BOWLER, Thomas William Bowler (1812-69). Pictorial Album of Cape Town, with Views of Simon's Town, Port Elizabeth, and Graham's Town. From Original Drawings ... with Historical and Descriptive Sketches by W. R. Thomson. Cape Town: J. C. Juta, 1866. Oblong 4° (280 x 365mm). Folding tinted lithographed panorama and 11 plates by M. & N. Hanhart after Thomas William Bowler (plates with occasional light marginal spotting, and light damp-stain in the gutter, a very few small repairs in the margins, the panorama lined and with some wear in the bottom margin, some gutters strengthened). Original green cloth ruled and lettered in gilt and blind (re-backed and re-hinged, some repairs to the covers, new blanks). Provenance: signature on title.

BOWLER, Thomas William Bowler (1812-69). Pictorial Album of Cape Town, with Views of Simon's Town, Port Elizabeth, and Graham's Town. From Original Drawings ... with Historical and Descriptive Sketches by W. R. Thomson. Cape Town: J. C. Juta, 1866. Oblong 4° (280 x 365mm). Folding tinted lithographed panorama and 11 plates by M. & N. Hanhart after Thomas William Bowler (plates with occasional light marginal spotting, and light damp-stain in the gutter, a very few small repairs in the margins, the panorama lined and with some wear in the bottom margin, some gutters strengthened). Original green cloth ruled and lettered in gilt and blind (re-backed and re-hinged, some repairs to the covers, new blanks). Provenance: signature on title.

A RARE ALBUM OF VIEWS BY 'ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT OF SOUTH AFRICAN ARTISTS' (Abbey, p.296). Bowler came to Cape Town in 1833 to work in the Royal Observatory on the instigation of Sir Thomas Maclear, and set up as an artist in 1837. Mendelssohn I, p.177 ('The descriptive letterpress is ample and instructive, and gives, in the majority of instances, a complete history of the building depicted').