Davillier, Baron Ch(arles)
Recherches sur l’orfévrerie en Espagne au moyen age et à la renaissance. Documents inédits tirés des archives Espagnoles.
Paris, A.Quantin 1879.
Full Description
Large 4to. (4) + vi + 286 + (2)pp, 19 engraved plates, also text ills. Contemporary quarter red morocco, marbled boards. From the Birmingham Assay Office Library (from which this copy has been recently de-accessioned), with their small circular ownership stamp at foot of a preliminary blank leaf, and shelfmarks, but no other library markings. One of 400 numbered copies on “papier vélin” (there were a further 100 numbered copies on other types of paper). A good copy.
A handsome volume by Baron Charles Davillier (1823-1883), a French antiquary and collector who wrote extensively on topics related to Spain. The present volume is primarily based on his researches in the archives of the Corporation of Goldsmiths at Barcelona and in the archives of the cathedral of Toledo, from which he was able to provide an extensive listing of working goldsmiths active in those cities and elsewhere in Spain between the fifteenth century and the early seventeenth century. He also discovered in the archives at Barcelona an extensive series of original drawings of items of goldsmiths’ work, and he reproduces a selection of these on his careful executed plates.