- 134
Kent--Petrie, Henry
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
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Description
- A collection of over 600 watercolour drawings and sketches of Kent churches, castles, and monuments, together with 5 pocket sketchbooks. [late eighteenth and early nineteenth century]
- paper
497 WATERCOLOUR DRAWINGS, comprising 401 of churches and 96 of castles (each approximately 190 x 300mm., or the reverse), unmounted, most captioned in pencil, together with approximately 120 drawings and sketches (from 85 x 120mm. to 200 x 300mm., or the reverse) in watercolour, pen and ink, and pencil, and 5 pocket sketchbooks (each 105 x 185mm.)
Catalogue Note
THE FOLLOWING EIGHT LOTS REPRESENT AN IMPORTANT AND LARGE COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS by Henry Petrie FSA (1768-1842), topographical artist, antiquary, and Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London.
“Petrie saw the need to publish a complete ‘corpus historicum’ for early English history, and encouraged by George John, second Earl Spencer, to whom he had been introduced by his close friend Thomas Dibdin, a plan was presented to the Record Commission in 1821, which was sanctioned by the government and parliament. Work began in 1823, with Petrie assisted by his brother-in-law the Revd John Sharpe (1769-1859), and work progressed steadily until 1832, when it was interrupted by Petrie’s illness. In 1834, when the whole text of the first volume had been completed, and a large collection of materials made for further volumes, the work was suspended by an order of the record commissioners. It had been criticized by Francis Palgrave as intrinsically defective, because the project was based on the methods of Dom Bouquet, the French historian, who advocated dispersing extracts in chronological order instead of printing entire texts. Petrie was retired in 1840, and awarded compensation for loss of office. He died in 1842, before the project was revived. Only one volume was ever completed, which was published in 1848 by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy (who had been trained by Petrie), bearing the title Monumenta historica Britannica, or, Materials for the history of Great Britain from the earliest period to the Norman conquest." (ODNB)
“Petrie saw the need to publish a complete ‘corpus historicum’ for early English history, and encouraged by George John, second Earl Spencer, to whom he had been introduced by his close friend Thomas Dibdin, a plan was presented to the Record Commission in 1821, which was sanctioned by the government and parliament. Work began in 1823, with Petrie assisted by his brother-in-law the Revd John Sharpe (1769-1859), and work progressed steadily until 1832, when it was interrupted by Petrie’s illness. In 1834, when the whole text of the first volume had been completed, and a large collection of materials made for further volumes, the work was suspended by an order of the record commissioners. It had been criticized by Francis Palgrave as intrinsically defective, because the project was based on the methods of Dom Bouquet, the French historian, who advocated dispersing extracts in chronological order instead of printing entire texts. Petrie was retired in 1840, and awarded compensation for loss of office. He died in 1842, before the project was revived. Only one volume was ever completed, which was published in 1848 by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy (who had been trained by Petrie), bearing the title Monumenta historica Britannica, or, Materials for the history of Great Britain from the earliest period to the Norman conquest." (ODNB)
Provenance: Henry Petrie FSA (1768-1842); his brother-in-law, Rev. John Sharpe (1769-1859); thence by family descent; acquired by Sabin Galleries in the early 1970s