Costume of the Ladies of England 1809-1829

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Octavo (9.5 x 6 inches), 287 fine hand-colored etched plates of ladies fashions. Late 19th-century half red morocco over marbled paper boards, decorative gilt spine, all edges gilt, marbled end-papers. A few imprints trimmed or cropped, generally in nice condition, clean and fresh. With an ink note on Countess Bernstorff headed paper indicating it came from the library of Princess Ferdinando d'Ardia Cavacciolo and her daughter of Wexford. An extensive collection of plates from Ackermann's Repository of Arts. "The next important contribution to the fashion-plate was when Rudolph Ackermann started publication of his Repository of Arts... The total number of fashion-plates... from the date of its inception [1809] until the time it ceased in 1829, was something like 450; a complete set is of great rarity and much to be prized... [and] unlike most of the early fashion magazines, which varied very much in quality as changes took place in their ownership and the in the designers of their plates, The Repository of Arts maintained the high standard of excellence which it had set itself at the start, throughout its twenty-one years of existence. Indeed, in many ways it improved as it went on, many of the prettiest plates appearing during 1825-1829... [and these] have a grace and charm which is seldom found in the fashion-plates of the period" 287 Hand Coloured etched plates. (236*146 mm).