Description

[005288] Lysons, Samuel. An Account of Roman Antiquities Discovered at Woodchester in the County of Gloucester. London: Cadell & Davies, B. & J. White, Edwards, Payne, Robson, Nicol, Elmsley and Leigh & Sotheby, 1797. First Edition. Elephant Folio. Hardback. Good. [3], 2-20; [6], 3-21pp, plates. Full, slightly later cloth, smooth back, title label to spine

Spine repaired, cloth unevenly faded. Internally the text leaves are foxed (especially the French text), though the plates are largely unaffected, a couple of text leaves with small nicks and tears to the margins, some light browning, plate XXXV with small marginal tear, one or two uncoloured double-page plates with minor off setting, endpapers creased. The hand-coloured plates are quite bright and clean

With a hand-coloured engraved title, a hand-coloured dedication leaf to George III, a double page coloured map, three hand-coloured aquatint views of the surrounding area (two of which are double page), and thirty-six aquatint and other plates, mostly hand-coloured, of which six are double page, there is also a vignette to the start of the English text, and medals to the end (not repeated in the French text), as called for

The watermarks date from 1794 to 1810 as usual (see Abbey). Text in both English and French

With a c.1983 poster advertising the reconstruction of the Great Orpheus Pavement by the Woodward brothers

“Lysons, Samuel (bap. 1763, d. 1819), antiquary … A field archaeologist much ahead of his time is revealed by the reports of the sites upon which Lysons worked, such as the Woodchester Roman pavement and other Roman sites, including Horkstow in Lincolnshire, Frampton in Dorset, Bignor in Sussex, and Bath. He was able to illustrate these reports quite lavishly” (ODNB)

Abbey Scenery 143; The Exotic and the Beautiful II: 180, “plates are magnificent of their kind and of very high quality”; Prideaux, page 343; Upcott I: 272-274