Title: THE ART OF ILLUMINATING. As Practised in ...
Publisher: Day and Son. Lithographers to the Queen. London.
Publication Date: 1860
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st
First edition, second printing. Chromolithograph title page, 96 printed pages and 95 chromolithograph plates. Marbled endpapers. Mild foxing on the title-page, predominantly confined to the margins. Plate 36 has some marginal wear and handling wear along the edges. 17 x 25 cm. Quarter tan morocco. Spine in six compartments with raised bands, gilt lettering and blind tooled floral emblem. Boards with marbled paper. Corners very slightly worn. [McLean 85]. Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820 77) was a British architect and art historian who became Secretary of the Great Exhibition, Surveyor of the East India Company and the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge. From 1855 until 1859 he was honorary secretary of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and in 1866 received the Royal Gold Medal. An important chromolithographic book and a splendid example of mid 19th century interest in Gothic design. M. Digby Wyatt provides an overview of the art of illuminating in an attempt to both trace its history and provide a model for future illustrators. His essay is complimented by the various ornamental color borders which frame it. A list of plates follows and provides details concerning the original context from which the fragments of illumination that follow were taken. The majority of the text is taken up with skillfully chromolithographed reproductions of medieval illuminated letters and ornament. The chromolithography was done by William Robert Tymms, who is perhaps best known for his work with Westwood on his Facsimiles of the Miniatures & Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon & Irish Manuscripts 1868. Bookseller Inventory # 4326