In rebacked contemporary half calf and showing a few minor stains, a copy of this important early drawing book made £2400 at Bloomsbury Auctions on May 19. Another instruction manual by this popular watercolourist, an 1825 edition of his Young Artist's Companion, was bid to £900 (Besley Books). The oblong quarto production, runs to 24 aquatints - half of them, like the still life seen below right, fully coloured - plus another couple of dozen soft ground etchings. This, too, showed occasional foxing and water staining in a period burgundy morocco gilt binding by Thouvenin.
A third Cox instruction manual, an 1828 copy of A Series of Progressive Lessons intended to elucidate the Art of Landscape Painting in Watercolours (first published in 1816?) was rather less expensive at £170. Another oblong quarto volume, it offers 12 mostly coloured aquatints, four litho and three engraved plates, plus colour specimens.
* In the second issue of Cox's Treatise, a plate showing Convict Hulks was replaced by one of Haymaking and Reaping.
