the Cape, India, Ceylon, Abyssinia & Egypt.
London, William Miller, 1809
The copy of the Governor of Bengal, with early watermarks, which is rare. The colouring in these early copies is distinctly superior, a more muted and subtle palette being employed.
George Annesley, Viscount Valentia, left England in June 1802 on the Minerva, for a Grand Tour of the East with Henry Salt. They were antiquarians and avid collectors. Salt had earlier finished his training with the topographical draughtsman and diarist, Joseph Farrington, and Valentia appointed him to be his official artist and secretary for the tour. The plates include fine views of Chowringhee; the fort of Jaunpur; 2 aquatints of Lucknow including the mosque in the Great Imambara; the great Temple at Tanjore; Poona; the Chaitya Cave; 2 fine aquatints of Cairo; Cape Town, etc. Valentia and Salt returned to England in 1806. Salt eventually became British Consul-General in Egypt, where he died aged 47.
First edition. Landscape folio (80 x 57 cm), pictorial aquatint title, 24 fine hand-coloured aquatint plates, engraved by D. Havell after Henry Salt, all without the slightest foxing, early watermarks all pre-publication, on Whatman paper ranging from 1794 to 1806. Originally bound in portrait format now re- arranged in landscape, rebacked and edged in leather retaining the original marbled boards, with a new morocco label.
Abbey (Travel), 515; Tooley 440.
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