Beschreibung:

ROWLANDSON, THOMAS The Comforts of Bath. [London: S.W. Fores, 1798]. Full straight-grain scarlet morocco with gilt rules by Zaehnsdorf, signed and dated 1903, marbled endpapers. 12 1/2 x 10 inches (32 x 25 cm), plates 9 1/4 x 7 inches (23.5 x 17.5 cm); an album containing fifteen sheets of heavy cartridge paper on guards, with the series of twelve mounted hand-colored aquatints by Rowlandson mounted under guard-sheets, and (at the front) an original watercolor by Rowlandson (unsigned), this a slightly variant version (without background) of the design for plate 5. Some light wear to binding, overall sound and attractive. Plates laid-down to the cartridge paper (a few sheets with some, mostly minor, foxing), all but one cut around retaining borders, but with the loss of imprint (though plate 9 retains the imprint as given above), old tear in the right margin of the first plate, just entering the image. Typically this series is found mounted much as these, c.f. Abbey. A classic series of caricatures, quite rare in this first edition, and with a fine drawing (close enough in specifics that it may well have been the original working drawing, with the background details added in the process of etching). An unrelated caricature is laid-in at the front. Abbey Scenery 40. Provenance: Rosenbach, sold 1906 (old card laid-in at rear); Clarence S. Bement (without his bookplate); Parke-Bernet November 1944, , Widener sale; Joseph Widener, with his leather book label; purchased from the estate of P.A.B. Widener III, 1999, according to note. C