BIRKET FOSTER'S PICTURES OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE (Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel) With pictures in words by Tom Taylor.

FOSTER, Myles Birket.

Edité par London: Routledge Warne and Routledge. New York: 56 Walker Street, 1863

A propos de cet article

Large folio (binding 570 x 410mm; leaves 550 x 390mm), with the original text and plates printed on india paper (232 x 195mm) and mounted on much larger leaves; printed on the recto only; consisting of half title, title and two leaves of preface and two of contents, followed by 30 leaves of text by Tom Taylor interspersed with 30 plates by Birket Foster; superbly bound in contemporary full green morocco over very heavy boards, titled in gilt on upper cover and on spine; edges gilt, marbled endpapers. First edition, and clearly a luxurious and special copy, printed on india paper and with both the plates by Foster and the text by Taylor mounted on very large sheets. The whole book is superbly presented in a contemporary morocco binding by an anonymous binder. Birket Foster's Pictures of English Landscape was a best-selling book when first published in 1863, and large numbers were printed. This present issue must have been the most de luxe version of it, printed and bound at the time of first publication, and no doubt only produced in very small numbers. It should not be confused with the 'India Proof Edition' published in 1881 in a limited edition of 1000 copies: besides being clearly dated 1881, that edition is very much smaller than this, measuring only 375 x 260mm, and is an altogether more modest book. Forrest Reid relates that Foster was originally commissioned by the Dalziels to make fifty full-page drawings, and fifty accompanying vignettes - but that his success as a watercolour artist meant that he was too busy (and disinclined) to fulfil the task, and that after four years of delay, it was reduced to thirty drawings, and no vignettes. 'In this book he is absolutely at his best; the drawings are broader, looser, bolder than his work is apt to be. Pictures of English Landscape is one of the collector's indispensable books'. And this copy is surely the most majestic copy imaginable. An outstanding book in splendid condition. See Forrest Reid, Illustrators of the Sixties (1928), pp. 24-5.

N° de réf. du vendeur 22927

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: BIRKET FOSTER'S PICTURES OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE (Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel) With pictures in words by Tom Taylor.
• Éditeur: London: Routledge Warne and Routledge. New York: 56 Walker Street
• Date de parution: 1863
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• Édition: Edition originale
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Art