Lot 55
Alexander, Sir James Edward (1803-1885)
Group of sketchbooks, 1870s-1880s
Auction: The Library of General Sir James Alexander | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 31 to 62
Description
4 albums, oblong 12mo (approx. 10 x 17cm), leather bindings, respectively 85, 90, 95 and 44 ff., illustrated throughout, mainly in pen and ink (and frequently with coloured pencil), to rectos and often to versos, detailed manuscript captions (often dated), Alexander’s dated ownership inscriptions to front of each volume, the contents including views of Scottish scenery, castles and country seats, battle plans, proposed military uniforms, antiquities, portraits of notable figures and local characters (most apparently from life), comic sketches, retrospective sketches of views and scenes relating to Alexander’s earlier travels including in South Africa and New Zealand, miscellaneous objects of interest, and more, album 1 (1870-1) with loss to spine, album 3 (1875) covers detached, album 4 (1882) spine defective with a few leaves loose. Notable content includes:
1) 1870-1. Lifeboat rescues and related paraphernalia; several sketches from a visit to the site of Waterloo; views around Loch Maree, Ben Ledi, Ben Lomond, Killin; Orkney views and antiquities including Maeshow; deer-stalking; view of New Brunswick; ‘Cape Horn Icebergs’; ‘Mahrattah gymnastics on the Ukhara, - we practised in India when I was in the Light Dragoons some 30 years ago’.
2) 1872. Double-page panorama of the Grampians; view of Mount Cook (New Zealand); African fauna; an African spearman; portrait of George Cruikshank; portraits of Henry M. Stanley and Napoleon III at a meeting of the British Scientific Association (Brighton, 1872); views of Ben Ledi, Meikle Reive, Loch Dochart, and more; castles including Edinample and Fingask; an ascent of Ben Cleugh; badge of the baronets of Nova Scotia; views of Lake Taupo and Maketu Pah in New Zealand; ‘Friendly Maori chief of Wahinni at an attack on a pah’; ‘Wikitoria – the fighting woman’ (apparently a Maori); three-part sketch of the battle of Pukehinahina, New Zealand, 1864.
3) 1875. Herring fishermen at Inveraray; several views from Alexander’s visit to the Holy Land (Bethesda; ‘at Jaffa, starting for Jerusalem, April 1875’; Valley of the Jordan; ‘Druze Woman’; convent at Bethlehem); ‘Hinza the Caffer King’; ‘Cafer warrior in old war dress’; ‘Execution by an Elephant, East Indies’; castles including Doune and the Binns; portraits including Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, ‘The Grand Duke Nicholas, ‘Chinese Gordon’ (i.e. General Gordon); battle plan of the ‘fight on Mt Inkerman’, Crimea; ‘Bulgarian atrocities’, 1876; proposed sites for Cleopatra’s Needle in London.
4) 1882. Portrait of a ‘Mussulman Subedar in Madras; battle plan of Tel El Kebir
Provenance
THE LIBRARY OF GENERAL SIR JAMES EDWARD ALEXANDER (1803-1885)