Folio (317 x 258 mm.) Contemporary burgundy paper covered boards, sometime professionally rebacked in cloth, yellow glazed endpapers; title page, [20]pp., comprising dedication, subscribers’ list, introduction and the descriptions of the plates, 47 chromolithograph plates of which 3 are double page; small areas of light abrasion, associated with the printing process, to the plate illustrating Abbot Sebrok’s pavement, Gloucester Cathedral, otherwise a remarkably bright, clean copy of a rare work.

Provenance: 1. John Daniel Thomas Niblett. FSA. Inscribed in blue pencil to the verso of the f.f.e.p. ‘J.D. Thomas Niblett of Haresfield Court. residing at Staniforth. 1870.’ 2. Henry Martin Gibbs (1850-1928) the fourth son of William Gibbs (1790-1875) of Tyntesfield, with the former’s engraved armorial bookplate to the front pastedown. Educated at Lancing College and Clare College, Cambridge, for health reasons Gibbs sojourned for a year in Peru, the centre of the family's business interests, before leasing and subsequently purchasing, from his brother, Anthony, the Manor of Barrow Gurney in Somerset in 1883. He was a Justice of the Peace for Somerset between 1886 and 1928, and High Sheriff for the county for 1897, and was responsible for restoring the Garrison Church at Dover Castle, as well as gifting a number of the fittings to the church at Ampney House. In addition he financed the construction of several of the buildings at Lancing College, and a block of buildings at Keble College, Oxford, in memory of his father.
Inscribed in ink across the upper margin of the front pastedown, possibly in Martin Gibbs’s hand ‘Sept.1884. Bought by W. George’s Sons of Park St, Bristol at the sale of J.D. Niblett’s Library. £1-13/-’.

The list of subscribers include Pugin’s biographer, Benjamin Ferrey, Herbert Minton, the architects J.L. Pearson, Anthony Salvin, George Gilbert Scott, and Thomas Wyatt, and the antiquarian, stained glass artist and writer, Thomas Willement.
Rare. Lowndes records that just 200 copies of the book were printed.

Stock number: 1687