An Essay on Trees in Landscape.

scarce edition with hand-coloured plates

This rare edition examines the artistic rendering of trees, covering, among other things, their 'characters', the particular characteristics of the various species (focusing primarily on oak, elm, and ash), and the practical approaches to the faithful replication of trees with drawings. As an artist, one of the chief virtues of Kennion was his insistence upon accuracy. As he tells us here, Kennion decried the general belief that the tree was 'thought to be an object so fully delivered over to the will of the artist, and so little depending on any determinable character of lines of forms, that it may be represented in any manner.' In fact, Kennion believed that with trees depicted genuinely upon 'the principles of nature, it will be found that the reverse... is the truth; and that no objects whatever require so much vigour, decision, and swiftness of execution, or can so little bear retouching, ragged and smeary daubing, or any thing that shall muddle or injure the rich transparency and lightness for which the foliage of trees is so particularly remarkable.' Abbey Life 147.

First printing, in preferred state with four double-page,hand-coloured prints, this copy printed on Whatman paper dated 1812; folio (362 x 292mm); title vignette hand-coloured aquatint, 54 engraved plates, of which 4 double-page plates and one single-page are hand-coloured, usual age-toning, mild spotting, offsetting to some pages, minor bleeding from colour plates, water-stain marks present at plates I, XXXI & XXXII (not the double-page hand-coloured ones); modern sprinkled half calf with marbled boards, gilt title with morocco lettering piece to spine, corners are bumped, minor scratch marks to surface area of leather, very good condition; [x], 48pp, [L]plates.