[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN FLAXMAN: HESIOD (w/ WILLIAM BLAKE) - HOMER - AESCHYLUS 1805-31 (4 WORKS in 1)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending SUNDAY, November 17. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/m3lhhlv

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

John Flaxman: The Iliad [and Odyssey] of Homer. Engraved from the Compositions of John Flaxman. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1805. Two parts; two engraved title-pages and 73 plates. [BOUND WITH:] Compositions from the Works, Days and Theogony of Hesiod. Designed by John Flaxman. Engraved by William Blake. London: Longman [et al], 1817. Engraved half-title page, engraved title-page and 37 plates. [BOUND WITH:] Compositions from the Tragedies of Aeschylus. London: Miss Flaxman and Miss Maria Denman, 1831. Two engraved title-pages and 34 plates. First editions or first editions thus. Four works in one volume; tall, thick folio (45 x 29 cm; 17 3/4 x 11 1/2 in); bound in full crimson morocco by J. Wright, with the boards, spine and dentelles elaborately tooled in gilt, all page edges gilt.

Four of Flaxman's most important illustrated works, the second title with the plates engraved by his longtime/sometime friend William Blake. By far the more famous and successful artist of the two during their lifetimes, John Flaxman (1755-1826) is today little more than a footnote in accounts of Blake's life and art. Still, his images are clean and striking and executed in what seems a surprisingly "modern", proto-art deco style.

A massive volume, its splendid binding a bit rough but still appealing, and not requiring too much restoration. Some rubbing and wear to the joints and extremities, tear to the spine head, front board and endpapers nearly detached (hanging by one cord); contents with intermittent scattered foxing as usual, mostly light and relegated to the margins; one plate with a closed tear to the margin. Front free endpaper with a charming Victorian-era inscription to the artist William Henry Florio Hutchinson (fl. 1815-1861): "William H. Florio Hutchinson Esq., with a very grateful sense of his assistance in developing a pure Taste for Grecian Art in St. Peters College, Radley, from The Warden. November 16th 1853." The drawing master at what is now called Radley College, Hutchinson had once been a pupil of Flaxman's contemporary and fellow Royal Academician Henry Fuseli. He later resided in India and gained some success as a painter of maharajahs.