18th century set of Lavater's Physiognomy - Dated 1789-1798
Although the science in this treatise is complete nonsense, the plates in it are wonderful. Some of the greatest engravers of the day contributed to it, including William Blake. This particular set is spectacular. A rather nice book dealer wrote to me out of the blue, knowing that I was looking for this very set from the late 18th century. The plates are particularly crisp, clearly this is an early print. It was bound in a drab 20th century cloth, which was in poor condition. But the contents were absolutely fine. I rebound the entire set in full leather. This time I used an 18th century style closed back binding. These books were designed to work well with this binding, with very wide gutters so that the pages could be clearly read, even with a stiff spine. They are very large volumes.
I used a plain style for the spines, just two leather labels and some gilding to the bands. Finding five pieces of leather that would encompass these large volumes was not easy! Not only are the volumes tall, they are also deep, almost square
Here is one of Blake's engravings signed by him.
You can see the sharp imprint that the plate edge made as it was pressed by hand into the book.
[email protected]
