1926 Sailing-Ships and Barges of the Western Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas

WADSWORTH, Edward; WINDELER, Bernard (Intro. & Descriptions). Sailing-Ships and Barges of the Western Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. London: Frederick Etchells & Hugh Macdonald, 1926. 4to (31 × 20 cm). 79, [4] pp. With 23 copper-engraved plates in the line manner by Edward Wadsworth, all hand-coloured, including frontispiece. Printed on Zanders hand-made paper at the Curwen Press. One of 450 numbered copies, this being no. 311. “The copper plates have been destroyed.” Original publisher’s binding of orange cloth boards with white cloth spine, gilt-blocked nautical device to upper cover. Edges uncut. A very good copy: boards bright, with a minuscule puncture above the gilt navigation motif. 1-cm loss to blank corner of page 79. Internally clean and bright. Stamp of the defunct Knihovna Patentního Úřadu Republiky Československé (Library of the Patent Office of the Czechoslovak Republic) to title-page. A central figure in British Vorticism, Wadsworth brought his modernist sensibility to these precise yet stylised marine engravings. This scarce limited edition remains one of the most striking artistic tributes to Mediterranean and Adriatic sailing craft of the early 20th century. Inv. H7ob