Descripción

First edition, 4to (270 x 220 mm), xxvi, 229, [1]pp., this being one of 125 de-luxe illustrated copies, printed on handmade paper, frontispiece, 83 tissue guarded plates printed by Adolphe Braun et Cie., Emery Walker and Frederick Hollyer using the photogravure method, original quarter vellum, decorated paper boards, uncut, top edge gilt. A handsomely produced privately printed catalogue of 114 Italian pictures in the collection of the Bensonís. ìDespite the publication of his catalogue, Bensonís collection is not well known today, probably because it was never the subject of a spectacular auction sale. [Joseph] Duveen bought the entire collection in 1927 and sold most of it to his American customers. Today Benson's pictures are dispersed across many leading museums in North America.îóStourton & Sebag-Montefiore. Provenance: Presentation inscription from Robert & Evelyn Benson to Sidney & Delia Peel, 1915, with their respective armorial bookplates; from the library of Josceline Grove, with bookplate and his typed catalogue description pasted to front endpapers. Stourton & Sebag-Montefiore, The British as Art Collectors, pp. 252-53.