Comedy Queens of the Georgian Era. [Cosway].

FYVIE, John [Cosway].

$6,500.00

Item Number: 27030

London: Archibald Constable, 1916.

Octavo, bound in full dark blue morocco Cosway-style binding by Bayntun. Both the front and rear panels with a double gilt fillet border around an inner border incorporating ornamental cornerpieces, upper cover set with an oval portrait miniature of an actress under glass, within an ornamental gilt border, lower cover with panel border; raised bands, gilt lettered in two compartments, a repeated ornamental panel in the rest; board edges gilt dotted, turn-ins gilt, doublures and both endpapers of dark blue watered silk, all edges gilt. Extra-illustrated with 10 additional plates. In fine condition. Housed in a felt-lined modern cloth box.

Cosway bindings (named for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were popularized, if not invented, in the early 1900s by the renowned London bookselling firm of Henry Sotheran. The earliest Cosway bindings were created by Miss C.B. Currie who faithfully imitated Cosway's detailed watercolor style of portraiture from designs by J.H. Stonehouse, Sotheran’s manager. These delicate miniature paintings, often on ivory, were set into the covers or doublures of richly-tooled bindings and protected by a thin pane of glass.