Lot 146: MADDOX, WILLES.

MADDOX, WILLES. VIEWS OF LANSDOWN TOWER BATH. THE FAVOURITE EDIFICE OF THE LATE WILLIAM BECKFORD. BATH: EDMUND ENGLISH JR AND LONDON: THOMAS MCLEAN, 1844 First edition, folio (618 x 436mm.), chromolithographed title-page with hand-coloured vignette mounted on card, lithographed dedication leaf, list of subscribers, 6 tinted lithographed illustrations in text, 13 hand-coloured lithographed plates heightened with gum arabic, mounted on 12 sheets, original morocco-backed cloth lettered in gilt on upper cover, some plates becoming detached, occasional light spotting to text or margins of plates, binding slightly rubbed and sunned

Abbey, Scenery 420

A very good copy. William Beckford (1760-1844), the son of an immensely rich and highly cultivated sugar-planter, a pupil of Mozart and Sir William Chambers, and author of the celebrated Gothic novel Vathek, was also one of the most important collectors and patrons of his generation. His most famous creation, the extravagant mock-Gothic Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, was built from the late 1790s on the site of his father's mansion Fonthill Splendens, but had to be sold with its contents in 1823 to pay off his accumulated debts. Beckford afterwards moved to 20 Lansdown Crescent in Bath and about a mile away built Lansdown Tower in neo-Renaissance style, collaborating with his architect H.E. Goodridge to design the interiors and furnishings, to house his re-growing art collection.