JOHNSON, Henry Torrens (fl. 1830s) - photo 1
JOHNSON, Henry Torrens (fl. 1830s) - photo 2
JOHNSON, Henry Torrens (fl. 1830s) - photo 3

JOHNSON, Henry Torrens (fl. 1830s)

Starting price
£ 2 000
Auction dateClassic
13.07.2023 10:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 992812
Lot 326 | JOHNSON, Henry Torrens (fl. 1830s)
JOHNSON, Henry Torrens (fl. 1830s)

The Gambler's Progress, Illustrated in Fourteen Designs. London: Dickinson Bros., [n.d. but c. 1835].

Extremely rare first edition of this suite of hand-coloured lithographs with its original wrappers. Johnson’s curious moral tale of the downward progression of the gambler from his mis-spent youth to the Mad House – a slightly macabre picture story of gambling addiction and the downward spiral it induces – is told with verve in these lithographs. This appears to be Johnson’s only work – he is not recorded in Dictionary of British book illustrators 1800-1914. Very rare, this copy only recorded at auction (RBH). No copy in the British Library, and we can only trace one copy in libraries, at the Bodleian. Bobins IV, 1343.



Oblong quarto (335 x 420mm). One leaf of letterpress descriptions, 14 lithographed plates coloured by a contemporary hand, each surmounted with demonic head-pieces (plates spotted, small marginal tears restored, plate 12 with tear extending from lower margin just into image). Original cloth-backed printed buff wrappers (worn and rubbed with small tears to edges and some small loss, repaired at spine). In folding cloth box. Provenance: Duke of Gloucester (bookplate; sold in these rooms, 26-27 January 2006, part lot 690) — Le Vivier Library (sold Christie’s South Kensington 30 October 2012, lot 291).





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13.07.2023
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