Picturesque views by Calvert.

Calvert's rarest print album

London, Hodgson & Co, 1823.

Oblong 4° (24 x 16,5 cm.). With 24 soft ground etched plates and title. Original publisher's half morocco with printed front cover. With original tissue guards.

Very rare plate album by Irish landscape painter Frederick Calvert, complete with 24 "picturesque views" and in the original binding. Calvert moved to England in 1815 and, besides painting, produced a number of print albums and model books, a.o. The young artist's instructor (London, Hodgson and Co., 1823) and Rural scenery (London, Hodgson and Co., ca. 1825). He designed plates for Picturesque views ... in Staffordshire and Shropshire (Birmingham, William Emans, 1830-1831), and for A new and compendious history, of the county of Warwick (Birmingham, William Emans, 1830). Perhaps his most famous work was for The Isle of Wight illustrated (1846). The present work is the rarest of Calvert's published oeuvre, with just 4 copies recorded in WorldCat and none at auction. It formed the basis for some of his later albums: "What may perhaps be an earlier form of the work was published by Hodgson and Company in 1823, with the title Picturesque views by Calvert (see); this has not been seen, but contains at least 24 views of cottages and scenery, and may well represent the first form in which some of these plates were published. The appearance of the letter 'C' before some of the plate numbers may signify only that these belong to Calvert's book of 'Cottages'; alternatively, it may indicate that this was his third independent publication, The young artist's instructor and Rural scenery being notionally, perhaps, A and B.!" (Savage).

Condition: owner's inscription in red pencil on front paste-down and in ink at foot margin of title by "Ann Dufty, Oakham, [18]24". Binding rubbed and soiled. Foxed. Stain in top right corner throughout.

Reference: Savage, Catalogue of the British Architectural Library Early Imprints Collection, Early Printed Books, 1478-1840, Volume 5, no. 3782; Spelman 46:21; cf. Abbey, Life 103, 104 & 105.