Bowyer, Robert [publisher]

Folio (20 x 15 in.; 508 x 381 mm). Letterpress title, 9 leaves of explanatory letterpress text, 12 fine hand-colored aquatint plates on thick stock after Samuel Prout (4), R. Hills (3), F. Nicholson (3), J. Smith (1) and W. Collins (1), all watermarked 1825. Contemporary half calf over marbled paper covered boards, spine lettered in gilt.

John Rushout, 2d Baron Northwick (1770-1859, armorial bookplate)

Abbey, Life 197; Tooley, p. 67; Prideaux, p. 351; Martin Hardie, p. 145; Bobins, The Exotic and the Beautiful II:618

FIRST EDITION of a "tour de force of engraving and colouring" (Hardie).

Very rare, with only one complete copy appearing in the auction records over the last thirty years. The images include genre and landscape work with scenes in England, France and Flanders, and are each accompanied by informed notes about the artists, the subjects or the original history of the paintings on which the plates are based. The five artists whose work is represented were amongst the most popular of their day and their work is of a very high quality, but is evident that the works were also chosen by Bowyer as examples which would show off the mastery of his anonymous print-makers and colorists.