A Dictionary of Painters, PILKINGTON (The Rev. M.)
BINDING SUPPLIED BY BEILBY OF BIRMINGHAM
from the Revival of the Art to the Present Period. A New Edition, with Considerable Additions, an Appendix, and an Index; by Henry Fuseli, R.A.
4to. [295 x 225 x 45 mm]. xx, [iv], 678 pp. Contemporary binding (by Beilby & Co. of Birmingham?) of half Russia leather, grey paper covers boards with "L"-shaped calf corners tooled in gilt with fillets, fleurons and a medallion, outlined with a blind roll which extends around the boards. The spine divided into six panels with thick bands tooled in gilt, lettered in gilt in the second panel, the others with a gilt centre surrounded by blind tools, grey endleaves, uncut edges. (Joints rubbed, corners and edges of the boards a little bumped).
London: printed [by S. Hamilton] for J. Walker; Wilkie and Robinson; [and 16 others], 1810.
A few signatures are foxed, suggesting that they were not left to dry, but it is a very good copy, with uncut edges. There is an engraved label in the top corner of the front cover, lettered "Beilby & Co. / Booksellers & Stationers / Birmingham". They may also have been binders, and Ramsden, Bookbinders of the United Kingdom (outside London) 1780-1840, p.36, records the company of Beilby, Knott & Beilby at 95 High Street, Birmingham, in the 1829, 1830 and 1833 Directories. It is an unusual and attractive binding, with similarities to examples owned by William Beckford.
Pilkington's Dictionary was first published in 1770, and ranks as the first original treatment of the subject in English. Fuseli's revisions appeared in 1805, and the last edition appeared in 1857, after which it was substantially incorporated into Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers. It is still worth reading - take, for example, Fuseli's entry for Charles Jervas - "This flimsy artist, whom even Vertue scarcely deigned to notice, would not be named here, if his pupil Pope, had not kept his name afloat by the verses which he addressed to him. He was an Irishman, the disciple of Kneller, and acquired a fortune by marriage".
Stock no. ebc7819