Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia. After Lithographs by Louis Hague from Drawings Made On The Spot. Wth Historical Description by The Revd, George Croly, LL.D
The Holy Land Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia. After Lithographs by Louis Hague from Drawings Made On The Spot. Wth Historical Description by The Revd, George Croly, LL.D
Day & Son, 1855.
Octavo edition. Six volumes, bound in three in contemporary full red morocco, with gilt filleted border to boards and raised bands to spines with elaborate scrolls and arabesques to sections. Family crest to upper covers, gilt edges and dentelles to turn-ins. Page edges gilt. Armorial bookplate of Duncan Robert Mackintosh to front endpapers. Two hundred and fifty tinted 'lithographed' plates (in fact reproduced photographically), some such as "Simoom in the Desert" and "Interview with Mehemet Ali" in full colour. A near fine set, with an invisible superficial repair to the base of the rear joint of the third volume, but the bindings bright and attractive. Internally very clean with a little foxing to the reverse of the plates. A handsome set of a landmark of travel literature.
Roberts was the first independent, professional British artist to travel extensively in the Near East. His tour in 183839 produced 272 sketches, enough material to "serve me for the rest of my life" (Roberts, eastern journal, 28 Jan 1839). Over the next decade he made "a series of entire new drawings" for the large coloured lithographs executed by Louis Haghe for The Holy Land, which was originally published by subscription, 18429. "Robert's Holy Land was one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth-century publishing, and it was the apotheosis of the tinted lithograph" (Abbey, Travel).
Stock ID: 32640
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