Beschreibung:

Binding with silverwork by Anthony Nelme - Bible (English) , The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New: : newly translated out of the original tongues , 2 vol. in 1, fine engraved frontispiece after Sir Thomas Thornhill, fine engraved vignettes and historiated initials after Sir Thomas Thornhill, Louis Laguerre and others, ruled throughout in red (some smudging to preliminaries), a few marginal repairs (including title), some light browning, occasional spotting, handsome contemporary red panelled morocco, richly gilt, covers with large central arms of the Folkes family on oval silver plaques, silver clasps and corner-pieces, by Anthony Nelme , with his 'Ne' hallmark to clasps, rebacked, preserving original backstrip in compartments, some scuffs (restored), rubbed, g.e., [Herbert 942], folio, Oxford, John Baskett , 1716-1717. ⁂ A sumptuously bound copy of the "Vinegar Bible" (so called because of a printing error in the headline above Luke XX 'the parable of the vinegar' (instead of vineyard)), with silverwork by the master silversmith Anthony Nelme Nelme was one of the pre-eminent silversmiths of his time, and counted Queen Anne as a patron. Among his most important surviving works are a pair of altar candlesticks at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, 1694 and a pair of pilgrim bottles at Chatsworth, 1715. The bible contains numerous splendidly engraved illustrations after designs by the leading and most successful mural painters of the period, most notably Sir James Thornhill (1675-1734) and Louis Laguerre (1663-1721). The original drawing for the frontispiece by Thornhill is known, and forms part of the Caird collection in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (see acc. no.: PAH3342). The three other preparatory studies for the headpiece illustrations to Genesis, Leviticus, and Joshua can be found in the British Museum's Thornhill sketchbook (see BM acc. no. 1884,0726.40). As with these masterly drawings by Thornhill, one can see in the present engravings glimpses of the ability of the artist to achieve 'more depth and more imagination than his mural decorations [...] ever suggested'.[C.H. Collins Baker, Sir James Thornhill as Bible Illustrator, Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 3, 1947, p. 327]. Provenance: Folkes family arms, probably Martin Folkes (protegé of Newton and Vice-President of the Royal Society) following his marriage to Lucretia Bradshaw (actress); J. Henry H. V. Lane (engraved armorial bookplate to front pastedown).