The Durbar

Published by Adam and Charles Black in London,1903, in 8 (23 x 16,5 cm) 210 pages. 100 color plates engraved and printed at the Menpes Press under direction of Mortimer Menpes. Hardcover original cream cloth, decorated in red, blue and gilt to a design incorporating a tree and peacocks within a floral border, design partly reprised to spine, lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, remainder untrimmed. +++++++ Book written by Dorothy Whistler Flower (Born Menpes) illustrated by his father Mortimer Menpes on the Delhi Durbar that was an illustrated record of the commemoration in Delhi of the coronation of King Edward VII. The first Durbar was held in 1877 to proclaim Queen Victoria as Empress of India. This is the second Durbar to proclaim Edward VII as king, in 1902 but was not attended by the King either. It was not until the 1911 Durbar, when George V and Queen Mary went to India, was the Emperor and his Empress proclaimed in person to the people of India. Mortimer Menpes painted in oil and watercolour as well as being a prolific printmaker, producing over 700 etchings and drypoints during his career. He developed a special form of colour etching and exhibited coloured etchings at Dowdeswell's Gallery in London in late 1911/early 1912. He was also a pioneer, with Carl Hentschel (1864–1926), in the development of techniques to reproduce coloured art works in book form. His book « War Impressions » published in April 1901 by A. & C. Black, was the first book to faithfully reproduce art works in color, based on watercolors done by Menpes in South Africa, Menpes also founded the Menpes Press of London and Watford to produce colored illustrated books using the Hentschel Colourtype Process - Good condition for the hardcover and the book itself except Foxing on text pages..