Boydell's Graphic Illustrations of the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare; Consisting of a Series of Prints Forming an Elegant and useful Companion to the Various Editions of his Works, Engraved from Pictures purposely painted By the very first Artists and lately exhibited at the Shakespeare Gallery.

Boydell's Graphic Illustrations of the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare; Consisting of a Series of Prints Forming an Elegant and useful Companion to the Various Editions of his Works, Engraved from Pictures purposely painted By the very first Artists and lately exhibited at the Shakespeare Gallery.

Author: Boydell, John (8 January 1720 – 12 December 1804)

Folio (13" x 16") c1803. Boydell, John. London. The very rare duplicate plate by Blake for Romeo and Juliet is present. It is Blake's only plate in the collection. As the preeminent printmaker of his time, John Boydell's publishing house employed many of the best engravers of their generation including Bartolozzi, Stothard, Schiavonetti and Blake. Although Boydell ran this large-scale printmaking and publishing house for nearly 80 years, "his most significant contribution to British art can be considered the patriotic Shakespeare Gallery project conceived in 1786. Boydell employed more than forty different engravers for the large-format and quarto versions of the gallery's prints. A number of high-profile engravers were employed on a handful of the plates, being paid exceptionally high rates" Front board missing, leather on spine cracked and peeling, foxing throughout. Condition poor.

From Wiki: John Boydell (8 January 1720 – 12 December 1804) was an English publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated an English tradition in the art form. A former engraver himself, Boydell promoted the interests of artists as well as patrons and as a result his business prospered. Boydell's crowning achievement was his Shakespeare project, which was to occupy much of the last two decades of his life. The project contained three parts: an illustrated edition of Shakespeare's plays, a public gallery of paintings depicting scenes from the plays, and a folio of prints based on the paintings. The idea of a grand Shakespeare edition was conceived at a dinner at Josiah Boydell's home in November 1786. The guest list itself is evidence of Boydell's extensive connections in the artistic world: Benjamin West, painter to King George III; George Romney, a renowned painter; George Nicol, bookseller to the king and painter; William Hayley, a poet; John Hoole, a scholar and translator of Tasso and Aristotle; and Daniel Braithwaite, an engineer. Most sources also list the painter Paul Sandby. Although the initial idea for the edition was probably not Boydell's, he was the one to seize and pursue it. He wanted to use the edition to facilitate the development of a British school of history painting. The "magnificent and accurate" Shakespeare edition which Boydell began in 1786 was the focus of the enterprise. The print folio and the gallery were simply offshoots of the main project. In an advertisement prefacing the first volume of the edition, Nicol wrote that "splendor and magnificence, united with correctness of text were the great objects of this Edition". Boydell was responsible for the "splendor", and George Steevens, a renowned Shakespearean editor, was responsible for the "correctness of text". The volumes themselves were handsome, with gilded pages. Even the quality of the paper was extraordinarily high. The illustrations were printed independently and could be inserted and removed as the customer desired. The first volumes of the Dramatick Works were published in 1791 and the last in 1805. The edition was financed through a subscription campaign in which the buyers would offer partial payment up front and then pay the remaining sum on delivery. This practice was necessitated by the fact that over £350,000—an enormous sum at the time—was eventually spent on the enterprise. When it opened on 4 May 1789 at 52 Pall Mall, the Shakespeare Gallery contained 34 paintings and by the end of its run it had between 167 and 170. The Gallery itself was a hit with the public and became a fashionable attraction. It took over the public's imagination and became an end in and of itself.

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