DAYES, Edward (1763-1804, artist); Thomas KIRK (1765-1797, engraver)

Military Figures No. 1. [hand-lettered cover title]

London: Capt. Hewgill of the Coldstream Regt. of Guards, & Sold by John & Josiah Boydell, Cheapside, & at the Shakespeare Gallery, Pall Mall, [1792]. (15 1/4 x 18 5/8 inches). 18 plates engraved by Kirk after drawings by Dayes and hand-colored in watercolor by Thomas Girtin.

Modern grey wrappers, original wrappers bound in (lettered as title), tissue guards.

A very rare series of British military costume prints, including the celebrated Foot Guards plates coloured in Edward Dayes' studio and preserving the early work of Thomas Girtin.

An exceptional series published by the Boydell firm depicting the uniforms worn by the British Foot Guards and regiments of foot between 1650 and 1685. The plates were engraved by Thomas Kirk, an accomplished engraver who studied under Richard Cosway, after drawings by Edward Dayes, one of the leading topographical artists of late eighteenth-century Britain. Dayes was admired for the precision of his architectural and landscape draughtsmanship, exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, and is remembered as an early influence on the young J. M. W. Turner. Published by Captain Edwin Hewgill of the Coldstream Guards and sold through the Boydell firm, whose Shakespeare Gallery and ambitious engraving projects helped establish London as the foremost center of British print publishing, the series combines careful documentary representations of military dress with landscapes of considerable artistic refinement. For many years it was generally assumed that the colouring had been executed by the young J. M. W. Turner during his apprenticeship in Dayes' studio. Recent research by Greg Smith, published on the Thomas Girtin website, has convincingly reassessed this long-held attribution. Smith argues that the colouring was instead carried out by Thomas Girtin, then apprenticed to Dayes, and that this earliest military series is the only Hewgill publication with which Girtin can confidently be associated. Girtin was one of the founders of the English school of watercolour, and although his career lasted little more than a decade, his innovative handling of light, atmosphere, and broad washes transformed British landscape painting. Turner himself later acknowledged Girtin's exceptional gifts with the oft-quoted remark, "Had Tom Girtin lived, I should have starved." Whether every surviving impression can be attributed to Girtin cannot be established with complete certainty, but the colouring of the present plates closely accords with Smith's conclusions. The figures are modelled with subtle tonal variation, the uniforms possess unusual richness and depth of colour, and the landscapes are treated with a freedom and atmospheric quality that elevates the series beyond the conventions of military costume illustration. The result is a group of prints that function equally as documentary records of seventeenth-century uniforms and as highly accomplished examples of late eighteenth-century British watercolour practice. This work was last offered at auction at Sotheby's in 1933, where the copy consisted of only nine loose hand-coloured plates. Brown University records an institutional copy comprising thirteen plates, while another example is held by the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt. Individual impressions are preserved in the British Museum, but these do not constitute a complete published series. The present volume contains eighteen hand-coloured plates, representing the fullest sequence we have been able to trace.

Item #43026

Price: $3,500.00