Author: WARING John Burley (Selected and Described by),
Title: Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at the International Exhibition, 1862 (Volumes I, II and III). Chromolithographed by and under the direction of W. R. Tymms, A. Warren, and G. MacCulloch from photographs supplied by the London Photographic and Stereoscopic Company, taken exclusively for this work by Stephen Thompson
Description: London, Day & Son 1863 301 colour chromo-lithographic plates numbered 1 to 300A (vol I 100 plates, vol II 100 plates, vol III 101 plates), each with introductory text in English and French, unpaginated, with preface, title pages, etc 43x33, red morocco, five bands on spine, glt decoration on spine, front and back covers, glt edges, marbled end papers. Cloth rubbed with a couple of small areas of surface loss, tops and bottoms of spines pulled and rubbed, bands rubbed; ex library with very discrete blind stamps and small accession stamp, book plates ex libris Geo. Tho. Robinson. Contents very good, good overall. Waring had helped to organise and curate the 1862 Exposition in South Kensington, the largest and most ambitious of the international fairs to date with 29,000 exhibitors and more than 6 million visitors. This magnificent book illustrated the best of the exhibits, from carpets to furniture and all manner of decoration for the home.The subjects of the plates are impressive enough, but the chromo-lithography is astonishingly good, and the plates are quite beautiful in their colour reproduction and craftsmanship. Waring's Preface in Volume I makes clear the scale of the undertaking: nearly 3000 lithographic stones were used, and '104 years of work by a printer working ordinary hours' (perhaps Day's failure in 1867 could be traced to the extraordinary expense of producing Waring's book).[Extremely heavy item, will require additional postage to most destinations].George Thomas Robinson was an architect and critic, who practised mostly in the West Midlands with his practice Paull and Robinson, and was the Manchester Guardian architecture correspondent. During his period working for the newspaper during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he was first imprisoned as a spy by the French authorities, before finding himself beseiged in the city of Metz where he helped to create a system of balloons for floating letters and reports out of the city and over the surrounding enemy forces. At least one letter sent in this way reach his wife in Lancashire; he wrote of his experiences in an article published in the Guardian on 15th November 1870.

Keywords: DESIGN Engineering


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