Folio (530 x 352mm). Beautifully bound in contemporary crimson straight-grained morocco gilt by Thomas Murton (with the binder’s label to the verso of the f.f.e.p.), the covers with wide rich gilt borders and spandrels, the spine gilt in compartments, elaborate gilt dentelles over panels of watered silk, all edges gilt; title-page with engraved vignette, [118], 23, [1] pp., 46 finely engraved outline plates (including 2 within the text), by Henry Moses and others after drawings by Henry Corbould, all on India proof paper, occasional light spotting to the plates and supports, the text leaves bright.

Provenance: Christ's Hospital, late nineteenth-century bookplate to the verso of the f.f.e.p.

Sole Edition. Presentation copy, inscribed in ink to the preliminary blank leaf, 'From the Duke of Bedford’. Privately printed in a limited edition of just 180 copies, produced to be presented as gifts by John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, who was also the author of the descriptions of the sculptures and marbles within the volume. A copy appears in Henry G. Bohn's 1847 catalogue where it is described as "privately printed and extremely rare ... The impression was very limited, and entirely disposed of in presents." Gustav Friedrich Waagen, in his Works of Art and Artists in England (1838), confirms that copies were "only given away in private by the Duke."

Stock number: 1307