OVER 100 HAND-COLOURED AQUATINT COSTUME PLATES FROM 1814

Title: Picturesque Representations of the Dress and... Publisher: Printed for John Murray by W. Bulmer and Co. Publication Date: 1814 Binding: Hardcover Book Condition: Near Fine Edition: 1st TWO VOLUMES BOUND IN ONE. Title page, viii, 64 unnumbered leaves of text, 64 hand-coloured aquatint plates of the Russians. xv, 50 unnumbered leaves of text, 50 hand-coloured aquatint plates of the Austrians. All in beautiful, crisp & bright condition with wide margins. All edges gilt. 16.5 x 24 cm. Contemporary half straight-grained green morocco. Spine in five compartments with broad, hand-tooled, gilt, raised bands. Head and tail of spine & hinges rubbed. Boards with double gilt fillets & salmon paper covered boards (with gentle handling patination). Corners bumped and slightly worn. Alexander was a first-rate draughtsman and excellent engraver who had gone out as junior draughtsman with Lord Macartney's embassy & who also served as the British Museum's first keeper of prints and drawings; he produced similar volumes on the dress of the Turks, Chinese and his own English. The fine Russian plates are almost identical with those in Costume of the Russian Empire (London, William Miller 1803) and the same title (London, E. Harding 1803). The primary source is Georgi's Beschreibung aller nationen des russischen reichs) (Hiler & Hiler, 16). The first 12 plates depict people of Finnish origin and plates 13 to 35 describe the Tartars. Plate 36 to 50 cover people from Siberia and the East while the rest depict the Mongols and other small tribes from all over the Empire. The fine Austrian costumes are from the great collection assembled by A. F. Bertrand de Moleville and are based on designs by Vincent Georg Kininger. Includes costumes from Lower Austria, the Tyrol, Innsbruck, Hungary, Eger, Bohemia, Bukovina, Hermannstadt, Poland, Dalmatia, Moravia, etc. Russians: Colas 2358; Tooley 377; Not in Abbey. Austrians: Tooley 375. Cf. Lipperheide Ea 26. Colas 78. Hiler 16. Bookseller Inventory # 4453