Beschreibung:

OMAR KHAYYÁM (d. c. 1123) and Ambrose Macdonald POYNTER (1867-1923, calligrapher and artist). The Rubaiyat . [Translated by Edward Fitzgerald; text of Fitzgerald's third edition, London: 1872.] ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM. London: December 1893-January 1894. 4° (168 x 124mm). Collation: [1-2 4 3 4 + 1 4-7] 4 (1/1r ex libris leaf with border of vines and floral designs in gilt and bronze, 1/1v blank, 1/2r half-title, 1/2v blank, 1/3r-7/3r text on rectos only foliated at the foot of each leaf in gold, 1/3 written in gold on a background of a radiant gold sun with a border of silver stars, 1/4-7/2 with each rubai numbered in gold and lines written alternately in gold and silver, 7/3 written in gold and with star and crescent tailpiece in silver, 7/4 [?Poynter's] dedicatory poem 'L'Envoy', dated 23 January 1894, the lines written alternately in gold and silver, with colophon at the foot 'Ambrose Macdonald Poynter wrote this book during the months of December 1893 and January 1894; in London'. (Some very light discoloration of the vellum and occasional very light oxidisation.) Original 'Kelmscott-style' limp vellum [?by J. and J. Leighton, vide infra ], yapp fore-edges, green silk fore-edge ties, spine titled in gilt, sewn double vellum endleaves (vellum lightly marked and slightly cockled, 2 ties slightly frayed). Provenance : Venetia Margarita Benson (b.1863, ex libris leaf, and by descent to the present owner). A FINE PRE-RAPHAELITE CALLIGRAPHIC MANUSCRIPT OF THE RUBAIYAT BY THE ARCHITECT AND ARTIST AMBROSE MACDONALD POYNTER FOR VENETIA BENSON. Born to an artistic family (his great-great-grandfather was the sculptor Thomas Banks his grandfather the architect and artist Ambrose Poynter and his father the artist Sir Edward Poynter), Ambrose Macdonald Poynter was educated at Eton before attending the South Kensington Art School in 1886. Pursuing a career as an architect, he was articled to George Aitchison from 1887 to 1892, before working with the Gothic revival architect George Frederick Bodley from 1892 to 1893. Following an exhibition of his bookplates at the New Gallery in 1893, Poynter exhibited both architectural and topographical drawings at the Royal Academy from 1894 and was elected FRIBA in 1906. Poynter's choice of The Rubaiyat as a suitable text for a calligraphic manuscript is not surprising; although sales of the first edition of Fitzgerald's translation (issued in an edition of 250 copies by Bernard Quaritch in 1859) were slow, following the chance discovery of a copy by the Celtic scholar Whitley Stokes in 1861 the work was swiftly taken up by the Pre-Raphaelites. Stokes gave a copy to Dante Gabriel Rossetti who in turn acquired more copies, and soon the poem became popular with Morris, Burne-Jones and others of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. This manuscript was executed for Venetia Benson ( née Hunt), the daughter of the landscape painter Alfred William Hunt (1830-1896). Venetia--known to her family as 'Venice', and named Venetia as a compliment to her parents' friend John Ruskin who was asked to be her godfather--grew up in Pre-Raphaelite circles; counting the Burne-Jones, the Millais and the Morris families amongst her friends and neighbours, it was through the Burne-Joneses that she met her husband, the architect, metal-worker, and protegé of William Morris William Arthur Smith Benson The Burne-Joneses may have also been responsible for Venetia Benson's friendship with Poynter, for his mother Agnes was the sister of Georgiana Burne-Jones It seems most probable that this volume was bound by J. and J. Leighton, the binders of the Kelmscott Press's books; the binding certainly shows the same stylistic characteristics, including the use of limp vellum with yapp fore-edges and green silk fore-edge ties (using fabric supplied by Morris & Co.), and double endleaves, which were sewn in rather than simply pasted down, in accordance with T.J. Cobden-Sanderson's dictum.