RUSKIN’S MODERN PAINTERS, ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 90 FULL-PAGE PLATES

RUSKIN, John. Modern Painters. London: George Allen, 1888. Six volumes. Quarto, 20th-century three-quarter dark maroon morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut and partly unopened. $3500.

1888 edition, profusely illustrated with over 90 full-page steel- and wood-engraved plates and numerous in-text illustrations after drawings by Ruskin, Leonardo, Raphael, the Missal-Painters, J.M.W. Turner, R. Allen and others, very handsomely bound.

Ruskin, writer, critic, and artist, was a chief influence upon public taste in Victorian England. Modern Painters, first published in 1843, presents "a spiritual history of Europe with comments on every phase of morals and taste" (Magnusson 1275). "[T]aken in the mass, these volumes contain the most valuable contributions to art-literature the language can show… they contain worlds of thought, imagination, and knowledge such as no other art-writer can educe… It is impossible but that Art should be the better for them" (Allibone, 1895). "Clouds, mountains, landscapes, towers, churches, trees, flowers and herbs were drawn with wonderful precision, minuteness of detail and delicacy of hand, solely to recall some specific aspect of nature or art, of which he wished to retain a record. In his gift for recording the most subtle characters of architectural carvings and details, Ruskin has hardly been surpassed by the most distinguished painters" (Harrison, 860).

Fine condition.