British Artists

Moore, Henry. Henry Moore at the British Museum. British Museum Publ. London. 1981 1st ed. 4to Black cloth, gilt titles to spine. Unclipped dustwrapper. Pp128. Black and white illustrations throughout. Authors inscription in thick dark ink on half-title to James Shurmer dated September 1981.

London: E T Brain & Co 2 volumes, bound as one. Published London: E T Brain & Co, c. 1850's. 4to., 8 3/4" x 10 3/4", double frontis plates+ iv+145; double frontis plates+iv, 147-280. All plates present. Ex-library in library binding. Text and plates very good plus, clean, bright, no foxing or discoloration. . Hard. Very Good/No Jacket, As Issued. 4to.

Plymouth, Devon: White Lane Press, 1999. First edition. Trade softcover. Published Plymouth, Devon: White Lane Press, 1999, first printing. Folio wrappers, 12" x 11 7/8", color frontis+36pp. text with b/w and color photos and illustrations plus 78 full color plates, most full page. Minor corner bumping, else near fine. . 1st. Soft Cover. Near Fine/No Jacket, As Issued. Folio.

London: George Virtue, 1840. First edition. 2 volumes bound in 3/4 green leather with raised bands, all edge gilting, marbled endpapers. Published London: George Virtue, 1840. Large 4to., 8 3/4" x 11", 140pp.,+map+66 engravings+engraved title; state A of volume 2, with contents page numbered, 106pp.,+53 engravings+engraved title. Magnificent views of the Eastern United States before industrialization altered the landscape. Bartlett was a skilled landscape artist with a keen eye. He travelled extensively in the U.S. and Canada. Ocassional foxing to the plates and tissue guards, Light wear/rubbing to extremities, faded area to the cloth of volume two, mild outer hinge starting. Very good. . 1st. Hard. Very Good/No Jacket, As Issued. Illus. by William H. Bartlett. 4to.

London: George Virtue, 1840. First edition. 2 volumes bound in extra gilt-ornamental red full leather with panels, raised bands, all edge gilting, gilt edge decorations, colored endpapers, ribbon markers. Bookplate of former U.S. Senator and Congressman William L. Scott (Virginia Republican) on pastedown in each volume. Published London: George Virtue, 1840. Large 4to., 8 3/4" x 11", 140pp.,+map+66 engravings+engraved title; state A of volume 2, with contents page numbered, 106pp.,+53 engravings+engraved title. Magnificent views of the Eastern United States before industrialization altered the landscape. Bartlett was a skilled landscape artist with a keen eye. He traveled extensively in the U.S. and Canada. Internally fine with no toning or foxing, plates nearly immaculate under tissue guards. Joints and corners rubbed, front joint of one volume starting. Very good, near fine internally. 1st. Hard. Very Good/No Jacket, As Issued. Illus. by William H. Bartlett. 4to.

1687 RARE John Smith ART of Oil Painting Painters English Horology GOLD
'The Art of Painting' is a rare 17th-century treatise on painting with oils by English clockmaker John Smith. This work was an immensely popular work throughout the end of the 17th-century into the mid-1700s. In fact, it went through a number of editions through the end of Smith's lifetime.

While the title would suggest this is merely a work from an artistic view, it covers a variety of topics including how to work with gold and silver gilding. Other topics include
How to mix oils
Achieving correct color
Oil paint preservation
Proper use of tools
Item number: #5322
Price: $950
SMITH, John
The art of painting in oyl : wherein is included each particular circumstance relating to that art and mystery, containing the best and most approved rules for preparing, mixing, and working of oyl-colours : the whole treatise being so full compleat, and so exactly fitted to the meanest capacity, that all persons whatsoever, may be able by these… Read More

Alken, HenrySporting Discoveries, or the Miseries of Driving, in a series of seven plates, Being Hints to Young Sportsmen, By Ben Tally-Ho.
London 1817. Published by S. and J. Fuller. One, and perhaps the rarest, of the "Sporting Discoveries" series. Worldcat locates only 1 copy at Yale University. Seven colored aquatint plates, in very good condition, and are still sewn together. The top paper wrap is detached and in poor condition…the bottom wrap is missing. Plates are housed in an attractive cloth clam-shell case.

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

Liverpool: Tate Liverpool, 2006. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine. First Printing. Published to mark the eponymous exhibition by the enfants terrible of modern British art at the Tate, Liverpool in 2006. One of reportedly only 60 signed copies offered for sale by the Tate Gallery Bookshop at the time. SIGNED "Jake and Dinos Chapman" at the half-title. Exceedingly scarce, I do not recall one of these signed copies being offered for sale previously. 1/4 cloth. pp. 149, illustrated. Lower corners bumped but otherwise a Fine copy indeed.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1988. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Printing. A wonderful copy of this magnificent book- SIGNED, with silver ink-splash, INSCRIBED to the previous owner & DATED, and with an accompanying drawing. A Fine copy in Fine unclipped dustjacket.

San Francisco: Synaesthesia Press, 1997. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Soft cover. Fine. Chap book in which Barry Gifford recalls a visit to see Willlam S. Burroughs at the Bunker. Hand-sewn wrappers with die-cut cover, pp. 4, illustrated by Billy Childish. One of 26 lettered copies from a total edition of 176. Signed by both the author and artist at the title-page and includes three additional woodcuts created for the book by Billy Childish - these are enclosed in an envelope laid in. All presented in a larger, illustrated manilla envelope which shows minor creasing, the book itself and prints are in immaculate, Very Fine condition.

Very good copy of a pirate edition of the John Bewick woodcuts
Rare copy of this delightful Georgian oddity
(Listed by Francis Douce as example "XII," chapter 8, page 119, The Dance of Death, 1833.)
With 51 woodcuts in a distinctive octagonal frame.
Bewick's copy of Holbein's Dance of Death was published by his mentor T. Hodgson in 1793. The woodcuts were re-used for new editions in 1795 and 1801 by printer Robert Bassam, and were probably destroyed in a fire in his printshop in 1803.The plates here include a version of Bewick's original frontispiece with numerous skeletons leading royalty and aristocracy out of a castle town to a grave. The cuts are an amusing mix of medieval costumes, religiously copying Holbein and Hollar for the royal and clerical figures, and the Georgian, depicting modern gents in bicorne hats, coats, gilet waistcoats, and breeches, and ladies in elegant gowns with ostrich plumes in their hair.
According to Douce, "Emblems of Mortality, Printed for Whittingham and Arliss,… Read More

Very good copy of the first edition of Richard Doyle's fantasy masterpiece.

Complete with16 colour woodblock plates printed by Edmund Evans, each with one to four designs, for a total of 36 charming illustrations. Fairies and elves with dragonfly wings flirt and tease, ride snails, fly in the air on butterfly-drawn leaf carriages, sleep under mushrooms, and joust riding on beetles.

"Looking within himself, Doyle found a fantastic but consistently imagined world in which fairies and elves live in the open air among birds, butterflies, snails, and beetles as large as themselves." (Gordon N. Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England 1790-1914)

Richard "Dickie" Doyle, 1824-1883, was an English artist and illustrator, son of Irish caricaturist John Doyle and uncle of the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His began his career at Punch magazine, drawing the cover of the first issue and the masthead. After his success with the Brothers Grimm'sThe Fairy Ring in 1846, Doyle began to specialize in fantasy… Read More

Very good copy of the first edition of "one of the finest works on fishes."
Complete with 120 beautiful copperplate engravings, drawn, engraved and coloured by the author. Donovan made his drawings from recently caught fish, most while they were still living. The text often describes the location the fish was caught: the ocean sunfish, Mola mola, was "an elegant little specimen caught near the coast of Brighton."
Depicts several endangered species such as the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, and Atlantic halibut, Hippoglossus hippoglossus, and the critically endangered European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio, and angelshark, Squatina squatina.
"The paint is laid on so thickly that is frequently impossible to see the engraved lines underneath. The already rich colour is heightened with burnished highlights, albumen overglaze and metallic paint."
Complete five volumes bound in two (1,2 and 3,4,5),
Edward Donovan (1768-1837) was an Anglo-Irish naturalist and the author and illustrator of a number of… Read More

Rare complete set of 26 volumes of this zoological masterpiece
24 volumes bound in 12 of the Naturalist's Miscellany and 2 volumes bound in 1 of The Zoological Miscellany by William Elford Leach (the continuation published after George Shaw's death with illustrations by Richard Nodder)
With all 1,185 engraved plates in superb hand-colour
Engraved dedication leaf to Queen Charlotte, 1,065 hand-coloured engraved plates in the Naturalist's Miscellany, and 120 hand-coloured engraved plates in The Zoological MiscellanyA very good copy of this "remarkable serial" (Wood), a monumental work on natural history. Devoted to zoological subjects, and including a high proportion of birds, but also mammals, marine creatures, amphibia, reptiles, shells and insects; each subject is described in both Latin and English, and illustrated by a plate, the majority by George Shaw, Frederick Polydore Nodder and his son Richard Nodder.
Complete sets are very rare, since the work was published in 287 monthly parts over some 24… Read More