SCRAPBOOK

See images (not quite full pages). [Notebook; Art in Europe] 1872 Holland | Belgium | [Meuse?] | Paris, from one end of the notebook he travels from place to place i.e.

See images. [Pen & Ink AND Pencil; IRELAND] Ireland 1850 (title on spine), large folder, 41 x 28cm, hf-lea., marbled bds, comprising: a. [Pen & Ink Drawings] Recollections of Ireland (title) in folder, 6pp. fol., light brown cartridge paper, inc. titlepage which has one sketch, 17.5 x 8.5cm. The other five pages all have multiple small sketches, many caricature, ranging from 17.5cm x 8.5 to 2 x 3cm, 8 on [p.2], 13 on [p.3], 8 on [p.4], 10 on [p.5].

Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (1847-1931), nicknamed 'Monty', civil engineer and inventor, was the son of the celebrated American army officer and engineer of the same name (1816-1892), Quartermaster-General of the United States army during and after the American civil war. While easily overshadowed by his illustrious father, Meigs was a fascinating figure in his own right, talented in a wide range of fields: manager of the canals and locks of the Old Des Moines Rapids Canal, designer of steamboats and other river craft, and Mississippi river pilot.

A cultured man (an authority on numismatics), Fewster worked for the family firm of Thomas Fewster of Hull, paint, colour and varnish manufacturers. The present item is an attractive example of his professional interest in the developments in late nineteenth-century design (another is his collection of the designs of Christopher Dresser, in two albums, is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). It is a small 4to (21 x 17 cm) album of green cloth, with embossed design of birds and foliage around the words 'Scrap Album' on front cover, and printed illustrated title by Marcus Ward & Co.

Several hundred images (most illustrations rather than photographs and most in colour), many carefully cut out, all laid down on 68pp. in an album made up from a ruled exercise book roughly 20 x 16 cm, including three fold-outs (the first, beneath a decorative flap that reads 'Birds Unfeathered | Worth A Bit Of Study', carrying eight 1930s illustrations women in underwear). The album has been attractively customised with printed illustrations of motor racing over board covers.

Sixteen scrapbook volumes, 1836-1883, containing, among a mass of press cuttings over more than 2000 pages, numerous contributions by Newman to newspapers, as well as autograph copies of his letters to the editor of the Naval and Military Gazette under the pseudonym ‘Nauticus’. The newspapers featured include the Devonport Independent, Weekly True Sun, Kentish Gazette, Folkestone Express, Devonport Telegraph, Kensington and Chelsea News.