Mortimer Menpes (Illustrator) - Venice - 1904

Scarce first edition and lovely Art Nouveau design of this wonderfully illustrated book, with 100 colour plates painted by Menpes

In this exquisite; Dorothy Menpes provides a written memoir of the unique city of Venice to accompany Mortimer Menpes’s gorgeous oils and watercolours. The illustrations by Mortimer Menpes include street scenes, portraits of workers & children, gardens and landscapes.

Item Description
A fascinating travel classic book in the original cloth bindings. The book is wonderfully illustrated with 100 striking full page colour plates, captioned on the tissue guards by Mortimer Menpes (Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1855 – 1938), was an Australian-born British painter, author, printmaker and illustrator. After serving as an illustrator during the Boar War; Menpes travelled widely, visiting Burma, Egypt, France, India, Italy, Japan, Kashmir, Mexico, Morocco, and Spain. Many of his paintings were published in various travel books by Adam and Charles Black, but none are so beautiful a collection of paintings, subject and writings with love as VENICE). With text by Dorothy Menpes.

Published by Adam and Charles Black, London (1904). Publisher’s original blue boards, decorated in a fancy Art Nouveau style all over the upper cover and spine in gilt, featuring floral urns or fountains, multi-ruled and decorated borders and gilt emblems of the Menpes. Top page edges gilt.

Book Dimensions: 23 x 17 x 4 cm and Number of Pages: 222 + 4 pages of publishers’ books

Condition
The book is beautifully bound, designed and illustrated. Firm and well bound copy. External covers are clean and in nice shape, slightly marked, and with light wear to corners and to spine ends. Internally the book is in very good condition. Old inscription dated 1905 with neat ink on half title page. Pages are clean, with light foxing to the margin of some pages and page edges. The text is fresh. The attractive illustrations make this a truly beautiful title (Nice Copy) (Please see pictures).