Dec 08, 2015 - Sale 2401

Sale 2401 - Lot 443

Price Realized: $ 47,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
HAMILTON, Sir WILLIAM. Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Honble. Wm. Hamilton. 390 numbered etchings and engravings, including plates, head- and tailpieces, and initials, many of which hand-colored, some folding. Three volumes (of four). Folio, exceptionally handsome contemporary French full red morocco, spines divided into seven compartments by raised bands, with green morocco lettering-pieces in second and third, others elaborately gilt, gilt edges; faintest marginal foxing on few text leaves, plate 40 in volume one is unseated from its tab, overall an extremely handsome, unsophisticated set. Naples: François Morelli, 1766-76 [but approximately ten years later]

Additional Details

first edition A splendid work recording Hamilton's collection of vases, which he gathered while serving as ambassador to the court of Naples and subsequently sold to the British Museum.

The set is mostly encountered as volumes one and two only, this resulting from the fact that there was an approximately ten year gap in publication between then second and third.