.5 x 17.5 cm). With a general title page and three part-titles, each with the same woodcut device in a separate elaborately decorated cartouche, 3 engraved folding maps drawn by Petrus Plancius and executed by Baptista van Doetecum and ca. 20 woodcut illustrations in the text.
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A Midsummer Nights Dream
$3200
(First Edition Thus No. 513 of limited edition of 1000) Heinemann, London, England, 1908
A scarce volume being a highly sought-after example of Rackham's skilful artwork (with signature) in vellum that has cleaning potential as well. Hardcover in soiled full white vegetable with gilt lettering and design and two small repaired cracks to the front spine gutter that is otherwise sound and tight, TEG and other edges rough cut but with no original slip-case and missing original ribbon ties and no dust wrapper as issued of course.
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Sensuyt lymaige du monde (The Image of the World)
$100000
Paris : Alain Lotrian, circa 1520. A remarkable work which blends historical fact with fantasy to create a pseudo-scientific text explaining the cosmology, geography, zoology and astronomy of the world. The present copy comes with extraordinary provenance, being the Columbus-Pichon-Fairfax Murray-Perrette copy, a volume that has been treasured in some of the world’s most distinguished private libraries over six centuries, including that of Ferdinand Columbus the son of explorer Christopher Columbus. Only three copies of this book are known, this is the only copy in private ownership.
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VISHNIAC, Roman: Peddlers Transformed into Beggars by the Boycott, 1938
$2000
A selenium-toned gelatin silver photograph (270 × 267 mm). Plate 4 from number 14 of 50 copies of 'The Vanished World' portfolio (New York, Witkin-Berley, 1977/ 1938). The peddlers in question were the victim of antisemitic boycotts organised by the Polish nationalist movement in the interwar period.
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Flora Australasica; or a selection of handsome or curious plants, natives of New Holland, and the South Sea Islands
$6500
Sweet, Robert.
London: James Ridgway, [1827-1838]. Octavo, 56 handcoloured engraved plates with accompanying leaves and interleaving. Modern half morocco with gilt spine and cloth covered boards, a handsome crisp copy.
One of the most attractive of all Australian botanical books and the first to use live specimens for illustration instead of dried plants or field sketches. The species depicted were all grown from seed in London nurseries.
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