Art and Art-Industry in Siam. Lacquer-Works in Black and Gold - Charles Doehring (D

Circa 1915 - Asia Publishing House, Bangkok - First Edition
Two massive elephant folio’s of Döhring’s most impressive work, first edition, ‘printed by letterpress, with unique handcrafted metal plates showing a scene from the Ramayana on both front covers. It contains high quality images and descriptions of Thai lacquer designs in black and gold, and was, at the time, the leading work on Thai lacquer art’ [British Library].

One text-volume with 62 illustrations in the text and one plate-volume with 50 plates, in the publisher’s original cloth. Scarce and handsomely presented.

The German architect Karl (Doehring) Döhring (1879-1941) first came to Thailand as an architect of railway station buildings and was later appointed as King Chulalongkorn’s first architect due to his outstanding expertise, designing various buildings in and around Bangkok including including four royal palaces. Döhring then developed a keen interest in the fields of Buddhist architecture, Thai art and cultural history, and also worked as an archaeologist, novelist and translator, becoming one of the most profound foreign researchers on Thailand of his time.
 
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Price HK$ 22,000



Ah King - Six Stories - William Somerset Maugham

1933 - William Heinemann Ltd., London - First Edition
‘But human beings are incalculable and he is a fool who tells himself that he knows what a man is capable of.’

A fine first edition of this compilation of six short stories which, as Maugham explained in the preface, revolve around Ah King, a Chinese boy that he had as a servant to look after him during his trip to Borneo, Indo-China and Siam. It is to be a commemoration for the emotion that Ah King, who otherwise was placid and indifferent, showed when they were to part. The stories were set in places in which the two travelled together.
 
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Price HK$ 6,000