[Rarebooks] fs: Burn those Paintings! Burn those Books! (1873 Boston Fire)

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

from our "Just Catalogued" pages
<http://www.joslinhall.com/justcat.htm>

Perkins, Augustus T. LOSSES TO LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS BY THE GREAT
FIRE IN BOSTON.

Boston; David Clapp and Son: 1873.
Edition limited to 150 copies.

A short survey and brief description, reprinted from the N.E. Historical
and Genealogical Register.

"From a curious combination of adverse circumstances, it so happened that
an unusually large number of valuable collections in the departments of
literature and the fine arts, was deposited in what was believed to be
safe keeping, in the extensive warehouses which formerly covered that
portion of our city, which is now known by the melancholy title of the
burnt district".

Among the many fine libraries of rare books lost described here were those
of Dr. John Harvey Wright, Medical Director of the U.S. Navy, and that of
Charles Levi Woodbury, which included a large amount of incunabula and
early Masonic printings and manuscripts. Among the fine arts consumed were
a large number of paintings by John Singleton Copley, including a fine
self-portrait. William Morris Hunt's entire studio was lost, filled with
his own works as well as many other valuable pictures, and "the models,
the sketches, the souvenirs of his whole life". Many beautiful and curious
antiques were burned, among them Col. T.B. Lawrence's magnificent
collection of ancient armor and implements of medieval warfare-

"as perfect for its size as any now known, either in England or upon the
Continent... How suggestive is it to reflect on the advance of the Great
Fire towards the doomed collections in the Lawrence Building. The strong
armor that had withstood the rust and wear of centuries dissolves in a
fiery vapor, the great battle axes and maces-at-arms are reduced to powder
in a few moments. The splendid rapiers which perchance dangled so bravely
on the thighs of Rochester or Buckingham, or hung at the girdles of
Noailles, de Biron, or of Brissac, crumble into dust".

Scarce; OCLC locates only 4 copies. Softcover. 7"x8.5", 10 pages;
ex-institutional with several blindstamps; a little soil, edges worn.
[05279] $125.00

Illustration-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images03/th-05279.jpg>

Our "JUST CATALOGUED" pages-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/justcat.htm>

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