Bidspirit auction | Psalms – Amsterdam, 1817 –

Psalms – Amsterdam, 1817 – Uncut Printer’s Sheets Signed by the Publisher - Sefer Tehillim (Book of Psalms), together with Shimmush Tehillim and prayers for the sick. Amsterdam, 1817. An exceptional and highly unusual survival: eleven original printer’s sheets preserved in their initial state, before folding and cutting. Each sheet contains the text printed twice, so that after cutting and folding, two complete copies of the book would be produced. The present example offers a rare and tangible glimpse into the production process of a Hebrew printing house in early nineteenth-century Amsterdam. On the verso of the title page appears a notice in Portuguese declaring that, beginning on May 20, 1817, any copy lacking an official signature would be considered unauthorized. The sheets offered here bear original manuscript signatures of A. Pardo Cardozo, intended to serve as an official mark of authentication and to certify the legality of the edition. Only a small number of signed copies are known to have survived in the form of uncut sheets. Such examples provide a rare insight into the methods of supervision and quality control employed by the Sephardic Hebrew presses of Amsterdam. See: Bibliography of the Hebrew Book, record no. 0304993; H. C. Zafren, Psalms 1817 Bound and in Sheets Signature, SBB 19, pp. 21–28. The complete book comprises 131, [1] leaves. Size of the finished volume after folding and cutting: approximately 12.5 cm. The present lot consists of 11 uncut printer’s sheets, each measuring approximately 45 × 50 cm. Good overall condition. Stains. A rare and unusual survival, preserving the book in the very state in which it emerged from the press more than two centuries ago.