Beschreibung:

DALTON, Richard (c.1715-1791). Antiquities and Views in Greece and Egypt, with the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants, from Drawings made on the Spot. London: 1751?-81]. 2° (556 x 370mm). 79 plates on 76 sheets, including 5 double-page and one folding, engraved by Dalton, Basire, Mason, Radigues and others after Dalton, last plate on an 8° leaf mounted. Parallel text in English and French. (Small tear in margin of one leaf, occasional slight browning or staining.) Contemporary calf, gilt roll on covers with arms in the centre, gilt edges and turn-ins, spine gilt in compartments with title label, marbled endpapers (lightly rubbed, corners bumped). Provenance : Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme, probably Henry Pelham 4 t h Duke (1785-1851; binding). THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE'S COPY OF DALTON'S GREAT WORK, constituting four series of plates probably bound from the original separate series. Back from Greece and Egypt, Dalton published the plates respectively in 1751 (Greece), 1752 (Constantinople and Egypt), after 1771 (Halicarnassus' bas-reliefs) and 1781 (manners of inhabitants of Egypt). Before being issued together in 1791 with a common title, the first two sets were originally unnumbered plates with no accompanying text, while the third and fourth, partly numbered sets included a descriptive page on 'Basso Relievo's Discovered in Caria' and a 12-page 'Explanation of a Series of Prints, Relative to... the present Inhabitants of Egypt'. The present set is not bound in the usual order of the 1791 edition but follows the original order of publication, without any common title. The plates include in particular a double-page view of Constantinople. Atabey 310 (parts 1-2 only) and 311 (1791 ed.): 'Apparently the whole series was available for sale in 1781'; Blackmer 443 (1791 ed.); RIBA 780 (parts 1-2 only); Brunet II, 475 (1791 ed.); Cicognara 3497 (part 1 only); Colas 779 (1791 ed.); Harris 171 (1791 ed.).