August 2022 Catalogue

– 52 – N e w A c q u i s i t i o n s One Of The Greatest Lithographic Works Ever Printed: Roberts’ Holy Land, Egypt And Nubia, A Beautiful Set In Publisher’s Morocco 61. ROBERTS, David. The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia. London, 1855-56. Six volumes bound in three. Quarto, original three-quarter dark green morocco gilt. $18,500. First quarto edition of one of the greatest lithographic works ever printed, “the most ambitious and impressive of English books illustrated with lithographs” (Ray), with 250 magnificent tinted lithographs of the Holy Land and the Middle East. A lovely, clean set in publisher’s morocco-gilt bindings. The mysteries of Egypt and the Middle East were first revealed to inquiring Western minds through David Roberts’ folio-sized Holy Land, issued in 41 parts from 1842 to 1849, containing 250 full-page hand-colored lithographs produced from Roberts’ magnificent on-site drawings. Roberts was the first Westerner to be granted permission to enter whichever sacred mosque or monument he desired, and his images of these holy places established what many people even today envision as the aura of Egypt and the Holy Land. “Roberts’ Holy Land has a world-wide reputation; nothing of a similar character has ever been produced that can bear a comparison with it” (Ran, 6). His exquisitely detailed drawings were transferred to stone by Louis Haghe, considered the foremost lithographer of his time; the plates for this quarto edition were photographically reduced from the folio edition. This is the first quarto edition of 1855-56, containing 250 lithographic plates, a frontispiece portrait of Roberts, six pictorial title pages, and two engraved maps. Undoubtedly the most famous of these is Plate 240, the Great Sphinx, still commonly reproduced in poster art. A considerable number of plates are printed in two tints and Plates 213 and 240 are printed in three. Text and plates remarkably clean, publisher’s morocco-gilt bindings handsome and near-fine, Volume V/VI text block expertly reinforced. An excellent copy.

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