DEPICTING THE BRITISH NATION

PYNE, W.H.

Microcosm; or a Picturesque Delineation of the Arts, Agriculture, Manufactures, &c of Great Britain, in a Series of above a Thosand Groups og Figures for the Embellishment of Landscape: Comprising the most interesting Subjects i Rural and Domestic Scenery... To which are added Explanation of the Plates, and Essays relating to their various Subjects by C.Gray. 2 vols.

London, R.Ackermann, (1822-24).

Folio oblong. Bound in one fine hmorocco, raised bands and gilt back. Uncut. 30,36 pp. and 120 fine aquatint-plates (drawn and etched by W.H.Pyne, 23 x 30 cm.). Marginally brownspotted. - Importent sourcework for information of pre-industrial techniques.

First Ackermann-edition of William Pyne's splendid and beautiful collection of 120 plates presenting a detailed and romantic survey of the British nation at work in the markets, fields, industry ect. Pyne himself described his work as "a national work... a monument in the rustic style". The book served also as a source book for aspiring artists, and copies of Pyne's pictures were to be found all over 19th century Europe.

The ideological background for Pyne's work is to be found in the wake of the French Revolution. After 1789, the urban bourgeoisie feared revolution, therefore they increasingly looked to the countryside to provide a model of a fair and stable society. "Their desire was articulated in the form of increasingly available artistic and literary representations of the organic, rural community. [...] The discourse of art reworked reality to fit the nascent ideology. Books like William Pyne's Microcosm provided around 600 studies of working, and therefore industrious peasants. He created a generic labouring peasantry for landscape artists, which was not only picturesque, cheerful and hardworking, but also safe - remote from the provincial and urban middle classes." (Sayer. Women of the fields: representations of rural women in the nineteenth century, p. 18).

Rudolph Ackermann, a close friend of Pyne, was a leading publisher of illustrated books in the early 19th century Britain, a period which is often referred to as 'the golden age' of hand-coloured aquatint plates.

Order-nr.: 8363