TAYLOR, TOM, (ED.),
Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon,
. 1853. Historical Painter, from his Autobiography and Journals. Second Edition. Three volumes, London, 1853; xvi, 419, viii, 407, viii, 419 pp. AN EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED COPY with scores of plates from Victorian and earlier sources, mostly portraits; bound by Riviere & Son in early 20th century brown half morocco over cloth boards, spines gilt in compartments with raised bands,exremities a little rubbed; plates to Volumes I and II damp-stained, mostly in the margins (see below), a few light marginal pencil marks. Today Haydon is better remembered for his remarkable diary and tragic end than for the historical painting he tried desperately to promulgate. His writings are replete with anecdotes, of contemporaries, artistic and others, records of encounters and friendships, and trenchant, if controversial, criticisms and judgements (a large number of the people referred to or portrayed are illustrated through the plates that have been added by the binder). Many of the plates added to the first two volumes damp-stained but mostly in the margins: many of the plates were window-mounted, and it is then ususally only the mounts that display marks; the text in these volumes is not stained, though it is very slightly rippled at the outer edge. Volume III is unaffected by stains. The plates comprising the extra illustrations are the usual mixture for the time of binding of mostly steel-engraved, or copper-engraved, portraits and views, usually relating to the text opposite which they are bound in, some common, some scarce. They would be hard to assemble nowadays.

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Keywords: Ianweb Art History Extra-Illustrated Books Grangerised Books Portraits Autobiographies 19th Century Romanticism Antiquarian Riviere Bindings