Lot 54
Alexander, Sir James Edward (1803-1885)
Sketchbooks of travel & military service, 1860s
Auction: The Library of General Sir James Alexander | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 31 to 62
Description
3 albums, oblong 12mo (each approx. 10 x 17cm), contemporary skiver or roan, 64, 94 and 85 ff., respectively numbered 22, 23 and 25 in gilt on spines 22, 23 and 25 and with Alexander's ownership inscriptions to endpapers dated 1863-4-8, each illustrated with sketches in pen and ink (a few in pencil), mainly to rectos (a few also to versos), often with several sketches to a page and with additional hand-colouring in pencil, dated manuscript captions, mostly depicting life and scenes in Scotland, including landscapes, castles and country residences, archaeological sites and finds, portraits of named and unnamed individuals of all social ranks, social occasions, excursions and tableaux, and caricatures and comic sketches, together with numerous sketches of views and scenes from Alexander's service and travels overseas, including southern Africa, New Zealand, the Crimea, and elsewhere (mostly from memory or direct experience, a few presumably from the imagination or possibly after other sources);
Album ‘22': subjects include: views in the Trossachs, Bass Rock, Tantallon Castle, various scenes in Forfarshire (e.g. including Edzell Castle), the Duke of Atholl's piper, scenes at the Strathallan highland games, spoor of south African fauna, American Civil War portraits (Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson) and the Battle of Cherbourg (1864), scenes in Russia (‘In Russia as a prisoner, 1830', depicting a horse-drawn sleigh), excavations at Cambuskenneth Abbey and discovery of the grave of James III, ‘Mtesa, K[ing] of Uganda’, etc.
Album ‘23’: several views of Islay (coloured), ‘Ochil archery and croquet club’, a full-length portrait purporting to show Alexander meeting John Hanning Speke hours before his death (‘My last interview with Speke of the Nile in committee Room of Section E, British Scientific Association, Bath, 15th Sept 1863 11am. He was shot at 4pm’) with Burton and Livingstone in the background, portraits ranging from ‘Kincardine ropespinner’ to ‘The Count of Albany, Charles Edward Stewart’, Arran, African spearmen, elephant hunting in Ceylon, an excursion to the summit of Ben Lomond, a view of Schiehallion, etc.
Album ‘25’: deer-stalking, scenes from the Crimean War (Battle of the Chernaya, ‘Défile des Zoaves dans les tranches de Sevastopol’, Glendevon kirk, ‘Hamrans or Sword Hunters, Abyssinia’ (depicting an elephant hunt, a plan of Alexandria harbour with a vignette of Cleopatra's Needle, views in Snowdonia, a meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Association, 1868, ‘New Zealand Maori stripped for fighting, 1861’, scenes and people in ‘Kaffirland’ (modern Kaffrraria, South Africa), 1835, scenes from a visit to northern France, including local dress and military exercises (3)
Provenance
THE LIBRARY OF GENERAL SIR JAMES EDWARD ALEXANDER (1803-1885)