Group of Flowers, Groups of Fruit, Six Birds (Three works By Brookshaw bound as one)

London: Thomas McLean, 1819. Second Edition. Full Decorated Gilt- and Blindstamped Straight-Grained Morocco. Very Good. Folio, 36.5 by 27 cm. Unpaginated, all with half title and title pages, 16, 12, 14 pp. With a total of 18 hand-colored plates, each rendered in two states, one, hand-colored, the other, uncolored. The inclusion of the two states serves an instructive purpose of imparting not just how to color generally but also, how to shade the application of color. (In the page count, we did not count the plates, but we did count blank versos. Essentially, each plate is accompanied by an one or two page text. The first and last books have additional pages for a preliminary "Advertisement", which, notwithstanding its name, serves as a preface or introduction. While the work did have a pedagogical purpose, the plates are truly stunning, and notable for their luminous elegance and simplicity. The images manage to be both highly realistic yet restrained and economical, almost, in a few instances, like the finest of folk art. There are no unnecessary details. Even is one is not focused on the Brookshaw's lessons, one can not help but appreciate the nuance of color gradations. The facing uncolored plates might bring to mind an uniform form of offsetting, but these unprocessed plates also stand on their own, with an almost haunting quality. The plates are as follows: flowers: moss rose, anemone, China aster, ranuculus, major convolvulus, the dog rose; fruits: cherries, apples, plums, pears, apricots, currants; birds: goldfinch, red start, tom-tit and red pole, pie finch, bramble finch, bull-finch. Condition: the contemporary red straight-grained morocco with rubbing and some abrasions. Rebacked, with original spine pasted on. While loss of original spine at tips, rebacking is inconspicuous. A moderate amount of soiling, mostly light, including foxing, on the leaves within. While the soiling does affect some plates, to varying degrees, the hand-coloring remains bright and fresh throughout, and in our view the plates remain attractive.