HAMERTON, PHILIP GILBERT. Autograph manuscript signed of "The Graphic Arts: A Treatise on the Varieties of Drawing and Painting In Comparison With Each Other and With Nature," dated 1881 on manuscript titlepage. 754 pages, oblong 4to, written in ink on rectos only, each page with left-hand portion of sheet left blank for corrections and editorial markings, bound in contemporary half brown morocco, rubbed. The extensive manuscript includes a manuscript title, a dedication (to Robert Browning) and a preface in which Hamerton premises that "we ought not to despise any form of art which has been practiced by great men," even though certain media and forms may fall into temporary disfavor. He cites the example of the revival of the art of etching, which had been, until recently, severely eclipsed by the techniques of engraving, laments that the art of lithography has become so degraded by commercial uses, and praises the newly invented techniques of photogravure and heliogravure, concluding that "the Graphic Arts, like literature, are modes of human utterance, not mirrors of the external world."Provenance: P.G. Hamerton (sale, Sotheby's, 26 November 1895, lot 312, a copy of the catalogue bound in at end of the volume); A set of page proofs for The Graphic Arts, without titlepage, folio, half brown morocco, uncut, lightly rubbed, some pages with annotations or corrections by Hamerton; A copy of the same, London: Seeley, Jackson and 1882, folio, quarter calf, uncut, spine defective, front joint broken, rubbed,, FIRST EDITION, half-title, illustrated with 54 specimens of various forms of print-making or drawing. (3)

HAMERTON, PHILIP GILBERT. Autograph manuscript signed of "The Graphic Arts: A Treatise on the Varieties of Drawing and Painting In Comparison With Each Other and With Nature," dated 1881 on manuscript titlepage. 754 pages, oblong 4to, written in ink on rectos only, each page with left-hand portion of sheet left blank for corrections and editorial markings, bound in contemporary half brown morocco, rubbed. The extensive manuscript includes a manuscript title, a dedication (to Robert Browning) and a preface in which Hamerton premises that "we ought not to despise any form of art which has been practiced by great men," even though certain media and forms may fall into temporary disfavor. He cites the example of the revival of the art of etching, which had been, until recently, severely eclipsed by the techniques of engraving, laments that the art of lithography has become so degraded by commercial uses, and praises the newly invented techniques of photogravure and heliogravure, concluding that "the Graphic Arts, like literature, are modes of human utterance, not mirrors of the external world." Provenance: P.G. Hamerton (sale, Sotheby's, 26 November 1895, lot 312, a copy of the catalogue bound in at end of the volume); A set of page proofs for The Graphic Arts, without titlepage, folio, half brown morocco, uncut, lightly rubbed, some pages with annotations or corrections by Hamerton; A copy of the same, London: Seeley, Jackson and 1882, folio, quarter calf, uncut, spine defective, front joint broken, rubbed,, FIRST EDITION, half-title, illustrated with 54 specimens of various forms of print-making or drawing. (3)

Details

HAMERTON, PHILIP GILBERT. Autograph manuscript signed of "The Graphic Arts: A Treatise on the Varieties of Drawing and Painting In Comparison With Each Other and With Nature," dated 1881 on manuscript titlepage. 754 pages, oblong 4to, written in ink on rectos only, each page with left-hand portion of sheet left blank for corrections and editorial markings, bound in contemporary half brown morocco, rubbed. The extensive manuscript includes a manuscript title, a dedication (to Robert Browning) and a preface in which Hamerton premises that "we ought not to despise any form of art which has been practiced by great men," even though certain media and forms may fall into temporary disfavor. He cites the example of the revival of the art of etching, which had been, until recently, severely eclipsed by the techniques of engraving, laments that the art of lithography has become so degraded by commercial uses, and praises the newly invented techniques of photogravure and heliogravure, concluding that "the Graphic Arts, like literature, are modes of human utterance, not mirrors of the external world."

Provenance: P.G. Hamerton (sale, Sotheby's, 26 November 1895, lot 312, a copy of the catalogue bound in at end of the volume); A set of page proofs for The Graphic Arts, without titlepage, folio, half brown morocco, uncut, lightly rubbed, some pages with annotations or corrections by Hamerton; A copy of the same, London: Seeley, Jackson and 1882, folio, quarter calf, uncut, spine defective, front joint broken, rubbed,, FIRST EDITION, half-title, illustrated with 54 specimens of various forms of print-making or drawing. (3)