1840, ISBN: 6657c5302e4fcb87c4826faef2cf9e80

Hardcover, First edition

Hardcover, Spines a little worn and darkened, with chipping to the spine tips of the second volume. Short split to the bottom of the front cover of the first volume with the rear cover pa… More...

Hardcover, Spines a little worn and darkened, with chipping to the spine tips of the second volume. Short split to the bottom of the front cover of the first volume with the rear cover partly stained with staining to some of the plates, mostly marginal. Very Good..., [ED: 1], Signed; Italy; Greece; Rare; Association Copy; Belgium|Signed|Steel Engravings|Travel|Thomas Sully|Illustrated Books, Two quarto (8-3/4" x 11") volumes in original gilt-decorated red cloth. Illustratd with 2 engraved title pages and 152 fine steel-engraved plates by Thomas Allom, and other artists. This set is American artist Thomas Sully's copy with his lengthy identical SIGNED INSCRIPTION in each volume to his daughter Blanch in 1868 when she was caring for him in his last years of life. Thomas Sully became a professional painter at age 18 in 1801. He grew up in the South but moved to Philadelphia in 1806 where he remained until his death in 1872. Sully was one of this country's first portrait painters of note, and a few of his paintings, including that of Washington crossing the Delaware, are firmly established icons of American art. Among the famous Americans he painted were John Quincy Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In 1837–1838 he was in London to paint Queen Victoria at the request of Philadelphia's St. George's Society. His daughter Blanch assisted him as the Queen's "stand-in, " modeling the Queen's costume when she was not available., London, [PU: Peter Jackson, Late Fisher, Son, & Co]<