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Dr. Emily Paterson - Morgan of the Byron Society has 

been made aware of the existence of these aquatints but

appears to have taken it upon herself to keep the rank

and file members of the society  in ignorance 

 

If you have comments or questions please feel free to email 

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Lord  Byron / John  Martin? 
40  Delicately   Coloured  Aquatints










 

Below are a  group of 40 very finely coloured aquatints. Initially I owned 10 aquatints from the same series  acquired by me many years ago together with 3 John Martin mezzotints in an auction.  A few weeks ago November 2021 I was offered and bought a full set of 40 of these coloured aquatints; contained  within  the volume above.  I bought them because the aquatints although unsigned looked like they were work of John Martin and given that the initial 10 aquatints were lotted together in an auction with 3 John Martin mezzotints the previous owner of the first group may have thought the same. 

 

Each aquatint illustrates a verse of Lord Byron's poetry.  Originally there were to be at least 50 plus if the numbering above the image to the right illustrated in the Overview is anything to go by.  This image  is from the original set of 10.  To the right of the aquatint but within the plate mark is the number 50.    I have not seen them but there appears to be 1 set of uncoloured aquatints held by the Newstead collection of Byron material and 1 complete coloured set held, so I am informed  by a customer of Sanders Print shop in Oxford. A few coloured examples were found listed on  World Cat  within a book of Byron's poetry published by W.S.Colman Broadway and A.W. Galagnani Paris.  These are  held by the library in Philadelphia.  There are /were probably a minimum of 4 coloured sets at least.* This figure is based upon the 1 complete set plus 1 duplicate example in Philadelphia library and 1 example  illustrated below to make 3 different examples of the same coloured print.  A 4th example of one of these aquatints was found in the bound volume of 40 coloured aquatints bought by myself  in late November 2021.  4 examples of 1 of these aquatints.  These are all uploaded and can be seen in the order of their appearance in the bound volume I have with the exception of 1 of them.  This aquatint is illustrated  directly below and has been chosen because there is 1 example in the bound collection and 1 in the loose collection. They  are illustrated one above the other.  At first glance they look identical.  Closer inspection shows that they are not quite the same.  Least surprising the colouring as expected with such fine delicate colouring shows slight differences in shade and exact coverage. 

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*In May 2023 I was contacted by an individual I shall call K J.  He had bought a further 16 of these coloured aquatints.  There were no previously unknown aquatints in his collection.  All of his aquatints had been "butchered "  The image had been cut to its margins and the text cut out separately and mounted on paper in a scrap album?  The publishing details had been omitted. Tragic as this is there is at least one thing that I learnt from this collection and that is that there  could have been 5 sets in existence at one time.  The aquatint of which I have  3 examples he also has an example which together with the possible complete set I have only heard about  would make 5.       

 

There are though 2 striking differences to be noted. 

Firstly:  The example from the loose collection has been published by Pyall and Stround Hanway Street 1829 whilst the example in the bound collection is published for the proprietor by T. Gillard.   

Secondly:  The first shown has the number 50 engraved within the plate mark but the one in the bound copyis unnumbered.  

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     The prints are all  unsigned in the plate by either the artist or engraver and there are no full size original paintings from which these aquatints have been sourced.   The publisher of most of  these coloured aquatints  was Pyall and Stroud  19 Hanway Street Oxford Street 1829.  A few are published for the proprietor by T. Gillard 4 Strand.  

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     From my extensive searching I can safely say that coloured examples of these aquatints are very rare.  Black and white examples are occasionally come by and in fact when I last looked there were 4 on sale at Sanders Print shop Oxford.   

    The description given by Sanders print shop suggests that they could have been by Henry Pyall who besides being a publisher executed work in aquatint. Is that likely?  Given the small numbers that these prints exist in, surely if they had been by Henry Pyall he could very easily have printed  the ones that were "published for the proprietor by T. Gillard" himself.  Its the work of a few minutes and would cost him no more than paper ink and a few minutes of time.  It would obviously take time and trouble to arrange printing elsewhere and of course would cost a lot more.    

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      15 years or so ago I met a member of the Byron Society and showed him these aquatints.  He had never seen them himself.  He showed reproductions of these to some very knowledgeable members of this society who also had never seen or heard of them. 

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   So,  not common.   

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I will only publish examples from the bound edition with one exception and that will be the aquatint numbered number 50 for which I will publish both examples. There are small differences in the size of each aquatint but the plate is circa 195mm. by 125 mm.  The text being intrinsic to the image will also be published 

The text being intrinsic to the image will also be transcribed because on a few occasions the text is a little indistinct.   

 

Henry Pyall was a well known publisher and aquatint engraver of his day most famous for perhaps his scenes of the Bury railway.

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Stroud:   Who Stroud is, is unknown by me. 

Some of these aquatints are dated 1829

   

Occassionally sheets of paper held to the light have a watermark possibly for Whatmans and the date of 1828.  

   

Some of these prints as mentioned earlier are found uncoloured. This maybe because there were plans for both an uncoloured and coloured edition. It was common to produce  both an expensive coloured version and cheaper uncoloured editions of illustrated books.  

   

It may also be that the money for binding, printing, in fact everything ran out which is why this projected expensive edition of the works of Byron never saw the light of day except in the one 

uncoloured edition held by Newstead Abbey.  Individual uncoloured examples do come to the surface for sale but they are rare.  Coloured examples for sale are in my experience non -existent.

I have looked for many years.   

   

In the early days of research I contacted the British Museum about these aquatints hoping they would be able to supply more information. The member of staff who replied informed me that the B.M. had no examples coloured or uncoloured of their own, and had never seen them before. He went on to say that they were very reminiscent of John Martin and in a few examples perhaps William Blake.

    

I then contacted the Laing gallery who have their own collection of John Martin. The curator there, replied saying that their specialist John Martin expert didn't think that they were by John Martin, they were not good enough according to him and the curator agreed. The curator went on to say that this expert had had some of these aquatints himself, decided that they were not by John Martin, kept a few examples for himself and disposed (sold? I assume )of the rest. I requested images of the ones he kept. I am sad to say that none, sadly were forthcoming.  I have contacted the Laing gallery recently about this latter full set.  Said expert still will not engage.  Excuse my question but Is he really an expert! 

     

Next was the Victoria and Albert museum. A similar story here to the B.M. They had none of their own and had never seen them but they did agree that there was a considerable likeness to work by John Martin. They contacted an expert who I suspect to be the man who advises the Laing Gallery. His name is Michael J. Campbell. As well as being a dealer and publisher he is recognised as the world's leading John Martin expert. His view was that these were not by John Martin but he was unable or unwilling to say who they were by or could be by.

      

What I dislike about these responses in particular is that Michael J. Campbell's word  if it is in this instance Michael J. Campbells word seems to be law. He speaks, he pronounces, and everyone just accepts.   He has not in any way presented his views and reasons for this conclusive decision.  He maybe right, but in my opinion he needs to explain his reasoning.  I would like to hear the arguments.   He could having plenty and having had plenty of other  of his own examples with which to produce a small monograph for those people in his rarefied world who might be interested in his findings. But nothing and in particular nothing for widespread  public impartial scrutiny, and so far as I can make out has no intention of ever doing so.  So nobody questions whether he is in fact correct.  I dont think he is.  

     

For example I have shown these to museum print room staff in the V.and A. and put forward most of my reasons in a way that they found quite convincing so I am not best pleased when an expert does not have to present his evidence for proper examination. All he has to do is to say as in this case that they are not by John Martin.  AND NOBODY CHALLENGES. 

    

Experts can make mistakes. They are I am sure very good when it comes to encyclopedic knowledge of their given subject. There is a problem when they present as truth what is only conjecture, supposition, and theory. Even worse is when it is their own  pet conjectures, theories, and suppositions that are so presented. Their is a basic unwillingness about about to consider or even conceive that they might actually be wrong.  AND finally is if and when they themselves may have made a mistake.  Never as my friend says, whilst they have a hole in their arse will they willingly  admit to making a mistake. 

 

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