A Practical Essay on the Art of Flower Painting.

BURGESS, John Cart.

Edité par London: Printed for the author by D. Jacques, and sold by Ebers, Hatchard, Harding, and Chapple, 1811

A propos de cet article

First edition of the author's first book, scarce, seemingly his own copy, with two manuscript sheets likely in his hand: a list of colours and their suppliers and a diagram colour wheel matching that on pages 44-45. The copy was passed down through the family, the colour list annotated as "My father's list of colours which he kept by him". Burgess (1788-1863) began his artistic career as a painter of flowers, sending three flower pieces to the Royal Academy in 1812. He diversified into portraits and landscapes, but "his flower pieces in particular were much admired for their brilliance and the beauty of their execution" (ODNB). In the book, he gives his preferred colour suppliers as Newman, Reeves and Woodyer, and Smith, Warner & Co. His manuscript list updates these to Windsor & Newton, Ackermann, and Reeves. A Practical Essay on the Art of Flower Painting contains technical instruction along with 22 accounts of the lives and works of "the most eminent flower painters, both ancient and modern" (p. 73). Four women are included in this list: the Dutch artists Rachel Ruisch van Pool (1664-1750) and Maria van Ostertwyk (1630-1693) accompany the author's contemporaries, Mary Lawrance (1794-1830) and Anne Frances Byrne (1775 1837), the first female member of the Royal Watercolour Society. Burgess's daughter Jane also exhibited as a flower painter. The copy continued to be passed down through the Burgess family. Gift inscriptions on the front pastedown read: "Miss Chrissie Burgess, from Aunt Pollie", and "Cousin Harrie's [?] Father's. It was his father's book." We have traced copies in just seven institutions, six in the UK and one in Germany. Octavo (222 x 136 mm). Diagram. Original brown boards, rebacked with contemporary brown cloth backstrip, manuscript paper label to spine. Spine label scratched with a couple of chips affecting lettering, edges worn, covers rubbed, robust, contents clean: a very good copy.

N° de réf. du vendeur 180177

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: A Practical Essay on the Art of Flower Painting.
• Éditeur: London: Printed for the author by D. Jacques, and sold by Ebers, Hatchard, Harding, and Chapple, 1811
• Édition: Edition originale