PMarione
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Joined: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 883
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 Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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The printed Morrison collection is an adventure in itself:
| Quote: | A six-volume folio Catalogue was privately printed in an edition of 200 copies between 1883 and 1892: it is notable for its facsimiles of especially important items.
A second series, in smaller format, followed, with three volumes on the general collection, A–D (1893–6), two on the Hamilton and Nelson papers (1893–4), one on the Blessington papers (1895), and a first volume (1897), covering the years 1667 to 1675, devoted to the Bulstrode papers. |
That's 13 vols and the 1st 6 vols are really huge (38cm x 30) (they include some Nelson's letters).
Curiously they are among the few books of my library that I found (a long time ago) in Brussels: not a great interest in HN here for a lot of crazy napoleomaniacs.
Here is an article in the DNB:
| Quote: | Morrison, Alfred (1821–1897), autograph and art collector, was born on 28 April 1821, the second son in the family of seven sons and four daughters of James Morrison (1789–1857) and his wife, Mary Anne (d. 1887), daughter of Joseph Todd. Their father's lucrative City of London drapery business of Morrison, Dillon & Co. and his large landed properties assured his children of substantial fortunes. Morrison was educated at Edinburgh University (1836–9), and spent a year at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1839–40. He joined the family firm and travelled on business in North America in 1841–3 and 1845. He twice stood for parliament, attempting Wallingford in the 1847 election, but neither business nor politics was to be his main concern. He inherited the Fonthill estate near Hindon, Wiltshire, with its house based on the remaining portions of Alderman William Beckford's Fonthill splendens, acquired by James Morrison in the 1830s, and was high sheriff of his county in 1857. At Fonthill, and from 1865 at his London home at 16 Carlton House Terrace, Morrison showed himself a discriminating collector of objets d'art displayed in opulent surroundings. He commissioned craftsmen of many countries, specialists in cameo-cutting, metal-inlaying, and glass-enamelling. He was a notable patron of Plácido Zuloaga of Eibar, the leading damascene artist. Between 1860 and 1878 Morrison formed a large collection of engraved portraits, many of which were described in a privately printed catalogue (of which 100 copies were published in 1868) by M. Holloway.
From about 1865 until his death Morrison assembled what the Historical Manuscripts Commission described as ‘the most remarkable gathering of historical autographs ever formed by a single private collector in Great Britain’ (Ninth Report, HMC, 2.406–93). He searched for the finest specimens, using as his agent A. W. Thibaudeau of Green Street, Leicester Square, and his collection was remarkable in the number of letters it contained both from and to prominent persons. Major individual items—of which the last letter of Mary, queen of Scots, now in the National Library of Scotland, is an important example—were complemented by groups such as 111 letters from Admiral Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, with her replies, and the papers of Sir Richard Bulstrode. A six-volume folio Catalogue, compiled initially under Thibaudeau's direction, was privately printed in an edition of 200 copies between 1883 and 1892: it is notable for its facsimiles of especially important items. A second series, in smaller format, followed, with three volumes on the general collection, A–D (1893–6), two on the Hamilton and Nelson papers (1893–4), one on the Blessington papers (1895), and a first volume (1897), covering the years 1667 to 1675, devoted to the Bulstrode papers.
Morrison married, on 12 April 1866, Mabel (1847–1933), daughter of the Revd Robert Seymour Chermside, rector of Wilton, Wiltshire. They had two sons: Hugh (1868–1931), who inherited Fonthill House from his father, and also estates on Islay, Argyll, from his uncle, and James Archibald (1873–1934), who inherited Basildon Park, Berkshire, from his uncle. They also had three daughters, one of whom died in infancy. Morrison died at Fonthill on 22 December 1897. His widow, a striking and spirited personality who shared many of her husband's collecting interests, died in 1933.
Morrison's collection of gems, arranged by Castellani, was sold at Christies in 1898, and his prints were dispersed in a number of Sotheby and Christie sales between 1897 and 1908. The autograph collections, made up of 204 portfolios, sixty-eight ‘special’ groups, and three series, were sold at auction by Sothebys between 1917 and 1919. In 1927 Morrison's portrait engravings were sold at auctions in London and Leipzig, but not before items of special rarity or in particularly fine condition had been selected for the British Museum: 543 Dutch and Flemish portraits were the gift of Morrison's widow and the remainder was purchased anonymously for the museum on favourable terms by Samuel Courtauld. Many specimens from Morrison's collection of damascene work found their way into the Nasser D. Khalili collection and were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 1997.
Alan Bell |
The facsimiles is probably a good idea: I can't find a copy on the web.
As always the connections of the witches covent are mysterious.
@+P |
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