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ex-libris THE WORLD OF EX-LIBRIS |
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A historical retrospective 2 EX-LIBRIS FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO DECADENCE 1700 -1860 |
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2i
BRITISH PICTORIAL EX-LIBRIS 1700 -1800 |
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2i/10. ? (GB)  HYLTON, C3, 80 x 64, c.1780. F 15902.
Viz. ELJ, 6, 1896, p. 110.
For John Scott Hylton, of Lapal House, a friend of the poet Shenstone. It occurs in three colours (this print is brown), and there is also a large rectangular aquatint ex-libris which features the same scene. All are rare. |
2i/11. Daniel Lizars (GB) ERSKINE, C3, 107 x 73, c.1800.
F9925 or 9926.
Viz. Griggs 2, ill.
This ancient seat of the Erskines still apparently stands, but the ex-libris gives no clue to its significance and is lamentable heraldically. It does perhaps, though, share its inspiration from the ‘roots in history’ syndrome which occasioned plate 2i/13. |
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2i/12. Gian Batista Cipriani (I/GB) & Francesco Bartolozzi
(I/GB, 1727-1825) HENRIETTA FRANCIS PONSONBY, COUNTESS
OF BESSBOROUGH, C3, 80 x 95, 1796. F23799.
Viz. Hardy, p.68.
Bartolozzi’s most beautiful bookplate, it probably also served as a visiting card. Bartolozzi was paid £20 for it. Gerald Ponsonby, a century later, found a small stock of large paper proofs of which this was doubtless one. |
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2i/13. ? (GB) SIR ALEXANDER JARDINE, BART, C3, 81 x 109,
c.1800. F16313.
Sir Alexander succeeded as 6th Baronet in 1807 and died in 1821. This slightly ludicrous composition, with its horse and man in comical armour, indicates the contemporary taste for quasi-mediaevalism, which reached its peak with the Gothic Revival. |
2i/14. Samuel Howitt (GB, 1756-1822) G. C. BAINBRIDGE,
C3, 99 x 75, c.1800. F1195.
Viz. BNL #109.
One of three ex-libris engraved by the self-taught animal painter Howitt, it is beautifully alive on account of the depiction of the dog scenting a potential quarry. |
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2i/15. (William Marshall) (GB) G. FAGE, C2, 130 x 83,
c.1800. F10135.
Viz. BPSN, June 1979.
An adaptation of William Marshall’s allegorical pictorial frontispiece to Quarles’ Emblems, 1655, used much later as an ex-libris by George Fage. The earlier of its two states has his full christian name. Such appropriation of an earlier plate to convert it into an ex-libris is uncommon but not rare. |
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2i/16. ? (GB) ROBERT CATTLE, C3, 78 x 57, c.1810.
A stylistically confusing ex-libris, for while its picture suggests c. 1790, this sort of homiletic inscription enjoyed favour somewhat later. |
2i/17. Luke Clennell (GB, 1781-1840) MATTHEW ANDERSON,
X2, 53 x 82, c.1800. F 497.
Scarcely any of the ex-libris from the workshop of Thomas Bewick (with which we associate such landscape vignettes principally, though there were several hundred armorials) were the work of the master himself. This example, by one of his pupils, was probably engraved in 1803. |
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2i/18. John Bewick (GB, 1760-1795) IPSE, X2, 66 x 53,
c.1790. F2464.
John Bewick was Thomas’s younger brother and was his apprentice. He would have made his mark as an engraver had he not died so young. His compositions differ in having strong black and white contrasts, whereas Thomas exploited the intermediary greys to great effect. |
2i/19. Robinson (GB) BUDDLE ATKINSON, C1, 71 x 65,
c.1810. F 907.
Viz. ELJ Vol 5, 1895, pp. 29, 46 and 71-2.
An apprentice of Bewick, Mark Lambert ( c.1781-1855) later set up his own workshop in Newcastle. This pretty plate was produced there, and was drawn and engraved by Robinson. It is an early example of steel engraving. |
END OF EX-LIBRIS FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO DECADENCE
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