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First edition. Two volumes, complete with all 101 inserted hors-text etched plates (five pairs being double-page plates). Princess folio, 20-1/8 x 14-1/8 in. (51.2 x 36 cm) overall, the pages 19-3/8 x 13-5/8 in. (49.3 x 34.5 cm). Contemporary burgundy half morocco over purple cloth-covered boards, spines with raised bands in five compartments with gilt rules and lettering, all edges cut, top edges gilt, multicolored (primarily burgundy, blue and chrome yellow) nonpareil pattern marbled endpapers. Printed letterpress on heavy wove paper. Collates (vol. I) [1 l.], 1 l. (title with woodcut vignette), pp. [iii]-v (Preface with large headpiece vignette and tailpiece half-plate), [1 p.], 1 l. (table, Genealogy of the Norman Dukes, recto), [vii]-[ix] (chronological list of subjects; list of plates), [1 p.], pp. [1]-58, [1 l. ], plus 55 additional ll. inserted etched plates printed one side only (numbered 1-54 and 33* [bis], with 21-22, 49-50 and 51-52 constituting double plates); (vol. II) [1 l.], 1 l. (title with repeat of woodcut vignette), 1 l. (list of plates recto), pp. 59-125, [1 p.], 1 l. (index of plates recto), [1 l. ], plus 46 additional ll. inserted etched plates printed one side only (numbered 55-100, with 73-74 and 92-93 constituting double plates). Moderate overall wear and tear to covers and spines, corners of covers and joints and extremities of spines worn, corners bumped, cover cloth variously sunned, gutters of front endleaves vol. I partially split (but hinges tight), faint stains and light foxing scattered through the text blocks, more prevalently on front and rear pages and in margins, inconspicuous stab holes in extreme side edge of a few plates in vol. I (probably from binding process); internally overall bright, clean and crisp, the plates overall fine, the text blocks strong and square. Ray England, no. 75. Provenance: Philip Hamond (1782-1824), High House, West Acre, Norfolk, his contemporary engraved bookplates; each bookplate signed indistinctly in ink top center "A. Ham nd" (possibly Philip's son Anthony, b. 1805, or Anthony's son Anthony, b. 1834). Laurence Binyon, of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, offered this early and durable appreciation ("John Crome and John Sell Cotman," The Portfolio, no. 32, 1897, at pp. 64-72), well worth recalling at length: "All Cotman's etchings [--] are, in fact, simply records of architectural studies. It is in this light that we must view them; and so regarded, they have extraordinary merit. Few have understood architecture so well, or drawn it with such mastery. [--] He went to Normandy, and to see architecture, not pictures. [--] The result of these visits was the great series of 100 etchings, published in 1822. These etchings are more interesting architecturally than as drawings; and avowedly so. For Dawson Turner, in his introduction, says expressly that the buildings selected were chosen principally for certainty as to date. He tells us that many much more beautiful subjects might have been selected, but that these were excluded. [--] Still, some of the plates, especially those in which the building is made the centre of a landscape, are noble and impressive compositions. [--] The two views of Chateau Gaillard, one from below, the other from above, with the massive ruins standing desolate on their rocky solitudes; Tancarville Castle with its fringed cliffs reflected in the sunny stream; Falaise rising steeply above headlong boulders; and Mont St. Michel, surrounded by infinite sand and sea, are all seen as only Cotman would have seen them, and portrayed with a fine appreciation of their grandeur.". Seller Inventory # ABE-1505931671251
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