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ACKERMANN, Rudolph Sangorski & Sutcliffe Combe, William History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster, The 1816

Ackermann s Colleges[ACKERMANN, Rudolph, publisher]. The History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster; with the Charter-House, the Schools of St. Paul s, Merchant Taylors, Harrow, and Rugby, and the Free-School of Christ s Hospital. London: Printed for and Published by R. Ackermann, 1816.First edition. Large quarto (13 3/8 x 11 inches; 340 x 280 mm.). vi, [1, Arrangement of Plates ], [1, blank], 56; 72; 27, [1, blank]; 32; 34; 22; 40; 34; 43, [1, blank] pp. With forty-eight hand-colored plates (forty-five aquatint and three engraved), including four costume plates and forty-four views by Havell, Stadler, Bluck, and others, after Westall, Mackenzie, Pugin, and others. Second state of Plate 6 ( Winchester College, from the Meadow ), dated Jany. 1, 1816 ; first issue, second state of Plate 23 ( Westminster School Room ), with the masters bareheaded; first issue, second state of Plate 26 ( Charter House ), lettered by means of a printed overslip, depicting two washerwomen with a basket laying out linen on the lawn, and with eleven figures on the paths. Text watermarked 1812, plates watermarked 1812 and 1816.Bound ca. 1950 [by Sangorski & Sutcliffe] for C.J. Sawyer (stamp-signed on front turn-in) in full red crushed levant morocco. Front cover decoratively tooled in gilt, spine decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments with five raised bands, gilt board edges and turn-ins, top edge gilt, Cockerell marbled endpapers. Bookplate removed from front pastedown. Occasional very light offsetting from the plates to the text. Eton College with a small light stain to the inner margin of the recto of leaf G1 (p. 41) and very slight browning to the recto of leaf K1 (p. 65). This is an excellent copy, with early watermarks, in a very attractive mid-twentieth-century binding. [Ackermann s History of the University of Oxford (1813) and History of the University of Cambridge (1814)] were fittingly followed by a History of the Colleges Of this also a thousand copies were issued in monthly parts, the first appearing on January 1, 1816 The text, with the exception of the parts dealing with Winchester, Eton, and Harrow (the work of W.H. Pyne), were entirely written by Combe, and the same artists were employed in its decoration, the highest praise for which is that it equals, if not surpasses, that of Oxford and Cambridge. The original drawings for the forty-eight coloured plates were distributed among Westall, who executed fifteen, and Pugin and Mackenzie, who did fourteen each, while one is by J. Gendall, who besides illustrating Ackermann s publications was employed for some years in managing his business, particularly in developing the new art of lithography. The actual engraving was done by Havell and Stadler, with a few plates by Bluck and Bennett, and four line engravings of costume by Agar after Uwins. Here again it may be noticed that many of the aquatints are printed in two colours before being finished by hand (Martin Hardie).Abbey, Scenery, 440. Adams, London Illustrated, 116. Martin Hardie, pp. 106-107. Prideaux, pp. 126 and 332. Tooley 3.

$US4500

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