The Life of David Roberts, R.A. (1866, first edition)

A reading copy only, with nine engraved plates

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition. Hardback, bound in the original brown cloth boards with gilt titling to spine and gilt 'David Roberts' palette to upper board. 30 × 23.5cm, xiv +255pp, with 9 full-page etchings

An important biography of artist David Roberts, published two years after his death and written by fellow Scot James Ballantine, a notable stained-glass artist. The book describes Roberts' humble origins in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, then moving to his travels in Spain, Egypt, the Holy Land, and Europe and his on-the-spot drawings. The book also records observations on Roberts' methodology—such as contemporary accounts of his uncanny ability to "photograph objects on his eye," capturing vast, complex architectural features with a single glance before committing them seamlessly to paper.

The book is illustrated with a frontispiece portrait and twenty-six drawings within the text, including copies of his Egyptian etc drawings from his sketchbooks, and 9 full-page tissue-guarded etchings (with plate marks) of Scottish scenes (Falkland Place; Ruins of St Andrew's Cathedral; Ruins of the Monastery of Black Friars, St Andrews; Chancel of the Cathedral, Iona; Near the Great Altar, Iona; Caervalerock Castle, Dumfriesshire' Sweetheart Abbey, Dumfriesshire; Melrose Abbey; and Leuchars Cathedral.

There is a previous owner's name to the ffep (A Baker, 1873) and a pencilled annotation against a mention of Roberts' 'Interior of the Church of St Michael, Xeres' which simply says "Mine".

Condition

A fair only copy of a rare first edition. Whilst the book remains readable and all plates are present, the cloth binding is heavily rubbed and marked, the inner binding is a bit shaken, there is foxing and a noticeable water-stain to the nine engraved plates to the rear, which is also present to the frontis and prelims.

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