ENGRAVINGS OF . . . THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S COLLECTION OF PICTURES, IN LONDON. [together with] OTTLEY, WILLIAM YOUNG, HENRY TRESHAM, and PELTRO WILLIAM TOMKINS. THE BRITISH GALLERY OF PICTURES

London: Bensley and Son for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Cadell and Davies, and P. W. Tomkins, 1818. FIRST EDITIONS. ONE OF ONLY A FEW COPIES WITH MOUNTED HAND-COLORED PLATES. 563 x 415 mm. (22 1/8 x 16 3/8"). Lacking two-leaf "To subscribers" called for by Abbey in the second work, otherwise complete. Two works in five volumes..
Uniformly bound in contemporary brick-red straight-grain morocco, gilt, by Fairburn and Armstrong for Colnaghi & Son (stamp-signed in gilt on turn-ins), covers with gilt fillet borders with an elaborate Neoclassical roll in gilt, and smaller rolls in blind, inner panel with gilt cornerpieces in an arabesque design, double raised bands embellished with gilt tooling, three compartments with black morocco labels with gilt lettering, others with dense gilt tooling, gilt turn-ins with multiple gilt rules and cornerpieces, yellow glazed endpapers, all edges gilt (expert repair to head of spine of the first volume of the first work, occasional small repairs to the joints). First four volumes with 13 hand-colored engraved plans, and 291 HAND-COLORED ENGRAVINGS, trimmed and mounted in imitation of watercolors on 125 tinted card mounts, all within ink-ruled borders; fifth volume WITH 25 STIPPLE-ENGRAVED PLATES, PRINTED IN COLORS AND FINISHED BY HAND, trimmed and mounted in imitation of watercolors on 25 tinted card mounts, all within gilt-ruled borders. All with original paper guards, each card mount with short titles pasted on verso. A Large Paper Copy of the first work. Abbey Life 209 & 210; Tooley 492; Hardie, p. 65; Lowndes II, 858. See also: Herrmann, "The English as Collectors," p. 458. Joints and extremities somewhat worn, and with short cracks at head and/or tail of a couple volumes, boards with some minor abrasions and other small blemishes, but all volumes completely solid, and the set retaining its considerable antique appeal. Just a couple of text leaves in volume II with moderate foxing, some of the card mounts with a little soiling, consistent offsetting from plates (but onto guards, so no harm done); isolated trivial imperfections, but THE CONTENTS IN FINE CONDITION, very clean and bright, the plates beautifully preserved and with unusually rich color.

This immense, handsomely bound set consists of two art catalogues celebrating the finest Old Master paintings in British collections; included is the rare deluxe hand-colored copy of the catalogue raisonné of the Marquess of Stafford's collection--one of the most extravagant and expensive such catalogues produced to that time. The Stafford Gallery, as it was then known, opened in 1806 (thus predating the National Gallery by almost 20 years) at the London home of the Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford. It housed an extraordinary art collection that included works by Poussin, Lorraine, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Hobbema, Turner, Gainsborough, and many other notable artists. Displaying more than 200 paintings across 12 sumptuously decorated rooms, the Marquess' collection was one of the most significant of its day and, perhaps most importantly, one of the few allowing public viewership. Ottley's ambitious catalogue was originally offered in three formats: uncolored quarto prints for £35.14s. (the version most frequently encountered on the market), Large Paper india proofs for £71.8s., and Large Paper Copies with colored and mounted plates for an astonishing £171.14s.--plus an additional £40 for the binding (in total about £12,000 in today's money). It is no wonder that Hermann calls it "probably the most luxurious [catalogue] to have appeared in England by 1818." The fifth volume in this set contains a separately published work composed of 25 engravings that reproduce "the most admired productions of the Old Masters" in Britain, including examples by Giotto, Parmigianino, Poussin, Raphael, and Rubens. Hardie says that these plates "executed when the art of stipple was in its decadence, are triumphs of colour-printing," and Tooley calls the work "an exceedingly fine example of colored stipple engraving." As with the previous work, the engravings here were executed by Peltro William Tomkins (1759-1840), who studied with Bartolozzi and taught drawing to the daughters of George III. DNB notes that he and his brother "financed ambitious works, notably an illustrated edition of James Thomson's 'Seasons' (1797) . . . arguably the most magnificent book to be illustrated with stipple engravings." The descriptions are by Henry Tresham, then professor of painting at the Royal Academy, and Ottley (1771-1836), keeper of prints for the British Museum, and considered to be the greatest authority of his time on Italian Renaissance art. Copies of the hand-colored deluxe issue of the first work are scarce at auction: ABPC finds just two sets this century, selling for hammer prices of £6,000 ($9,334) in 2002 and £4,400 ($7,251) in 2009. To find a deluxe copy of the first work bound together with the second, all in elegant contemporary bindings and in fine condition is extremely rare--we were able to locate just one comparable set on RBH, which sold at Sotheby's in 1981 for £3,190 all in (approximately equivalent to $18,200 today)..