Rembrandt. [Cosway].

SHARP, Elizabeth A. [Rembrandt] [Cosway].

Item Number: 199442

London: Methuen & Co., 1904.

First edition of Sharp’s biography of Dutch master painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Octavo, elegantly bound by Riviere and Son in full morocco in a Cosway-style binding with a hand painted miniature ivorene portrait of Rembrandt under glass to the front panel within an elaborate gilt botanical vignette, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, double gilt ruling to the front and rear panel, gilt-ruled turn-ins and inner dentelles, all edges gilt, illustrated with forty engravings including tissue-guarded frontispiece portrait of Rembrandt. In near fine condition.

Dutch master painter Rembrandt van Rijn is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. Unlike most Dutch masters of the 17th century, Rembrandt's works depict a wide range of style and subject matter, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, and biblical and mythological themes as well as animal studies. Rembrandt's portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate autobiography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity. Cosway bindings (named for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were popularized, if not invented, in the early 1900s by the renowned London bookselling firm of Henry Sotheran. The earliest Cosway bindings were created by Miss C.B. Currie who faithfully imitated Cosway's detailed watercolor style of portraiture from designs by J.H. Stonehouse, Sotheran’s manager. These delicate miniature paintings, often on ivory, were set into the covers or doublures of richly-tooled bindings and protected by a thin pane of glass.