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Mr. Philip D. Burden
P.O. Box 863,
Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks HP6 9HD,
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44 (0) 1494 76 33 13
Email: [email protected]
An excellent example of a fine topographical work on London and its surrounding towns and villages, most of which are now considered suburbs. John Hassell (1767-1825) was baptised in Stepney and became a watercolour artist and engraver. His first painting to be exhibited at the Royal Academy was as early as 1789. He is known for publishing guidebooks illustrated with aquatints after his own painting.
Arguably his most famous work is the ‘Picturesque Rides and Walks, with Excursions by Water, Thirty Miles Round the British Metropolis’ which was published in parts from May 1816. A total of twenty-four were issued an example of which is described in the Abbey collection. The whole was published in two volumes in 1817 and 1818.
Effectively a guidebook, the work’s purpose was also to educate on the beauties of the countryside surrounding the city. The 120 hand-coloured aquatints record fine houses and charming villages long-since swallowed by the city of London. The sixty plates for the first volume are all drawn and engraved by Hassell himself. In the second volume the majority are by engraved by Daniel Havell after Hassells drawings.
In the Preface Hassell praises the region declaring that ‘within a radius of thirty miles [of London] is to be found almost every thing that can embellish or give zest to society: that can indulge the most sanguine expectation of the amateur; gratify the meditative passion of the antiquarian; repay the most inquisitive researches of the botanist; amuse the peripatetic, or add to the enjoyments of a man of pleasure.’ The list of plates to the first volume here indicates Holland Church which is replaced in pencil b Hendon (Church) and Carshalton added to the end of the list of plates to volume one.
Provenance: with gilt leather bookplate of Walter Blake with motto ‘Virtus Sola Nobilitat’; further unidentified leather image of a Manx cat pasted inside back boards; Sotheby’s 9 April 1970 lot 473 to George Walford; John Arlott (1914-1991) library, cricket commentator dispersed 1992; private English collection. Abbey (1952) 218; Hardie (1973) p. 140; Mackenzie (1998); ODNB; Russell (1979); Tooley (1987) 251.
Arguably his most famous work is the ‘Picturesque Rides and Walks, with Excursions by Water, Thirty Miles Round the British Metropolis’ which was published in parts from May 1816. A total of twenty-four were issued an example of which is described in the Abbey collection. The whole was published in two volumes in 1817 and 1818.
Effectively a guidebook, the work’s purpose was also to educate on the beauties of the countryside surrounding the city. The 120 hand-coloured aquatints record fine houses and charming villages long-since swallowed by the city of London. The sixty plates for the first volume are all drawn and engraved by Hassell himself. In the second volume the majority are by engraved by Daniel Havell after Hassells drawings.
In the Preface Hassell praises the region declaring that ‘within a radius of thirty miles [of London] is to be found almost every thing that can embellish or give zest to society: that can indulge the most sanguine expectation of the amateur; gratify the meditative passion of the antiquarian; repay the most inquisitive researches of the botanist; amuse the peripatetic, or add to the enjoyments of a man of pleasure.’ The list of plates to the first volume here indicates Holland Church which is replaced in pencil b Hendon (Church) and Carshalton added to the end of the list of plates to volume one.
Provenance: with gilt leather bookplate of Walter Blake with motto ‘Virtus Sola Nobilitat’; further unidentified leather image of a Manx cat pasted inside back boards; Sotheby’s 9 April 1970 lot 473 to George Walford; John Arlott (1914-1991) library, cricket commentator dispersed 1992; private English collection. Abbey (1952) 218; Hardie (1973) p. 140; Mackenzie (1998); ODNB; Russell (1979); Tooley (1987) 251.
HASSELL, John
Picturesque Rides and Walks, with Excursions by Water, Thirty Miles Round the British Metropolis
J. Hassell, 27 Richard Street, Islington, London, 1817-18
A MAGNIFICENT EXAMPLE. Octavo, two volumes (155 x 100 mm. each), excellent full red morocco, gilt panelled, spines with gilt raised bands, compartments with gilt panels and titles, marbled endpapers, gilt edged, binding by ‘Root & Son, London’ for Walter Blake whose bookplate is in matching red morocco, text and plates bound separately. With typographic title pages to pp. (iii)-viii, 249, (1, blank), (8, index); (2), 272, (9, index), (1, blank), (2, ‘Directions for Placing the Cuts’): plate volume: pp. iii-viii, (2, ‘Directions for Placing the Cuts’); (2), (2, ‘Directions for Placing the Cuts’), bound without the half-titles, as usual, with 120 hand-coloured aquatint plates, with light toning to text and occasional foxing, plates on thick paper, one or two cut close to imprint, otherwise in good condition.
Stock number: 11669
£ 1,750