ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY BY JOHN SELL COTMAN 1822 LEATHER BOUND - FROM THE KELMSCOTT LIBRARY OF WILLIAM MORRIS

[COTMAN, John Sell; TURNER, Dawson]. Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, by John Sell Cotman; Accompanied by Historical and Descriptive Notices by Dawson Turner, Esq. F.R. and A.S. London: Printed for John and Arthur Arch, Cornhill; and J. S. Cotman, Yarmouth, MDCCCXXII. [1822].

First edition. Two volumes in one. Leather-bound. Elephant folio (500 x 355 x 50 mm). English text. Each volume with a separate title page, the pagination continuous. Collates (vol. I) [1 l.], 1 l. (title with woodcut vignette), pp. [iii]-v (Preface with large headpiece vignette and tailpiece half-plate), [1 p.], 1 l. (table, Genealogy of the Norman Dukes, recto), [vii]-[ix] (chronological list of subjects; list of plates), [1 p.], pp. [1]-58, [1 l. ], plus 55 additional ll. inserted etched plates printed one side only (numbered 1-54 and 33* [bis], with 21-22, 49-50 and 51-52 constituting double plates); (vol. II) [1 l.], 1 l. (title with repeat of woodcut vignette), 1 l. (list of plates recto), pp. 59-125, [1 p.], 1 l. (index of plates recto), [1 l. ], plus 46 additional ll. inserted etched plates printed one side only (numbered 55-100, with 73-74 and 92-93 constituting double plates). Bound in contemporary dark-blue half morocco over marbled paper-covered boards, spine with raised bands in six compartments with gilt ruling, tooling and lettering in the second compartment; all edges cut, top edges gilt; marbled endpapers. Printed foot-notes throughout. Printed letterpress on heavy wove paper by Thomas Combe Jnr. of Leicester. Provenance: From the library of William Morris (1834-1896), Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, his contemporary plate to top edge of front pastedown; armorial bookplate of Charles Freeling to centre of front pastedown. Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Binding secure, having been very neatly re-backed, some rubbing to extremities; internally overall bright, clean and crisp, the plates overall fine, the text block strong and square.

Notes: First edition of this rare and beautifully illustrated architectural work regarding Normandy. These architectural drawings were created by John Sell Cotman, a leading member of the Norwich School of Painters. This work was produced at the expense of Dawson Turner, who was Cotman's collaborator for this work. The duo travelled to Normandy together, and Turner wrote the introduction and accompanying text for the work. Cotman taught Turner and his children to draw. Cotman produced these drawings from three visits to Normandy, the first with Turner in 1817 and two in 1818 and 1820. A collection of 100 plates listed to the contents pages. With fifty four plates to the first volume, as stated. There are technically fifty-one plates, with three double page plates. With forty-six plates to the second volume. To this volume there are forty-five images as plates 92-93 are a double page spread. Each plate has a contextual description by Dawson Turner. Turner selected the plates for this work himself. To the preface he notes 'in the descriptive portion of these volumes, attention has been almost exclusively directed to two points, the historical and the architectural. Locations depicted in the plates include Notre Dame in Rouen, St Sauveur le Viconte, Castle, the Tombstone of Queen Matilda, and more churches in Caen, Montivilliers, Lisieux and Fontaine-Le-Henri to name a few. Scarce in this condition and with interesting provenance. A lovely work, which is a beautiful example of architectural drawings of Normandy.

Laurence Binyon, of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, offered this early and durable appreciation ("John Crome and John Sell Cotman," The Portfolio, no. 32, 1897, at pp. 64-72), well worth recalling at length: "All Cotman's etchings [--] are, in fact, simply records of architectural studies. It is in this light that we must view them; and so regarded, they have extraordinary merit. Few have understood architecture so well, or drawn it with such mastery. [--] He went to Normandy, and to see architecture, not pictures. [--] The result of these visits was the great series of 100 etchings, published in 1822. These etchings are more interesting architecturally than as drawings; and avowedly so. For Dawson Turner, in his introduction, says expressly that the buildings selected were chosen principally for certainty as to date. He tells us that many much more beautiful subjects might have been selected, but that these were excluded. [--] Still, some of the plates, especially those in which the building is made the centre of a landscape, are noble and impressive compositions. [--] The two views of Chateau Gaillard, one from below, the other from above, with the massive ruins standing desolate on their rocky solitudes; Tancarville Castle with its fringed cliffs reflected in the sunny stream; Falaise rising steeply above headlong boulders; and Mont St. Michel, surrounded by infinite sand and sea, are all seen as only Cotman would have seen them, and portrayed with a fine appreciation of their grandeur.".