£1,500
Elephant folio, pp. 6, [46] + engraved hand-coloured title-page, engraved contents-leaf and 21 hand-coloured plates. Coloured initials, text printed in blue, each plate faced with an additional blank leaf. Original quarter red morocco, purple moire cloth boards, front board and spine lettered direct in gilt. Some spotting, one plate creased across top margin. Boards a little scratched and marked, some small strips peeled away from leather.
The large-paper, hand-coloured edition of this sumptuous record of the 1839 Eglinton Tournament, the grand Romantic medieval-style revel and jousting tournament held over three days in August 1839 by Archibald, Earl of Eglinton. 'He originally planned only an amusement for his race meeting in the spring of 1839, but the unexpected public response forced postponement for adequate organization and for rehearsal of unskilled knights. The number of these gradually fell from an initial 150 to thirteen, but on 28 August 100,000 spectators gathered [...] Unfortunately, the prevailing weather pattern of western Scotland held: torrential rain fell, and knights, ladies, and spectators fled the field. Eglinton's fortitude (or obstinacy) redeemed what might have been total fiasco—he hospitably detained his guests until the weather improved, and on 30 August successfully held his tournament, banquet, and ball. The costs were enormous, Eglinton's own expenditure probably approaching £40,000. But, although the tournament was ridiculed by some critics, its enactment of chivalric metaphor is now seen to have inspired Victorian imagination in art and literature, as well as public and private standards of behaviour' (ODNB).
No trace of inclement weather is visible in stained-glass painter James Henry Nixon's illustrations, which depict the participants in idealised high Gothic Revival splendour, and are here skilfully and attractively hand-coloured.
