Lot Details
Lot 166
SMITH, JOHN THOMAS. Antiquities of Westminister; The Old Palace; St. Stephen's Chapel, (Now the House of Commons) &c. &c. Containing Two Hundred and Forty-Six Engravings of Toporgraphical Objects, of Which One Hundred and Twenty-Two No Longer Remain.
London: by T. Bensley, for J.T. Smith, and sold by R. Ryan and J. Manson, 1807. First edition, large paper copy. Modern marbled paper boards with brown morocco spine and corners, gilt decorated spine, top edge gilt, other edges marbled. 12 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches; [4], xv, [3], 276 pp., complete with 38 plates (including etchings, engravings, a lithograph, a mezzotint, aquatints, and fifteen hand-colored plates), woodcut illustrations in text. Light edgewear, leather at spine unevenly sunned, contents with some toning and spotting, offsetting from plates.
When 14th century antiquities and wall paintings were accidentally uncovered during excavations at the House of Parliament in 1800, artist and curator John Thomas Smith was given permission to sketch them. These drawings form the basis for this book, Smith's magnum opus. "Plate number 13 is a very early example of English lithography," possibly the first lithographic illustration to be published in an English book (Abbey, Scenery, p. 136). As Smith relates, only the first three hundred copies of this book contain the lithograph, as the stone was ruined after the first day of printing when the ink was left out overnight and became too dry (p. 50). This copy contains both the lithographic illustration, and the etching that was produced to replace it. Abbey, Scenery, 210; Ray, The Illustrated Book in England, 79; Twyman, pp. 29-30; Adams 98.
C Property of a Massachusetts Gentleman
Additional Notes & Condition Report
No condition report? Click here to request one.