FIRST EDITION with FINE BINDING. William Gawin Herdman (1805-82) was a landscape painter and author. He became a noted artist and member of the Liverpool Academy to which he was admitted as a student. He notedly opposed the pre-Raphaelite movement and was expelled in 1857 for protesting against the award of the annual prize to J. E. Millais. ‘His outstanding achievement was as a topographical artist, recording the changing streets of his native town and copying earlier pictures of its vanished buildings. He began producing such works at the age of about thirteen and published them in the form of lithographs as Pictorial Relics of Ancient Liverpool in 1843’ (ODNB). A number of the watercolours survive today in the Central Library, Liverpool. A rare work. Provenance: ‘Presented to Mr Joseph Sutcliffe, as a token of esteem, from his friend, D. Marples Liverpool, July 18, 1845’ inscribed on front free endpaper; private collection. Abbey, Scenery 201; ODNB.