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MICROCOSM OF LONDON.
(London: R. Ackermann, 1808-10 [paper watermarked 1806 and 1807]). 340 x 280 mm. (13 1/2 x 11"). Three volumes. FIRST EDITION.
VERY HANDSOME MOTTLED CALF, HEAVILY AND ELEGANTLY GILT, BY RIVIERE & SON (stamp-signed on verso of front free endpaper), covers with lovely floral roll frame, oblique floral sprays at corners, raised bands, spines richly gilt in compartments with central floral spray within a lozenge of small tools, flower duo at corners, one red morocco label, one green morocco label with volume number on onlaid red morocco medallion enclosed by a gilt sunburst, turn-ins with gilt floral roll, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt (rear joint of volume III neatly repaired, small recent repairs to joints elsewhere). Woodcut title pages, 104 COLORED AQUATINT PLATES after Rowlandson and Pugin. Faintly embossed library stamp of "H(?)_____ Library Collection" (presumably private) to title pages. A Large Paper Copy. Abbey, Scenery 212; Tooley 7. Joints and extremities slightly rubbed, but the bindings still splendid despite their signs of use, and looking magnificent on the shelf. Offsetting from plates onto facing page, as usual with this book (about a fourth of the plates with significant transfer, another fourth with none or almost none, the remaining half with something in between), but the plates with lovely, rich coloring (and with no offsetting of the text onto plate images), and the text, printed within spacious margins, very fresh and unsoiled.
Deemed by Abbey "a colour-plate book of great importance," Ackermann's pictorial tour of London is offered here in elegant bindings by an important English workshop. According to Tooley, this is "one of the great colour-plate books" that "should form the corner stone of any collection of books on this subject. The plates by Rowlandson and Pugin present an unrivalled picture of London in early 19th century," and are consequently "of historic value, as many of the buildings no longer exist." DNB calls "Microcosm" "an acknowledged masterpiece," the success of which led to Ackermann's volumes on Westminster Abbey and the colleges at Oxford, Cambridge, and Winchester, a series considered "among the most beautiful illustrated books of the first half of the nineteenth century." Artist Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) is remembered for his caricatures and humorous illustrations, but he made his name illustrating the travel books with views he would later satirize in his "Doctor Syntax" volumes. According to DNB, publisher Rudolph Ackermann "kept Rowlandson in almost continuous employment producing drawings for the fine colour-plate books for which his firm, the Repository of Arts at 101 Strand, became famous. . . . Augustus Pugin was brought in to draw the architecture" for the present work, while Rowlandson supplied the figures. Our binder, Riviere, is one of the foremost names in the field, partly because the firm did consistently fine work and partly because it was so long in business. Robert Riviere began as a bookseller and binder in Bath in 1829, then set up shop as a binder in London in 1840; in 1881, he took his grandson Percival Calkin into partnership, at which time the firm became known as Riviere & Son, and the bindery continued to do business until 1939. The present set is an excellent example of the firm's work, and the bindings, along with the richness of the plates and the capacious margins here, make this an especially appealing copy. The early watermark dates of 1806 and 1807 are a further attractive feature, as they suggest strong coloring on plate surfaces that have not suffered significant degradation. (ST20974)
Price: $8,500.00