[Album Amicorum]. A collection of original drawings and watercolors, including one by Margaret Meen

[ALBUM AMICORUM]

AN ALBUM OF ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS OF NATURAL HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHICAL SUBJECTS, INCLUDING A WORK BY MARGARET MEEN. [GREAT BRITAIN: EARLY 19TH CENTURY]

4to (12 11/16 x 12 5/8 in.; 322 x 321 mm). 29 drawings and watercolors, corners mounted. Early English red straight-grained morocco, covers with gilt ruled and decorative cornerpieces, spine with double raised bands in six compartments, second and third gilt lettered ("Recueil des talens / et de l'amitie"), first and sixth with elaborate gilt tooling, marbled endpapers. 

A striking collection of original drawings and watercolors, including a work by Margaret Meen, "the most outstanding woman painter associated with Kew [Gardens] in the eighteenth century" (Mabley) 

The most significant piece in the collection is, arguably, a watercolor of bluebells and wood anemones by Margaret Meen, whose Exotic plants from the Royal Gardens at Kew was published in 1790. The album also includes botanical works by M. Austen (a watercolor and bodycolor drawing including crocus, snowdrop and roses), S. Smyth (a watercolor and bodycolor drawing of pink and white flowering mallows), and A. Holland (?) (a watercolor and bodycolor drawing on vellum of nasturtiums), and scenes by William Payne (romantic Italianate fishing village), Jane Machill (a finely executed watercolor of two angles), S.Knott (a watercolor of a sailing vessel in a coastal landscape), and many others.

A remarkably handsome album

REFERENCE:

For Meen see: Blunt & Stearn, The Art of Botanical Illustration 221-222; Henrey III: 248, 577; Mabey, The Flowering of Kew 42

PROVENANCE:

Marquis of Bute (sold from Mountstuart, the Bute family home on the island of Bute)