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All auctions / Arts & Graphics / Pomona Brittanica
BROOKSHAW, George. Pomona Britannica; or, a collection of the most esteemed fruits at present cultivated in this country . London: Printed for the author by T. Bensley, published by White, Cochran, and Co, and W. Lindsell, 1812. " Particularly advantageous to every person who wishes to have his garden well planted, and freed from a variety of trees whose fruit is not worth gathering ... " (p.i). A fine first edition of the most lavish work on fruit ever printed and "one of the finest color-plate books in existence" (S.T. Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving , p.295) and "surely the only only fruit book to rival the showy quality of the flowers in Thorton's Temple of Flora " (Sandra Raphael, Oak Spring Pomona , p. 104). The Pomona marked the re-emergence of George Brookshaw into the public eye after a total disappearance of nearly a decade. Little had been known of Brookshaw's life until the 1990s when an article by Lucy Wood ("George Brookshaw: The case of the vanishing cabinet-maker," Apollo , May 1991) uncovered many details in the remarkable story of a man who began his career as a celebrated cabinet-maker and died a relatively unappreciated botanical artist—and seems to have deliberately obscured many of the connections between his two personae. Brookshaw, born in Birmingham and married to the daughter of a prosperous Birmingham gunsmith, moved to London in 1777 to embark on a career as a cabinet-maker. By 1783 he had attracted the patronage of the Prince of Wales and other prominent members of society; his furniture was noted for its all-over painted decoration with figurative, landscape and, above all, floral themes. An inscription on one of his bills presented to the Prince of Wales in 1783 describes him as a "Peintre Ebiniste par Extraordinaire." In spite of this success, no record survives of any furniture made by him after the mid-1790s. At this point, Wood suggests that a financial or sexual scandal drove him to live and work under a false name and precipitated his embarkation on an entirely new career. The Pomona was first issued in parts from 1804 to 1808 (apart from two plates dated 1812) and, if Wood's hypothesis is correct, is the first resumption by Brookshaw using his own name, as well as the first public indication of his new métier. The first edition of the complete work was published in 1812 and was dedicated to the Prince Regent, Brookshaw's most distinguished former patron. The work took Brookshaw nearly ten years to produce, and the immense amount of planning necessary to coordinate the text and the plates is apparent from Brookshaw's note to his readers concerning the illustrations of the pineapples tipped onto text p.32. Brookshaw explains: " Before the first numbers of this work were printed, it was necessary to determine as nearly as possible, how many plates each class of fruit would occupy, in order that they should be properly numbered, and the author having consulted the most experienced growers of pines, was advised to give eight: but when he came to delineate them, he found there were not more than five or six worth growing ... and in consequence has omitted three that were recommended. " Thus text appears for "plates" 39, 42 and 46, where no illustrations were included. Similar problems of co-ordination may explain why a number of the descriptions of plates of plums (for instance, of plates 19 and 21) do not tally with the actual illustrations, which may have been modified after the text was printed. Dunthorne 50; Nissen BBI 244; Raphael Oak Spring Pomona 40a. Folio (570 x 460mm). 90 aquatint and stipple-engraved plates, printed in color and finished by hand, numbered 1-93, without plates 39, 42 and 46 as issued and with errata sheet tipped in (title-page lightly soiled and edge-worn, plates 1, 2, 19 and 38 with blooming in backgrounds, few plates with some darkening/mottling backgrounds, a little finger-soiling and occasional spots, inner margins showing a little staining from where tissue guards were previously tipped-in). Contemporary calf, covers elaborately paneled in gilt and blind, turn-ins gilt, all edges gilt (edges scuffed and showing, spine ends chipped, endleaves edge-worn, lower joint with old repair, upper joint cracked through).
Estimate:£37,347.5
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Estimate:
£37,347.5
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