Ur-Engur. A Bronze from the Fourth Millennium in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan. A Brief Treatise on Canephorous Statues.
New York: Frederic Fairchild Sherman, 1908.
Large 12mo (the pages 178 x 131 mm, overall 184 x 136 mm). One of 250 copies. 19 full-page and two text halftone plates. Full brown morocco, spine in six compartments, gilt spine lettering and edge rules, full morocco dentelles with four gilt rules, brown watered silk doublures, top edges gilt, others deckle. Collates [4 ll.], 1 l. (frontispiece plate verso), 1 l. (title recto, copyright verso), 1 l. (table of illustrations recto), 1 l. (half-title recto), pp. 7-38, 1 l. (colophon recto), [2 ll.], plus 18 ll. of additional plates printed rectos only. Printed on Arches laid paper. Negligible edgewear on covers, slight occasional offsetting of plates, offsetting in gutters of first and last blank leaves, else fine.
This study, by the noted Cambridge Assyriologist C.H.W. Johns,
of ancient canephorous "basket-bearing" statuettes places the
Morgan statuette, here identified as Ur-Engur, founder of the Dynasty of
Ur, in the very ancient Babylonian tradition of royal figures bearing baskets
of building materials in ceremonies honoring the high gods. (The statuette,
Pierpont Morgan Library AZ131, is now identified as King Ur-Nammu, first
prince of the dynasty, and dated between 2112 B.C. and 2095 B.C. The kings
of Ur had a special affinity with the temple of the old Bêl Enlil
at Nippur, the sacred city of the kingdom, where this figurine was found
in 1905, and the inscription on the skirt is translated, "Ur-Nammu,
King of Ur, King of Sumer and Akkad, who rebuilt the temple of Enlil.")
Dr. Williamson, commenting on this tiniest of the Morgan catalogues, assesses
the Morgan bronze "an object of the greatest possible interest and
importance" (George C. Williamson, Behind My Library Door,
New York, 1921, 105). The volume was privately published by Frederic Fairchild
Sherman, prominent collector and editor-publisher of Art in America,
noted also for publishing beautifully printed, extremely limited edition
studies of American art and artists over three decades. This copy, bound
in full morocco rather than vellum and paper boards, is indicated as "2"
on the title (Morgan's copy was "1") and bears Sherman's name
stamped in gilt on the front dentelle. Accordingly, this is Sherman's own
specially-bound copy.
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Price: $250
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