"TURNER IS THE ONLY PAINTER WHO HAS EVER DRAWN A MOUNTAIN, OR A STONE" (RUSKIN): RUSKIN'S WRITINGS ON TURNER, ILLUSTRATED WITH 91 FOLIO PHOTOGRAVURES

WEDMORE, Frederick, editor. Turner & Ruskin. An Exposition of the Work of Turner from the Writings of Ruskin. London: George Allen, 1900. Two volumes. Folio (11-1/2 by 15 inches), contemporary three-quarter crimson crushed morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt.

First edition of this collection of renowned English art critic John Ruskin's writings on contemporary Romantic landscape painter J.M.W. Turner—whom he held up as the ideal landscape painter—with photogravure frontispieces and 89 folio photogravure plates finely reproducing the works by Turner that are the subjects of Ruskin's critical essays. From the collection of Indian Maharaja and cricketer Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji, with his bookplates and owner signatures, very handsomely bound by Birdsall.

"Turner raised landscape-painting to an elevation it had never before reached… He taught artists to look at Nature from his point of view" (James Dafforne). "No landscape-painter has equaled Turner in range, in imagination, or sublimity" (Monkhouse). Renowned English art critic John Ruskin found many of his artistic ideals embodied in the work of J.M.W. Turner, and he devoted many pages of his masterpiece, Modern Painters, to demonstrating just how Turner was able to arrive at the inherent truth of a scene, where other contemporaries (and predecessors) failed. He famously argued that Turner 'is the only painter who has ever drawn a mountain, or a stone' (Modern Painters, Volume III). These two splendid folio volumes bring together Ruskin's writings on Turner, with fine photogravure reproductions of the Turner paintings under discussion. Many of the photogravures are after works from Ruskin's own extensive collection. Bookplate and owner signature (dated 1923) of Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji, English cricketer and Maharaja Jam Sahib of Navanagar from 1907 until his death in 1933. "Ranjitsinhji's sporting rise was swift, testimony to his mastery of the art of batsmanship. Within five years of first playing seriously [i.e., by 1900], he had become the world's leading batsman and forced a general reappraisal of tactics" (ODNB). Ranjitsinhji also represented India at the League of Nations later in life.

Fine condition. An impressive set.