Select Views of the Lakes in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire, from Drawings made by P Holland, engraved by C Rosenberg, £3200 at Thomson Roddick.
After his death, his collection took up eight days of auction sales in Liverpool and four in London.
Daulby, who retired to Rydal Mount in the Lake District in 1796, was married to the only sister of William Roscoe (the well-known banker, lawyer and MP from Liverpool and one of the first abolitionists).
Another Liverpool notable was artist Peter Holland, who exhibited at the Royal Academy, active c.1781-1812.
On April 4 Carlisle auction house Thomson Roddick (20% buyer’s premium) offered Select Views of the Lakes in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire, from Drawings made by P Holland, engraved by C Rosenberg, in Red Russia binding, Liverpool, 1792.
It had a printed dedication to Daniel Daulby Esq., a Lover of the Arts, and as Daulby’s copy it features his bookplate of an artist reclining in a garden.
Select Views of the Lakes in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire, from Drawings made by P Holland, engraved by C Rosenberg, £3200 at Thomson Roddick, with one of the aquatints and dedication to Daniel Daulby.
The work was the first book of Lake District views using the printing technique known as aquatint.
This copy comprised three sets, each of 21 aquatint plates, the first with title ‘The Only Set of Proofs Extant’ (these being proofs before letters, as in an impression of a print pulled before the title is added below the image); the second set, again with title, being a ‘Pick’d set, one of thirty, before the line with the dates’; and the third set with title being ‘A pick’d set in brown, the plates retouched and finished’. The latter is interspersed with the relevant text leaves.
A manuscript final leaf has notes and index.
The condition was described as “Scuffing to front and rear cover. Spine cracked and dried with traces of gilt lettering remaining. Yellowing to interior pages with foxing towards front section of book, plates appear unaffected.”
With a provenance to the late John Blacklock Lee, Lanercost, it had later been bought by a private collector. Estimated at £500-800, it made £3200.
Original watercolours
In November 2021 Forum Auctions of London offered Sketches of the Lakes, an album containing 62 original watercolour studies by Holland, many thought to be the basis for the Select Views of the Lakes… Sold together with a copy of the latter work, the lot hammered down at £11,000 (guide £1000-1500).
The watercolours were believed to have been included in one of the posthumous Daulby auctions in Liverpool, August 12, 1799. Both of these came to Forum from a private collection in Cumbria.
