FORBES, James

Waterloo, Stanmore, Miscellaneous. 1768-1817. Large folio (527 x 370 mm). Half red morocco with corners, smooth spine decorated (English binding of the early 19th century). Exceptional collection composed by the English painter and traveler James Forbes (1749-1819), bearing on the back "Voyages and Travels, vol. 46" . There are 70 watercolors (pen and ink wash drawings or pencil drawings, including the title and 13 collages) of various sizes, 101 plates (including 3 maps and plans, and a lithograph), and two sheets of calligraphy, mounted on 173 leaves. The painter James Forbes is particularly famous for having spent 17 years in India at a very young age, and for having brought back a wealth of drawings and manuscripts describing the local flora, fauna and architecture (including the Taj Mahal), published under the title Oriental Memoirs. After his return, he travelled extensively in Europe and stayed several times in France, as can be seen in this volume. He was an inquisitive mind, drawing from nature, illustrating with engravings (sometimes cut out), annotating with poems or excerpts of memoirs, various sheets which were classified by him and assembled in collections. The first part of the volume is devoted to Waterloo, where Forbes went in 1817: after a calligraphic title page surrounded by a crown of dried flowers, gathered in Waterloo in 1817 ("A Wreath of wild flowers, gathered in the intersting field of Waterloo on the 24th. Of September 1817, by J. Forbes"), he drew in ink or watercolor the places of memory (Wellington tree, catholic cemetery Waterloo, etc.), reconstructed the places of battle using a collage technique (engraved riders, pasted on the landscape with ink wash for example), collected series of engravings (Wellington, Prince Blucher, etc.) that he commented. About 15 drawings and watercolors are devoted to Stanmore, where Forbes owned a house and where his wife and sister were buried (Stanmore Hill, Stanmore Church), many drawn from memory, some done by relatives. Several drawings made in Germany, others on the banks of the Elbe (view of Cuxhaven), or in Paris; several watercolors of natural history (birds, fish), a beautiful series of large trees drawn after nature in Fontainebleau, or drawn after Barret. Several series of engravings are present in the volume: Charles Pye, Provincial copper coins or token issued between 1787 and 1796 (22 ff); an engraved portrait of C.J. known as Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) with a handwritten biographical caption, followed by 9 views of French ports by Vernet (La Rochelle, Dieppe, Antibes), whom Forbes seems to have particularly admired; a collection of engravings of tombs and steles (including that of Isaac Newton) (15 ff); and finally, an early lithograph made in Paris in 1817 by E.C. Ashburner with this handwritten commentary: "in remembrance of that young Lady. All these drawings and engravings have been carefully mounted in this volume at the time, with wash framing, annotations and quotations in ink, and numerous signatures, locations and dates of James Forbes. Binding rubbed, scuffing.