Kelly's Paintings of BURMA, De Luxe Signed Edition
Kelly, R[obert] Talbot. BURMA. Painted & Described by R. Talbot Kelly. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905. xiv, [2], 260. [1] pages. Complete with 75 full-page color plates, including frontispiece, each with a printed tissue guard, plus folding map at rear. Original publisher's pictorial cloth with peacocks and other decorations on the spine and front cover; stamped in gilt, red, and green with dark blue rules. 28 x 22 cm. Horizontal tear across the spine and associated tear to the rear joint with neat, internal repairs, else about very good. The spine is a little sunned and has a few small scrapes and light wear at the ends; mild soiling to cloth and a light stain to the base of the rear cover; small nick to the base of the front board. Free endpapers are browned and the front endpaper shows some silverfishing (no other signs in the volume). The tissue guards all show light to moderate foxing. The plates themselves are generally in nice condition with some mild toning at the margins. The exceptions are one plate with two small, marginal spots; another with marginal foxing; and another with noticeable rippling. The text leaves are generally clean with occasional foxing and soiling.
PROVENANCE: Engraved bookplate of Bruce Maxwell Seton (1836-1915) on the front pastedown. Seton was the 8th Baronet of Abercorn, a government official, and a noted collector. "Sir Bruce-Maxwell Seton of Abercorn . . . was born 31st January, 1836. [He] is a Deputy-Lieutenant for Tower Hamlets [and] has been Private Secretary to the Lord President of the Council, 1867—74, and is a retired official of the War Office. He is a great traveler, and passed through New York on his way around the world in 1874—75. He married . . . Helen, daughter of General Richard Hamilton, C.B., a distinguished officer of the Indian Army. [His home], Durham House, Chelsea, London . . . contains a large and valuable collection of paintings, sketches, works of art and antiquity, objets de vertu, and heirlooms, such as Queen Mary's lace collar [etc., etc.] . . . and a formidable Burmese sword captured by General Hamilton (Sir Bruce's brother-in-law) in a hand-to-hand conflict with a renowned dacoit named Bohshwey, who had long terrorized a whole district in India. Lady Seton is remarkably accomplished, a writer of great ability, and a beautiful woman." --Seton, "An Old Family, or the Setons of Scotland and America," p. 169.
FIRST EDITION, de luxe issue. #201 of 300 large format copies SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. There was also an octavo trade edition of the same year.
Robert Talbot Kelly (1861-1934) was an English painter who spent much of his career in Egypt. His first book, "Egypt Painted and Described . . ." (1902) depicted his adopted country. The present volume, his second book, was the result of his tour in Burma in 1903-1904 and reproduces 73 of his original watercolors (the other two plates in the book are images of Burmese art).
"On his trip through Burma and the paintings he left of the country, Kelly had a significant impact on the early 20th-century development of Burmese painting. In Burma, he is believed to have met and taught the basics of Western painting to a major painter of Burma, M.T. Hla (U Tun Hla), and the paintings of Maung Maung Gyi and Ba Ohn show clear influence of Kelly's style in certain works . . . " -Wikipedia. "He was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolors, and the Royal British Colonial Society. . . . Talbot Kelly was above all an excellent watercolourist, who depended on subtly graduated tints . . . for his atmospheric effects." -Thornton, "The Orientalists," p. 169.
