Illustrated by Twenty-four Coloured Views, A Map, and Vignettes, from Original Drawings Taken on the Spot.
Picturesque Tour of the River Thames Illustrated by Twenty-four Coloured Views, A Map, and Vignettes, from Original Drawings Taken on the Spot.
Ackermann, 1828.
First edition. Royal 4to (280 x 338mm). Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, gilt titles and ornament to compartments on spine. All edges marbled and marbled endpapers. Twenty-four aquatint plates, two aquatint vignettes and a fold out engraved map of the Thames after Westall and Owen. A very good copy indeed, well margined in an unrepaired binding with a little wear to the spine ends and corners and splits to the joints at the base of the spine. Internally very fresh with vibrant plates protected from offsetting by tissue guards.
One of the great works on the Thames.
"The tradition of picture-books on the Thames was started by Samuel Ireland with his Picturesque Views on the River Thames published in 1791-2, but Boydell was quick to compete in 1793 with his own two-volume History of the Thames. Both of these, like the present volume, were illustrated with aquatints and between them they established a canon of most-favoured views from the source to the sea." - Bernard Adams (London Illustrated 1604-1851).
Adams also notes that,
"The colouring is less subdued than Boydell's, and there are more unaquatinted spaces where the interpretation has been left to the colour-washing artist. This gives the plates a greater resemblance to spontaneous water-colour drawings but leads inevitably to a greater disparity between individual copies."
It is in this respect that this copy particularly stands out, having an exceptionally good set of aquatints, which are both precise and vibrant. Although the Twickenham plate lacks the ink blotches thought to be present in the earliest state, the plates appear to be early impressions on Whatman paper watermarked 1826 or 1827.
Tooley 503; Abbey Scenery 435; Adams 157
Stock ID: 41828
£6,000.00
