Collectible Art Books

Like individual works of art themselves, collectible art books are valued as historical objects as much as intellectual texts. There are countless examples of such volumes on AbeBooks - we've selected six of particular note for you.

Le Vite de Piu Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori e Architettori

Giorgio Vasari

Florence, Giunti 1568. FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION 4to. 1st and 2nd vols. of 3, pp. [lvi] 529 [i]; [xl] 370 [ii], without author's portrait. Light age-yellowing, occasional light spotting or foxing. Still a very good example in C19 1/2 morocco gilt, edges slightly chipped, a.e.g., F4 recto of vol. 1Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects' is the first modern history of art. [Vasari's] excellent sense of narrative and lively style combined with his wide personal acquaintance makes his 'Lives' a vital contribution to our understanding of the character and psychology of the great artists of the Renaissance, a term (rinascita) which he was the first writer to use. For its period it has remained the chief authority and new editions both learned and popular are published regularly
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Price: £25,000.00

Auguste Rodin

Rainer Maria Rilke

73 pp. two tiped photos, one of Auguste Rodin and the other "Les Bourgeois de Calais", 6 illustrations out of text of Rodin's sculptures. Written on december 1902 and edited on march 1903, this essay marks the entry of the poet into the world of letters (before the publication of his major poetic works). His description of Rodin as "a worker whose only desire was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and difficult meaning of his tools" sheds light on the profound psychic connection between the two great artists, both masters of giving life to the invisible within the visible, concerned with "the unnoticed, the small, the concealed.with the profound and surprising unrest of living things".
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Price: £9,964.47

Le Dur Desir de Durer

Marc Chagall, Paul Eluard

Signed by Marc Chagall. Quarto, sumptuously bound by Andrée M. Clarke in black leather with gilt stamping and onlays of blue, red, green, and yellow, reproducing the frontispiece image; marbled endpapers, top edge gilt; felt-lined clamshell box. $5600. First edition of the complete text in French and English, number 1381 of only 1500 copies. Signed by Chagall on title page. The surrealist Paul Eluard's poetry is presented both in the original French, as well as in English translation by Stephen Spender and Frances Cornford. Illustrated by Marc Chagall with beautiful hand-colored frontispiece executed under Chagall's supervision in the workshop of Daniel Jacomet in Paris, and numerous black-and-white illustrations in the text.
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Price: £2,861.59

William Blake's Water-Colour Designs for the Poems of Thomas Gray

William Blake

Folio (42 X 33 cm.) 116 plates reproduced by collotype and hand stencil on Arches paper, with 44 pages of text, and with three additional printings to reproduce Blake's pencillings and the tone of the paper. First edition of these designs; the work was not printed during Blake's lifetime. Portfolio format with the plates loose for mounting or display. Copy Q of the 18 copies produced "not for sale".
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Price: £800.00

Andy Warhol: Published on the occasion of the Andy Warhol exhibition at Moderna Museet in Stockholm February to March 1968

Andy Warhol, Kasper Konig, Pontus Hulten, Olle Granath (ed)

Softcover. First Edition, Very Good or better in pictorial, perfect-bound wrappers. Light creasing and toning on the spine with a small chip at the heel. A bit of rubbing and minor creasing to corners, with one short closed tear at the fore-edge of the front panel and a small split at the bottom front hinge. The front and rear panels are very bright and clean with light, even toning on the pages. Contains black and white illustrations after the work and photographs of the life of Andy Warhol. Published on the occasion of the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Museet in Stockholm, February - March, 1968. Text in English and Swedish. Extremely scarce.
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Price: £638.75

Early Work of Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman

This copy is hand SIGNED by Cindy Sherman on title page: limited edition publication of 1000 copies (unsigned) hardback edition, no dustjacket as issued; with 32 full page b&w photogaphic plates; published in conjunction with the exhibiton "Early Work of Cindy Sherman" held at Glenn Horowitz East Hampton in summer of 2000; with music/sound by The Glove Compartment performed by Glenn Carlo Feleppa; Forward by Edsel Williams: " these images represent some of the earliest work of Cindy Sherman, fresh out of the art school in Buffalo, pre-Film Stills.Early Works contains two bodies of work: first, BUS RIDERS (15 images) and second MURDER MYSTERY PEOPLE (17 images) The pictures were shot in 1976 and have never been exhibited".
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Price: £204.40