“THE MAJESTIC LORD WHO BROKE THE BONDS OF ROME”: POLLARD’S HENRY VIII, BOUND IN AN EXQUISITE COSWAY-STYLE BINDING

POLLARD, Albert Frederick. Henry VIII. London: Goupil, 1902. Thick folio, 20th-century Cosway-style binding, full red close-grain morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated cover borders and spine, dark blue spine labels, onlaid cream calf cover panels diapered with the Tudor rose motif, miniature watercolor portraits set into both covers, red watered silk doublures and endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom cloth clamshell box.    $12,800.

Limited first edition, number 989 of 1150 copies printed on fine paper of this authoritative account of the “personal power” of the Throne, illustrated with 32 rich full-page browntone photogravures, most of contemporaries, many after portraits by Holbein (including the vividly hand-colored frontispiece portrait of Henry). This copy is cased in a beautiful Cosway-style binding by the Chelsea Bindery, gilt-decorated with Tudor motifs, and with delicate watercolor miniatures of Henry and Anne Boleyn set into the covers.

Oxford research fellow and historian, A.F. Pollard “was the leading authority on the Tudor period in his generation” (DNB). Here he traces the life and reign of “the King who raised the personal power of English monarchy to a height to which it had never before attained.” This copy is cased in an elegant Cosway-style binding, exquisitely executed by the Chelsea Bindery with tooled florets and two beautiful watercolor miniatures of Henry and Anne Boleyn set into its covers. Cosway bindings (named for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were first commissioned in the early 1900s by J.H. Stonehouse, managing director of London booksellers Sotheran & Company, from the famous Rivière bindery, who employed Miss C.B. Currie to faithfully imitate Cosway’s detailed watercolor style of portraiture. These delicate miniature paintings, often on ivory, were set into the covers or doublures of richly-tooled bindings and protected by a thin pane of glass.

A wonderful specimen, in fine condition.