Sketches. MORLAND (George).

Sketches. Dedicated with Permission to H.W. Bunbury Esqr. By his much obliged humble servt. John Harris.

Engraved dedication with vignette at front of first part and both parts with four soft-ground etched plates each with multiple images by J. Baldrey after Morland, protected by original tissue guards.

Two parts (No.1 and 2). Folio. [420 x 570 mm]. Each in original blue sugar paper wrappers with cream paper backstrips, engraved label on the front with the numbers added in manuscript, and contemporary ink signature of Louisa O'Callaghan at the head. (Partly detached, edges creased).
London: published by J. Harris, No28 Gerrard Street, Soho, 1792.

The edges of the plates are frayed and a little dusty, but it is rare to find works of this size and nature in the original wrappers, as they were issued. These are the first two numbers of a series published by Harris between 1792 and 1799. The first number is dated 1st January 1792 and the second is 1st March 1792. I have not been able to trace a complete run. World Cat describes a single copy in Brooklyn Museum Library with a date range 1792-1794 and 1798-1799, comprising parts 1, 2, 4, 7 and 11. COPAC directs one to Cambridge University Library, which has an incomplete holding of 33 plates. The British Museum has the dedication leaf for no.1, two plates from sketchbook 5, dated 1793 and a plate dated 1797 from a late sketchbook (11-17). It describes the printing technique as "crayon manner and soft ground etching". The images are of rural and domestic scenes created after Morland (1763-1804) moved to the village of Paddington in about 1790.

Stock no. ebc4723