Country Seats of the United States of North America, with Some Sce

BIRCH, WILLIAM R.

Publication Date: 1809

About this Item

BIRCH, WILLIAM R. The Country Seats of the United States of North America, with Some Scenes Connected with Them. Springland near Bristol, Pa.: W. Birch, enamel painter, 1808 [i.e., 1809]. Oblong folio (225 x 285 mm.). 4 letterpress leaves, 20 hand colored engraved copper plates (complete). Marbled paper-covered boards, leather title label on front board, straight-grain red morocco gilt spine and corners (very skillfully rebacked). Light marginal foxing on the first letterpress leaf and a light dampstain at the extreme fore-edge of the last three letterpress leaves, else a remarkably fine, fresh copy, with the plates clean and bright and lovely. First edition of the second American color plate book, and a considerable rarity, missing from most institutional and private collections of early American color plate books. In 1800 William Birch had produced the first American color plate book, The City of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania North America, as it Appeared in the Year 1800. The work was a great success, in spite of its high price, and it gave Birch the encouragement he needed to continue. Sadly, Country Seats, issued a little over eight years later, was a commercial failure. While the Philadelphia work captured the civic pride and enthusiasm of a young nation, Country Seats, argued Philadelphia iconography authority Martin Snyder, "was much more a work born of Birch's individual background, ambitions, and failures. It was, in fact, the product of a desire to raise the prevailing levels of taste in homes and of a desire to identify himself with the leisurely and wealthy life externally portrayed in his pictures." The twenty color plates, a combination of line and stipple engraving and delicate coloring, depict gentlemen's country estates in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana. This is a superb copy. Seller Inventory # 14965

Bibliographic Details

Title: Country Seats of the United States of North ...

Publication Date: 1809

Binding: Hardcover

Edition: 1st Edition