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Lot description
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gelée). Liber Veritatis, or, Collection of Two Hundred Prints..., 1777-1819 Claude Lorrain (Claude Gelée). Liber Veritatis, or, a Collection of Two Hundred Prints after the original designs of Claude Le Lorrain, in the collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, executed by Richard Earlom, in the manner and taste of the drawings. To which is added a descriptive catalogue of each print; together with the names of those for whom and the places for which, the original pictures were first painted, (taken from the hand-writing of Claude Le Lorrian on the back of each drawing) and of the present possessors of many of the original pictures, 3 volumes, London: Messrs. Boydell & Co., [1777-1819], printed title page and dedication leaf to first and third volumes, Life of Claude Le Lorrain to first volume, list of plates to each volume, first volume with mezzotint frontispiece portrait of Claude Le Lorrain, stipple-engraved portrait of John Boydell by B. Smith after C. Borckhardt to third volume, mezzotint portrait of Richard Earlom to third volume, 300 fine sepia aquatints (100 to each volume), the first two volumes printed on wove paper watermarked Russell & Co. 1810, third volume printed on laid paper, first volume with very light waterstain to lower outer blank margins, first two volumes bound in early 19th century diced full calf, second volume with some light damp marking to upper cover, third volume bound in contemporary sheep, a little wear to upper joints and head and foot of spines of second and third volumes, large folio (sheet size 42 x 27 cm) QTY: (3) NOTE: Provenance: The Earls of Lovelace, Torridon House, Edinburgh. Sir William King, Baron King of Ockham (1805-1893) was raised to the peerage as the first Earl of Lovelace by Queen Victoria in 1838. In 1835, he had married Ada Byron, the only daughter of the celebrated poet and a highly important mathematician, now well-known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical computer. Abbey, Life in England, 200; Cohen-de Ricci 242. "This capital work, a landmark in the history of the reproduction of master drawings, is ... an important forerunner of later publications in this section. It contains 300 reproductions of drawings by Claude Lorrain, pastoral, mythological, and biblical subjects, and was called Liber Veritatis [Book of Truth] for the purpose of identifying Claude's genuine works from forgeries, or from drawings wrongly attributed to the master. They are all printed in a warm bistre colour to aid the resemblance..., This is the first complete edition with the engravings in the best and final state..., The catalogues in each volume give a comprehensive description of each drawing, indicating also for whom they were executed, which pictures were painted from them, and the ownership at the date of publication of the book—in short, a real catalogue raisonné" (Abbey).