A Handful of Silver, Six Stories of Silversmiths by Horace Townsend Inscribed and Signed to Arthur

A Handful of Silver, Six Stories of Silversmiths by Horace Townsend
Inscribed and Signed to Arthur Brentano Sr. (1858?1944), President of the Brentano s, at the time, the largest bookselling firm in the world.
Published by The Gorham Co. New York, 1902.
Parchment paper on boards, 6 tipped-in color plates by Alex M. McLellan, with printed tissue guards decorated gold. Bound in a japon-vellum binding with gilt rules, lettering and design stamped on front coverin original slipcase, printed on handmade watermarked paper by the Orr Press, Bartlett and Company for Gorham. Decorated end papers.
Handsome book produced by Gorham during the height of their popularity. That significant boost came forty-plus years earlier when Mary Todd Lincoln bought their Josephine silverware pattern for the White House.
Townsend was a journalist (New York Herald Tribune), playwright and novelist who had esteem as an specialist in 18th and 17th c. decorative arts. (He also edited Some Letters of R. L. Stevenson.) The stories in the book are set in Alexandria, Mount Ida, Nuremburg, Rome, Mexico and Lake George, the latter involving Lieutenant Paul Revere engraving on shoe buckles for Mlle. Celine Paret. Townsend died unexpectedly in 1922, when he succumbed to gas poisoning due to an open lighting jet in his New York apartment.
Condition Report: Fine copy. Please refer to the photos or request additional info. The absence or brevity of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging. Condition reports are obtained via email or by phone. Any condition statement given as a courtesy to a client is only an opinion and not to be treated as a statement of fact. Zikorn AH shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.