The Grammar of Ornament. Illustrated by Examples from Various Styles of Ornament. One Hundred and Twelve Plates.
London: Bernard Quaritch, 1910. First published in 1856, this is one of the great monuments in Victorian color printing. Quaritch published subsequent editions in 1868, 1910, and 1928. Chromolithographic title and 111 chromolithographic plates. Top edges lightly bumped. A very good, bright copy. Burgundy cloth, with front cover and spine stamped in gilt, expertly recased. Folio. [2], 157 pp. Item #15736
"To us today, inundated with photographic references for almost every work of art or kind of decoration in the world, The Grammar of Ornament is still a superb picture-book: but in the 1850s it was the first time in England that anything like so many illustrations or ornament had ever been assembled in colour in on work, and certainly the first time in England that any systematic and serious reproductions in colour of historical ornament had ever been printed, apart from Owen Jones's Alhambra, and works by Digby Wyatt and Noel Humphreys…Owen Jones's book was by far the most ambitious in scope yet attempted…" (McLean, Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing, pp. 122-4).
Price: $850.00