STURGESS, JOHN [ILLUSTRATOR], HENRY CHARLES HOWARD, EARL OF SUFFOLK AND BERKSHIRE, W. G. CRAVEN | Racing and Steeple-Chasing ... [Volume 4 of The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes]. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1886

STURGESS, JOHN [ILLUSTRATOR], HENRY CHARLES HOWARD, EARL OF SUFFOLK AND BERKSHIRE, W. G. CRAVEN

Racing and Steeple-Chasing ... [Volume 4 of The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes]. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1886

Large 8vo (9 3/8 x 7 1/8 in.). Numerous illustrations, including one colored plate, all after J. Sturgess, extra-illustrated with 53 original drawings by the artist. Contemporary red morocco bound by Rivere & Son, arms of the Dukes of Beaufort on both covers enclosed by a single fillet with stirrups and hunting horns at corners, and with a motif of horse shoes in outer panel, spine with raised bands in six compartments, second and third gilt-lettered, the others with gilt sporting motifs inner dentelles gilt, blue paper endpapers, top edges gilt, others uncut. Slipcase.

Number 25 of 250 large paper copies, extra-illustrated with original drawings by Sturgess for illustrations within the book

Dedicated to the Prince of Wales, The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes, was a sporting and publishing project conceived and founded by Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort. Between 1885 and 1896, it developed into a series of 28 separately-published sporting books which aimed to cover comprehensively all the major sports and pastimes, with some additional volumes on new sports published subsequently. The work was issued in three forms: a standard trade edition bound in cloth, a deluxe edition identical to the trade edition but bound in half morocco, and the present large-paper deluxe edition limited to 250 numbered copies.

Sturgess was a noted hunting and racing artist who worked mainly for the Illustrated London News between 1875 and 1885, and exhibited widely in the London galleries, including the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Hibernian Society in Dublin. His lively original illustrations, however, are seldom encountered.

(See following lot.)