Brookshaw George, Signed (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very good. First. "ONE OF THE FINEST COLOUR-PLATE BOOKS IN EXISTENCE" FROM THE LIBRARY OF QUENTIN KEYNES. First edition. London: T. Bensley for the author; White, Cochrane and Co.; E. Lloyd; and W. Lindsell; [1804]1812. Broadsheet folio (23 ½" x 18 5/8", 596mm x 470mm). [Full collation available.]With 90 aquatint-stipple engravings printed in color à la poupée and finished by hand (numbered I-XXXVIII, XL-XLI, XLIII-XLV, XLVII-XCIII, as issued) and heightened in gum arabic. Bound in modern half red morocco over red cloth. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel, author gilt to the fourth, date gilt to the tail. All edges of the text-block untrimmed. Wear along the lower edge of the rear board and at the fore-corners. A little rubbing. Some scattered foxing, with moderate tanning to the deckled edges, and some attendant chips. Tear to pl. XXXI, repaired verso. Repaired tear to the lower margin of leaf I, and a filled loss to the lower margin of plate XXXV, neither affecting the image. Some of the plate numbers corrected in manuscript (e.g., LV corrected to LXIV, in that position). Typed letter signed (addressed to Quentin Keynes, dated 20 January 1959) on the letterhead of Wheldon & Wesley (booksellers) -- concerning the numbering of the plates --mounted to the front free end-paper. George Brookshaw (ca. 1751-1823) began as cabinet-maker specializing in painted furniture in the neoclassical mode, with its characteristic swags of flowers (see, for example, a pier table in the Victoria & Albert). His career as a maker of books began with a New treatise on flower painting (1797; as "George Brown"), which led naturally to his magnum opus: the Pomona britannica, a pomological survey of the fruits raised principally but not exclusively in the royal gardens at Hampton Court. Published in thirty parts (perhaps from 1804), the work once completed continued to be issued well into the 1820's (to judge by the watermarks found in some examples). The watermarks of the text are consistently "JWHATMAN/ 1811" and those of the plates (whose watermarks are visible) have early dates; the earliest being 1794 (pl. XVI) and the latest 1810 (pl. XL i.a.) with a single exception: pl. XXXIII, dated 1817. Seldom is the work mentioned without reference to Thornton's Temple of Flora, which appeared around the same time (1807; the present work was begun in 1804) -- the flower to the present item's fruit. Both were exceptionally expensive (the Pomona cost £59/18- in 1812), though Brookshaw did not need, as Thornton did, an Act of Parliament establishing a lottery to help him recoup his expenses. The styles, however, are totally different; Brookshaw's floating specimens against colored backgrounds -- often a rich dark brown, though sometimes bi-color, cream or green -- are much more in the Linnaean mode than Thornton's landscape fantasias. While undoubtedly a luxury production -- dedicated to the Prince Regent, future George IV -- the Pomona aspires to be useful to the British fruit-grower, depicting (by Raphael's count in the Oak Spring Pomona) 256 varieties of fifteen fruits. The Pomona is not a nurseryman's catalogue, but it does aim in its text to provide practical guidance in the qualities and successful cultivation of these fruits; quite the contrast to the florid verses of the Temple! Quentin George Keynes (1921-1923) was an explorer and bibliophile, younger son of Sir Geoffrey Keynes and great-grandson of Charles Darwin through his mother. Keynes doubtless bought the book from Wheldon & Wesley -- their letterhead notes that they served as agents for the Smithsonian Institution -- one of whose principals, H.K. Swann, signed the letter mounted to the front free end-paper. His library was disbursed in a four-part auction by Christie's in 2004, though the present volume appears not to have been in that sale. Dunthorne 50; Nissen, BBI 244; Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving p. 295; Raphael, An Oak Spring Pomona 40a; Sitwell, Great Flower Books p. 81.