Liber Studiorum
J M W Turner
Liber Studiorum, a series of Turner’s landscape and seascape compositions published as prints in etching and mezzotint, has been described as perhaps containing ‘the pith of all that is best in his life and work’, ‘central to Turner’s career as the most personal and carefully conceived series of prints in his entire oeuvre’, or at least the ‘most complete document of Turner’s attitude to his art in the first decade of the [nineteenth] century’, and ‘one of the most comprehensive exercises in publication ever mounted by a great artist.’ The Latin title may be translated as ‘Book of Studies’, although it was not issued as a bound book, and did not contain any explanatory text beyond the titles of (most of) the compositions, and letters printed above each of them to indicate general categories of landscape discussed in detail below. The incomplete series comprised seventy engravings of a planned one hundred, published by Turner (or, at an early stage, on his behalf) between 1807 and 1819 in fourteen parts together with a frontispiece. All 70 plates are here with tissue guards.
By Newnes Publishers
Hardback 1900s
Very good used condition for its age - usual signs of age which include light foxing & water marks. See images. Please Note: This book has some small pencil marks on the inside cover and on page 3 there an an inch long rip - as shown in images.
