SICHEL'S BIOGRAPHY OF EMMA LADY HAMILTON, WITH FINE COSWAY-STYLE PORTRAIT ON THE FRONT BOARD
(HAMILTON, Emma) SICHEL, Walter. Emma Lady Hamilton. From New and Original Sources and Documents. Together with an Appendix of Notes and New Letters. London: Archibald Constable, 1905. Octavo, contemporary full crimson crushed morocco, gilt-decorated spines, covers, and dentelles, with Cosway-style miniature portrait behind glass inset into front board, all edges gilt.
First edition of the definitive biography of Lady Hamilton, in beautiful full morocco-gilt with a Cosway-style binding of Hamilton on the front board.
Sichel give a detailed and often sympathetic account of all of Hamilton's life, form her humble origins to her scandalous youth to her infamous love affair with Admiral Nelson and her eventual lonely death in poverty. Cosway bindings (named for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were first commissioned in the early 1900s by J.H. Stonehouse 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 thin panes of glass. Cosway bindings executed by other than the original collaborators are designated as "Cosway-style" bindings— still splendid productions— by such esteemed binderies as Bayntun-Rivière, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, Morrell, and Bumpus.
Front joint expertly repaired.