77 98(ACKERMANN, Rudolph) GERNING, Baron Johann Isaac von. A Picturesque Tour Along the Rhine, from Mentz to Cologne. BOUND WITH: SAUVAN, Jean-Baptiste-Balthazar. Picturesque Tour of the Seine, from Paris to the Sea. London, 1820, 1821. Thick folio, period-style full tan polished calf gilt. $19,500 Ackermann’s Two Masterful Picturesque Tours, Along The Rhine And The Seine, With 48 Superb Hand-Colored Folio Aquatints, 1820-21 First edition, first issue, of Ackermann’s wonderful picturesque tour along the Rhine, beautifully illustrated with 24 hand-colored folio aquatints by Daniel Havell and Thomas Sutherland after paintings by Christian Georg Schutz (and large folding map), bound together with his equally beautiful illustrated tour along the Seine, with hand-colored vignette title page and 24 beautiful folio aquatint views of the river and surrounding countryside after drawings by Augustus Charles Pugin and John Gendall, for a total of 48 very finely and vividly hand-colored aquatint folio views. In the history of book production “there is no more attractive figure than that of Rudolph Ackermann, through whose extraordinary enterprise and spirit of adventure, aquatint was successfully applied to the illustration of books” (Prideaux, 120-23). One of Ackermann’s most lucrative projects was his remarkable Picturesque Tours, a series of seven books produced between 1820-28. The present volume brings together two such tours. Abbey, Travel 217 (Rhine); 90 (Seine). Prideaux, 337 (Rhine); 351, 375 (Seine). Faint vertical crease to Rhine title page; small marginal stain to first plate in Rhine, not touching image. A lovely, fine copy, an impressive volume.
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