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Ireland, Samuel, -1800, Original watercolors for A picturesque tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France,, 1789
- Title(s):
Original watercolors for A picturesque tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France, 1789.
- Physical Description:
- 46 drawings : watercolor ; 11 x 16 cm.
- Holdings:
- Rare Books and ManuscriptsD917 .I74 1796+ Copy 2 OversizeYale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon CollectionView by request in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Full Orbis Record:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/9788753
- Classification:
- Drawings & Watercolors
- Notes:
- Samuel Ireland's A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France, made in the autumn of 1789 (first published in 1790), was the first of a series of successful travel books featuring his own illustrations. The first edition included 48 aquatint engravings from drawings made by the author "on the spot." The second edition (1796), which claims to offer "an entire new set of copper plates in aqua-tinta," adds two new engravings only; the remaining plates are lightly retouched. Cf. Abbey, J.R. Travel in aquatint and lithography, 1770-1860 (London, 1956-1957).
Original watercolors by Samuel Ireland, published in his A picturesque tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France (1790; second edition, 1796). All of the original drawings are fully finished, watercolor over graphite. Two are monochrome, with gray wash only. All of the watercolors lack captions, inscriptions, and dates. They are uniform in size (11 x 16 cm)--the same dimensions as the engraved illustrations--and have been closely trimmed. Each is affixed to a larger blank leaf and bound in to a copy of the second edition of A picturesque tour--each placed adjacent to the corresponding aquatint engraving.
Six of the 50 engraved plates in the second edition do not have an original watercolor by Ireland in the present volumes. These comprise: the engraved title pages to both volumes; the two engravings after chiaroscuros by Van Dyck (Abbey plate numbers 37 and 38); and the two plates included for the first time in the second edition (Abbey plate numbers 31 and 48).
The present volume also includes an interesting note in manuscript (3 pages), in an unidentified hand, commenting on Ireland's drawing of a session of the French National Assembly. The note immediately follows the engraving of the Bastille, and begins: "The drawing of the Bastille has been long made, but the permission to take a drawing of the Assembly has been very difficult. A ticket of admission is very difficult, as a meeting [happens?] but every 14 days, & when he had got one they wd. not permit him to make any drawing & he has only succeeded by bribing the Swiss to let him draw it on a Sunday; to my mind it is exceedingly well done ..." - Subject Terms:
- Belgium -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.Brabant (Belgium) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.France -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.Ireland, Samuel, -1800.Ireland, Samuel, -1800. Picturesque tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France.Netherlands -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.
- Form/Genre:
- Travel literature.
Watercolors.
Sketchbooks. - Export:
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