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BUNBURY, Henry Gambado, Geoffrey Academy for Grown Horsemen, An [bound with] Annals of Horsemanship 1812

The Humorous Classic on Horsemanship With Bunbury s Plates in Color[BUNBURY, Henry]. Gambado, Geoffrey (pseud.). An Academy for Grown Horsemen; Containing the Completest Instructions for Walking, Trotting, Cantering, Galloping, Stumbling, and Tumbling. Illustrated with Copper Plates, and Adorned with a Portrait of the Author. London: Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1812. [With:] [BUNBURY, Henry]. Gambado, Geofrey (pseud.). Annals of Horsemanship: Containing Accounts of Accidental Experiments and Experimental Accidents, Both Successful and Unsuccessful: Communicated by Various Correspondents to Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. Together with Most Instructive Remarks Thereon, and Answers Thereto, by that Accomplished Genius. And Now First Published, by the Editor of the Academy for Grown Horsemen. Illustrated with Cuts by the Most Eminent Artists. London: Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1812.First Collected Edition, originally issued separately in 1785 and 1791 respectively with the engravings in sepia only. Two works in one large quarto volume (12 7/8 x 9 3/4 in; 315 x 250 mm). Hand colored frontispiece, xxviii, 36, eleven hand colored plates; [1 half-title], [printer s imprint], hand colored frontispiece, xix, [1 blank], 81, [blank], [1 directions to binder], [1 blank, sixteen hand colored plates, pp. With the original title label neatly mounted on blank. Bound by Morrell (ca. 1950) in full crimson morocco. Triple gilt ruled borders in gilt. Central panel ruled and lettered in gilt. Equestrian ornaments in gilt at rounded corners and foliate decoration in gilt. Five raised bands ruled in gilt. Three compartments lettered in gilt. Three compartments with foliate decorations and equestrian ornaments in gilt. Gilt ruled edges. Gilt tooled turn ins. Title page to Academy very slightly toned. An occasional smudge to margins not affecting text or images. Else a wonderfully clean and elegantly bound copy. Housed in a custom made black cloth clamshell case.Fourth editions of Gambano s droll classics on horsemanship featuring Bunbury s humorous caricatures, issued here as one volume with separate title pages and hand colored plates as called for, the plates in prior editions typically in sepia only. A singulier ouvrage (Brunet). Gambado is said to have been Francis Grose, compiler of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (Riely, John C. Horace Walpole and the Second Hogarth , in Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, Autumn, 1975). In addition to his works on antiquities, satiric essays, and volumes on non-standard words and meanings, Francis Grose (1731-1791) wrote Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: with an Essay on Comic Painting (1788); though only an indifferent draughtsman, he mixed with professional and amateur artists, and exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1767 8 and at the Royal Academy in the nine years following (Oxford Online DNB) - the frontispiece portrait of Gambado in The Academy, unsigned (all other signed Bunbury), bears an uncanny resemblance to Grose: a stocky, corpulent figure which Grose himself caricatured (DNB), perhaps here.The stipple engraved plates were designed by Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). "Bunbury owed much during his lifetime to the charm of a genial nature, and to his position as a man of family and education. West flattered him, and Walpole enthusiastically compared him to Hogarth. He was the friend of Goldsmith, Garrick, and Reynolds, and the favourite of the Duke and Duchess of York, to whom in 1787 he was appointed equerry. All this, coupled with the facts that he was seldom, if ever, personal, and wholly abstained from political subjects, greatly aided his popularity with the printsellers and the public of his day, and secured his admission, as an honorary exhibitor, to the walls of the Academy, where between 1780 and 1808 his works frequently appeared [They] are not without a good deal of grotesque drollery of the rough-and-ready kind in vogue towards the end of the last centuryóthat is to say, drollery depending in a great measure for its laughable qualities upon absurd contrasts, ludicrous distortions, horseplay, and personal misadventure." (DNB). The lovers of humor were inconsolable for the loss of Hogarth, but from his ashes a number of sportive geniuses have sprung up, and the works of Bunbury [et al] have entertained us (Walker s Hibernian Magazine, May 1790). Just at this time, one of these sportive geniuses was at the height of his popularity. Of the many amateur caricaturists who flourished during the second half of the eighteenth century, Bunbury was undoubtedly the most famous. His talents for depicting humorous incidents of everyday life and manners established him as a master of the burlesque, and his reputation in social caricature rivaled that of Thomas Rowlandson or James Gillray. (Op cit Riely, p.28). Cf. Huth 52. Cf. UCBA I,633. CF. Lowndes 860. Cf. Graesse III,22. Cf. Podeschi 90. Cf. Lewine 204. Cf. Allibone, vol I, p.282. Cf. Brunet II, 1474.Color Plates in Academy :Portrait of GambadoThe Mistaken NotionA Bit of BloodOne Way to Stop Your HorseHow to Ride Genteel and Agreeable Down HillHow to Lose Your WayHow to Turn Any Horse, Mare, or GeldingHow to Stop Your Horse at PleasureHow to be Run Away WithHow to Pass a CarriageHow to Ride a Horse on Three LegsHow to Ride Up Hyde ParkColor Plates in Annals:The Apotheosis of Geoffrey GambadoMr. Gambado Seeing the World in a Six Mile Tour Famed in HistoryDr. Cassock F.R.S. T.P.Q. Inventor of the Noble Puzzle for Tumble Down HorsesThe Puzzle for the Dog, The Puzzle for the Horse, The Puzzle for Turk, Frenchman, or, ChristianHow to Make the Most of a HorseHow to Make the Least of HimHow to Do Things by HalvesTricks Upon TravellersLove and WindMe & My Wife and DaughterHow to Make the Mare to GoHow to Prevent the Horse Slipping his GirthsHow to Ride Without a BridleA Daisy Cutter with his VarietiesThe Tumbler, or its AffinitiesA Horse with a NoseHow to Travel Upon Two Legs in a Frost

$US3500

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