Flaxman's Classical Compositions by John Flaxman - 1831: The Iliad of Homer; The Odyssey of Homer;Works & Days, and Theogony of Hesiod; and The Tragedies of Aeschylus.

Very good copy of the second edition of John Kay's idiosyncratic portraits of celebrities and eccentrics in Georgian Edinburgh.With 358 (of 360) engraved copperplates bound in four volumes. (Plates 84, Right Hon. Charles Hope, and 108, Robert Craig Esq., in Volume 2 apparently never bound in.)With many amusing caricatures of late eighteenth century Edinburgh society, including economist Adam Smith, aeronaut Vincent Lunardi, riding master Angelo Tremamundo, philosopher Thomas Paine, author William Smellie, engraver Andrew Bell, actress Sarah Siddons, golfer Alexander McKellar, apothecary Mortar Willie, anatomist John Barclay, idiots and aristocrats, giants and little people, volunteer soldiers, lawyers, judges, chimney sweeps, sedan-chairmen, and scenes of cockfighting, cudgelling, election violence, transvestitism and ballooning. The appendix has portraits of Toussaint Louverture, John Kay himself, William Wallace, John Knox, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Mary Queen of Scots, George III,… Read More

Lovely copy of a rare book on Indian flora by talented amateur female artist Lena LowisWith 30 elegant botanicals by Lena Lowis, lithographed by David Blair, and printed by M. & N. Hanhart. Among the exotic flowers portrayed are poinsettia, flame lily, bougainvillea, hibiscus, clustervine, coralbush, Rangoon creeper, Nepal trumpet flower, white orchid tree, elephant creeper, oleander, Darwin pea, bottlebrush and Eastern prickly pear.No publication date, but preface dated 1878.Lena Lowis (1845-1919) was a talented writer and botanical illustrator. She was born Selina Caroline Shakespear in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India, the daughter of British Indian Army officer, Col. Sir Richmond Shakespear. She married Lt. Col. Ninian Lowis of the Bengal Staffs Corps and moved to England in 1868.David Blair (1820-1899?), was a botanical artist and lithographer who also worked on Transactions of the Linnean Society (1875), Berthold Carl Seemann and James Britten's Journal of Botany, British and Foreign (1872-8),… Read More

This is the first of Trevor Wisharts publications on his early works often collaborative and within communities or environments between January 1970 and July1972.
Black ink on substantial art paper with orange card cover. Excellent condition.
Profusely illlustrated by Wishart. These are essays, reports, and actual scores. Delving into performance art, community art, landscape art...
Introduction 'Beyond Cage' first written in 1969
This seems to be so rare...
Wishart now has a global reputation as a composer of electronic music.
If you are interested in this book and want more images please ask. If you can provide price of another on sale please do.

Very good copy of Volume XXXII (32) of Edwards's Botanical Register, 1846
Complete with all 69 (3 folding) hand-coloured botanical plates (No. 1-69).
The majority by talented woman botanical artist Miss Sarah Drake.
Includes 21 exotic species of showy orchids (Cattleya, Anguloa, Cypripedium, Dendrobium, Rhyncholaelia, Trichopilia, Cycnoches, Acanthephippium, etc.), as well as peony, gardenia, fire lily, bellflower, passionfruit, desert rose, indigo, balsam, snake gourd, speedwell, primrose, etc.
The Botanical Register was launched by Sydenham Edwards in 1815 following his departure as main illustrator to William Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Edwards edited the magazine and drew most of the plates in 14 volumes until his death in 1828. John Lindley then took over as editor on a further 19 volumes under the title Edwards's Botanical Register from 1829 to 1847. By 1832, Miss Drake had become the main illustrator of the magazine, and she would go on to draw over 1,000 plates.
Miss Drake or Sarah Anne Drake… Read More

Very good copy of Volume XXXIII (33) of Edwards's Botanical Register, 1847.
Complete with all 64 (2 folding) hand-coloured botanical plates (No. 1-64).
The majority by talented woman botanical artist Miss Sarah Drake.
Includes 20 exotic species of showy orchids (Coelogyne, Dendrobium, Cattleya, Staurochilus, Bletilla, Encyclia, Pinalia, Rhynchostylis, Oncidium, Calanthe, Brassia, Ascocentrum, etc.), as well as iris, hibiscus, bindweed, ginger lily, primrose, columbine, forsythia, Oriental paper bush, Chinese snowball, Japanese snowball, etc.
The Botanical Register was launched by Sydenham Edwards in 1815 following his departure as main illustrator to William Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Edwards edited the magazine and drew most of the plates in 14 volumes until his death in 1828. John Lindley then took over as editor on a further 19 volumes under the title Edwards's Botanical Register from 1829 to 1847. By 1832, Miss Drake had become the main illustrator of the magazine, and she would go on to draw… Read More

Newcastle: Solomon Hodgson for Beilby and Bewick, 1797 [but 1798]-1804. First edition of Water Birds on Royal 8vo; Second printing of Land Birds on Imperial 8vo. Fine. 2 volumes, 25 cm (vol. 1); 24 cm (vol. 2). 335, 400 pages, with hundreds of illustrations and vignettes in text. Volume 1: History and Description of Land Birds; points of issue: dated 1797 (but 1798), advertising fourth edition of Quadrupeds on last page, priced 1 guinea in boards. Volume 2: History and Description of Water Birds; vignette present at bottom of page 176. Bound in half calf over marbled boards, worn. Contents bright and fresh. References: Hugo, "The Bewick Collector," #99ff; Wood, p. 236; Roscoe 15a and 17b. Bewick refined and popularized the technique of wood-engraving, that is, using metal-engaving tools to cut hard boxwood across the grain, permitting more detail and durability that traditional methods of wood cuts could achieve. The durability of the wood-engraved blocks meant they could be integrated with… Read More

Complete set of 18 volumes of the first edition of John Bell's British Theatre with the de Wilde portraits."In 1793, the year of his first bancrupty, the beleaguered Bell bound up and sold the first 90 numbers of the new de Wilde-illustrated edition without general volume title pages." (Kalman A. Burnim and Philip H. Highfill Jr.). This set conforms to that description: volumes 1 to 18, each with five plays complete with all 90 title pages and theatrical portraits by Samuel de Wilde, engraved by John Chapman, lacking volume titles. Portraits include actors, actresses and opera singers of the Georgian stage including Sarah Siddons, John Philip Kemble, Robert Baddeley, Isabella Mattocks, Charles Lee Lewes, Harriet Pye Esten, Elizabeth Billington, Anna Maria Crouch, Anna Selina Storace, Joseph George Holman, Elizabeth Younge (later Pope),etc.Vol. 1: Comus by John Milton, Maid of the Mill, School for Fathers and Love in a Village by Isaac Bickerstaff, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay. Vol. 2: Venice… Read More

Incomplete run of 17 volumes (of 21) of the second edition of John Bell's British Theatre, the first published in 1776-78.Volumes 1-12 and 14-19 (missing volumes 13, 14, 20, 21), each with five plays complete, with all 17 frontispieces and 85 fold-out theatrical portraits by James Roberts, engraved by Reading, Thornthwaite, Walker, etc. Portraits include actors, actresses and opera singers of the Georgian stage including Sarah Siddons, Thomas Sheridan, David Garrick, Ann Barry, Mary Ann Yates, Joseph Vernon, Priscilla Hopkins, Ann Brown, etc.Vol. 1: Tragedies: Zara by Aaron Hill, Venice Preserved by Thomas Otway, Jane Shore by Nicholas Rowe, The Siege of Damascus by John Hughes, The Distrest Mother by Ambrose Philips. Vol. 2: Comedies: The Provok'd Wife by John Vanburgh, Every Man in his Humour by Ben Jonson, The Beaux Stratagem by George Farquhar, The Old Batchelor by William Congreve, The Committee by R. Howard.Vol. 3: Tragedies: The Earl of Essex by Henry Jones, Tamerlane by Nicholas Rowe, The… Read More

Suite of 226 etchings (of 366) from Deuchar's scarce A Collection of Etchings, 1803 apparently almost all of Vols. 1 and 2 of the 3-volume set.
The engravings are trimmed to the plate mark and mounted on cream paper, from one to five to a page, ranging in size from 4cm x 4cm to 14cm x 19cm. Some etchings are signed Deuchar, a few have the artist's name (e.g., Bega, Ostade, Vliet, Castiglione) and most are dated from 1783 to 1802.
The suite includes religious scenes and beggars by Rembrandt, several heads by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, many rustic scenes by Adriaen van Ostade, and a few after Stefano Della Bella, Hendrick Vliet and Cornelis Bega, five plates from Robert Watson's Five Senses suite, and two plates by Adriaen Brouwer (engraved by Thomas Major). Subjects include tavern scenes, gamblers, drunks and smokers, school scenes, bagpipers and fiddlers, tradespeople, lovers, beggars, ice-skaters, etc.
Deuchar's original designs can be recognized by their subjects in 18th century Scottish… Read More

Very good copy of Richard Dagley's first foray into caricatureWith 26 comical illustrations from the life of a young wastrel in Regency England, most engraved by William Henry BrookesWith 2-page dedication, 3-page advertisement, 32-page essay Miscellaneous Observations on the Ludicrous in Art all by Dagley, and 4-page introduction in poetry and 180-page poem by Gaspey. According to the preface, it was the author of Flim-Flams! [Isaac D'Israeli], who encouraged Dagley to experiment with comedy. Later, "an ingenious friend" suggested he used the word "Taking" to stimulate further practice. The result is seen here in these commissioned illustrations for Thomas Gaspey's doggerel adventure.A young student, Tom Takeall, ignores his father's advice and sets off on a disastrous series of adventures. He is depicted riding dangerously, spending lavishly on clothes, losing bets on the horses, getting robbed in the theatre, boxing with a prizefighter, eloping with a young woman and then pistol-dueling with her… Read More