J.R. Coke Smyth

Sketches in the Canadas
J.R. Coke Smyth, 1840
SMYTH, John Richard Coke (1808-1882). Sketches in the Canadas. London: Thomas McLean, c.1840.
Rare complete set of Coke Smyth's hand-colored views, the first such at auction since the Siebert sale in 1999, according to the records of RBH. Coke Smyth was a British artist and traveler. At about age 30, he was hired as the drawing master of the family of the Earl of Durham, Governor General of Canada and the dedicatee of this book. He spent just a few years in Canada before returning to Europe where he published illustrations of London life and of his travels in the Near East. These views are delicately rendered and colored, exhibiting a charm and naturalness that has a distinctly different style to that of the officer-artists who were the most usual sketchers of Canada in the 1830s. This work was advertised in 1840 as being published in two states: colored and mounted and uncolored. However, Sabin and Siebert suggest that the colored and mounted portfolio issue was later than the unmounted issues, either colored or uncolored. This is in accord with the fact that the mounted issue is always or almost always found without the dedication leaf to the Earl of Durham, who died in July 1840. The Abbey copy, like this one, is hand-colored, with dedication, and not mounted. Abbey Travel 625; Bobins 66; Lande 2215; Sabin 85203; Spendlove, p.42 and pl.65; Tooley 460; TPL 2549.
Folio (483 x 344mm). Lithographed throughout, comprising dedication with contents list on the verso, and 23 hand-colored duotone lithographic prints, including the title-page with hand-colored vignette, all on card (title and dedication a bit soiled with rubbed mark and repaired tear, marginal toning and scattered reinforcements, pls.3 and 9 with 2" rubbed creases, faint stain to pl. 10, marginal chip to pl. 11, repaired tear just touching image in pl.15, longer repaired tears to margins of pls.18-19, library blindstamp on each leaf, half in margin). Loose prints, individually matted; quarter morocco solander box. Provenance: Liverpool Free Public Library (blindstamps).