To The Queen This Book Of Etchings From Papers Cut By The Right Honorable Lady Templeton -

London: J.F. Tomkins, 1790. Tomkins, Peltro William. Small oblong quarto. (4)ff., + 12 plates, loosely inserted. Engraved title page with vignette, plus twelve plates printed on orange paper, etched by P.W. Tomkins after designs by Elizabeth Upton, Baroness Templetown. This suite of designs features women and children in pastoral attire performing a wide array of activities, including hide-and-seek, dancing, spinning, etc. Most of these scenes include a cherubic Cupid-like figure, who, in what seems to be the last plate in the series, appears lifeless atop a bier before which a woman with a dog on a leash weeps. Baroness Templetown is best-known for her cut-paper figures that were used on Wedgewood jasperware. This is very likely a later issue of this portfolio: despite the orange paper bearing tax stamps with the correct date, the paper used in the binding bears an 1840 watermark, and the marbling pattern used on the covers best reflects early 19th-century stylistic cues. This is a very fine example of a book that is quite uncommon in commerce, showing only a few minor defects to the thin paper on which the colored plates are mounted.